Building Resilience For Change Readiness

Change Capacity: How to Build It Before You Need It Following my post on change fatigue, I got a few messages asking about proactive solutions. The answer? Deliberately building change capacity before you need it. At one time I was working on successfully implementing a major tech transformation while adapting to regulatory changes and updating the staffing model. Our secret wasn't better project management—it was intentionally building change capacity across three dimensions: 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: We invested in resilience training for all employees, teaching practical techniques for managing uncertainty. Research from MIT shows this approach reduces resistance by up to 32%. 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: We established "change champions"—not just to communicate but to protect team bandwidth and raise the red flag when implementation timing and sequence needed to be negotiated. 𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: Most crucially, we implemented a "change absorption index"—a simple measure of how much change each user group was processing at any time. When a unit approached 80% of their maximum capacity, new initiatives were automatically sequenced. 📊 Quick Change Capacity Audit: - Do people know where to direct their concerns about change overload? - Can managers successfully negotiate implementation timing? - Does your organization measure and track change absorption? - Are change initiatives deliberately sequenced or randomly deployed? The potential ROI is there: imagine faster implementation times and higher adoption rates when change isn't saturated. In today's environment, change capacity isn't just a nice-to-have—it's the difference between organizations that thrive through disruption and those that merely survive. How is your organization deliberately building change capacity? Have you established formal mechanisms or is it still managed ad hoc? #ChangeManagement #OrganizationalResilience #TransformationLeadership #ChangeCapacity

We think of resilience as bouncing back, but what’s the value in returning to a previous state when the context keeps changing? Last year, Bain & Company raised the transformation failure rate to 88% and that's up from the already dismal 70% we've accepted for years. Bain said burnout from our "oversubscribed star players" was a key contributing factor. Robert Kegan's research on cognitive overload reveals why: we're asking people to navigate complexity that consistently exceeds their current capacity. As Nick Petrie puts it, we've entered an era of "perpetual whitewater.” The traditional change management playbook assumes periods of stability between disruptions. But if there’s no stillwater ahead, we need to rethink our approach to paddling on. In my latest for Forbes, I explore why we need to shift from change management to change fitness: ♾️ Continuous Sensemaking: Build complexity capacity through daily micro-practices 🔋 Strategic Energy Management: Make explicit trade-offs before taking on new initiatives   🧭 Learning from Navigation: Celebrate how you handle uncertainty, not just outcomes Harvard’s Ronald Heifetz taught us the difference between technical and adaptive challenges. Most organizational changes today are adaptive; they require examining and abandoning deeply held assumptions. When we apply technical solutions to adaptive challenges, we create "change theater." The exhaustion isn't from change itself; it's from the futile effort to resist it. Your next change is already on the horizon. Will you manage it, or get fit for it? 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gXDEkCMV

“They’re being difficult. They just don’t want to change.” Sound familiar? Let’s talk about what might really be going on: change fatigue, not resistance. And if that's the case, your org might be out of shape. Change fatigue isn’t resistance. It’s a warning sign. And it’s time we treated it like one. I recently hosted a session for our internal Change Management Community of Practice. When I introduced the idea of Change Fitness, most hadn’t heard the term, but instantly recognized its cousin: change fatigue. Change Fitness = an organization’s ability to sustain and absorb transformation over time. It’s not about the volume of change—it’s about the impact. Fatigue shows up as disengagement, silence, missed milestones, and cynicism. According to Prosci, change saturation happens when the disruption exceeds your organization’s capacity to absorb it. Imagine a bucket: The size = your change capacity The water = disruption When it spills = it burnout So what’s filling your org’s bucket? • Too many projects, not enough alignment • Communications that confuse instead of clarify • Leaders pushing isolated changes without visibility (or care) into other efforts • No structured CM plan—causing more chaos than calm Here’s what I often see: Leaders label fatigue as “resistance” and double down on “driving adoption” (usually more emails 🙃). But what’s really needed? Relief. Clarity. Focus. That’s where Change Fitness comes in. Just like physical fitness helps us meet physical demands, Change Fitness allows organizations and individuals to meet the demands of ongoing transformation. Instead of asking: “How do we drive adoption?” Try asking: 🔺 “Did we demonstrate the benefits of the last change?” 🔺“Have we responded to what’s draining our teams?” 🔺“Are we reducing friction—or adding more effort?” If you’ve built that trust, reinforced those muscles, and practiced good CM habits, your org will be more fit than most. Ways to build Change Fitness: • Use Prosci’s Change Saturation Assessment • Audit comms to simplify (less jargon, more showing) • Map your change portfolio to catch collision points • Equip managers as coaches, —not just messengers Because fatigue has a voice, it just speaks quietly...until it runs out of steam. Have you seen fatigue misread as pushback?

