A lot of hard problems can be solved through meta heuristics inspired by annealing method. The idea is to make a change in a system and then "cool" down the system at a slow rate so that a new stable state is reached, generally with a less total entropy/internal energy. For some class of problems this works well - combinatorial problems benefit a lot of this. But what about organisations and groups?
In case of an organisation annealing could be seen as moving people between projects or responsibilities. After the things cool down, hopefully things in the organisation are smoother as some of the power circuits are broken and the total energy is less. It might be a good idea of disbanding cliques and clientelism, making the whole organisation more manageable. Some parts of an organisation are more brittle than other as their internal power structures tend to have different patterns.
On the other hand, unlike the natural annealing, this might lead to extreme tensions and rifts. People are not always easy to move, the new position might not be suitable for them, either due to Peter's principle or because they interfere with somebody's else path. Moreover people are often rational agents that try to maximize a fitness function for them. Hence the question that appears first is: "What's in it for me?".
If the answer is "Nothing" or worse, then something happens. This is the equivalent of a crack, of a structural defect, that might lead to a rift in the metal especially in the brittle regions. This is especially dangerous in case of a leader relocation as the adjacent members in an organisation will be in a vulnerable state until a new leader emerges. If one in a leadership position decides to leave due to an internal annealing, chances are that other people from his adjacency will also leave. And in some case this is bad, extremely bad as it would take time to fill back the gap.
The worst possible situation is to repeat the process at short time intervals without letting time to the organisation to cool off and rebuild the internal informal structures - mostly a tempering than an annealing. The brittleness and resistance to change will increase dramatically and no change agents will be able to repair the troubled and tensioned structure. Organisational changes, role reassignments should be timely prepared and announced so no tempering can appear. People should be informed about the changes and at least some incentive should be in so that they would accept the change.