The saying "Resilience is when you address uncertainty with flexibility" really explains how to handle the always-changing world of business. Things are rarely stable; change is normal. Customer needs shift, new competitors pop up, supplies get disrupted, and big world events mess up plans. Trying to build a wall against all this change usually doesn't work. Being resilient isn't about having the strongest defenses, but about being able to change course easily when things shift around you. Dealing with uncertainty by being flexible means you're actively doing something, not just waiting to see what happens. It means seeing a sudden drop in sales not just as a problem, but as a sign you might need to try something new (a pivot). It means seeing a competitor do well not just as bad news, but as proof that a different idea works, which you could learn from. This needs a change in thinking: instead of trying to control everything, be ready to react quickly. It's like musicians playing jazz together – they have a basic plan, but the best parts happen when they listen and respond to each other unexpectedly. Often, business owners find their best ideas not by sticking rigidly to the plan, but by making the best of surprises. Building this kind of flexible strength is something practical you do. In your business operations, it could mean setting things up so you can easily grow or shrink, having different ways to make money, or training your team to do different jobs so they can adapt. Mentally, it means getting comfortable with not knowing everything, learning to decide things even without all the facts, and seeing problems as chances to learn, not just as failures. It's like putting cushions in your business plan and work environment. When being flexible is part of how you operate, your business doesn't just get pushed around by problems; it takes the hit and sometimes even uses that push to move in a better direction. In the end, this type of resilience isn't like hard steel that breaks; it's more like strong spring steel that can bend and bounce back, maybe even into a slightly better shape because of what it learned. It means accepting that your business journey won't be a straight line. It's more like following a compass (your main goals and values) and making adjustments along the way, rather than following exact directions to one specific spot. Being able to make these changes, to adjust your approach when things change around you, is what it means to handle uncertainty with flexibility.

Resilience in teams is more important than ever. Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about resilience—whether from my students in the classroom or clients in the field. Everyone’s asking the same thing: How do we keep our teams strong and adaptable when everything is changing so quickly? It reminds me of 2008, when I had to close one of my four restaurants during the economic downturn. It was a tough call, but keeping the other businesses running smoothly and focused was key to weathering the storm. That experience taught me the four pillars of team resilience, and they’ve been my go-to guide ever since. Here's how they can help you lead through turbulent times.👇 1️⃣ Adaptability Teams that iterate fast outperform rigid ones by up to 30% in volatile markets (McKinsey). • Run small experiments and treat “failures” as data. • Re-align goals whenever new info hits the table. 2️⃣ Supportive Relationships Psychological safety is rocket fuel for innovation. • Host regular “ask-me-anything” huddles so people know you’ve got their back. • Practice active listening—no multitasking. 3️⃣ Shared Purpose A common mission turns rough seas into rally cries. • Show each person how their role moves the needle. • Co-create goals; ownership beats compliance. 4️⃣ Continuous Learning Growth-mindset teams absorb shocks and come out stronger. • Budget time and money for upskilling. • Make feedback loops routine—peer shadowing, micro-lessons, post-mortems. Your turn: ➡️ Which pillar is your team already nailing, and which needs a boost? Drop one action you’ll take this week to fortify the weaker pillar. Want the full playbook (with real-world cases and examples)? Grab my Coursera course with Starweaver “Building Resilient Teams” here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gisNVxRK Let’s build teams that don’t just survive storms—they harness them. #LIPostingDayApril #Leadership #TeamResilience #ContinuousLearning