This is the first in a series of four posts about thriving in change. These posts draw on what I've learned over thirty years of working as a leader and coach with people and teams going through transitions. And from navigating a great deal of change in my own life
As a species, we humans are extremely adaptive. We have managed to thrive in all kinds of circumstances. Yet for something so constant and natural, change remains one of the hardest things we go through as human beings.
I always have mixed feelings when I talk about resilience or agency with people who have change imposed on them or who have been put in very stressful situations. It feels somehow unreasonable and unfair, as if responsibility for systemic issues is being pushed onto individual people and teams. At the same time, while it feels unfair, I also feel it is necessary.
I have come to think that the ability to navigate change — resilience, and the ability to restore and maintain one's own capacity to function — are essential work and life skills, as unfair as that may sound.
The pace and scale of change in working life keep increasing. That is why resilience and adaptability are not only key individual skills but also collective strengths. Learning to lead change better and improve burdensome working life practices matters and is worth striving for. Building our own resilience is something we can begin with ourselves, without waiting for the world around us to change first
The first step toward thriving in change is simply understanding why it can be so difficult and what happens to us when we face it. Not to fix anything, but to make sense of what is happening.
The change we choose vs. the change we don't
There's a meaningful difference between the change we initiate and the change that is imposed on us. When we choose to make a change — a new job, a new direction, a new way of working — there's typically energy and motivation to carry us through, even when the process involves uncertainty, doubt, or moments of missing what we left behind. The emotional journey is real, but there's a sense of agency at the centre. We feel that we are in the driver's seat.
Change that comes from the outside tends to land differently. A reorganisation, a shift in strategy, a role redefined by someone else's decision can feel threatening, even when the change might ultimately turn out well.
People react to uninvited change in many different ways — some feel anxious, some feel angry, some go quiet, some jump straight into action. Our temperaments, life situations, and past experiences all shape how we respond. But underneath those differences, something more universal tends to happen: uninvited change activates a threat response deep in how our brains work.
Uninvited change is hard because it touches our fundamental needs
Why can uninvited change hit so hard? I've come to think it's because change touches our fundamental needs and often several at once.
We all have needs that matter deeply to us at work: security, a sense of being treated fairly, meaningfulness in what we do, a feeling of belonging, the ability to grow and develop, and having some autonomy over how we work and live. These needs are universal, but they are also deeply personal. What matters most varies from person to person, and it can shift over time and circumstances.
When change disrupts the needs that are most important to us, we feel it. If security is what matters most to someone right now, uncertainty about the future can feel overwhelming. If someone's deepest need is for meaningfulness, a change in strategy can be painful in a way that's hard to put into words. If autonomy is central, having decisions made on our behalf can feel diminishing.
This is why the same change can land so differently for different people. The change addresses different needs in each person, which affects our emotional reactions.
Life situations also play a part. Some people may be facing difficulties in their home life, illness in the family, or something else that takes up all their resources and emotional capacity. For them, even a small change at work can feel devastating.
We all have our unique temperaments and different earlier experiences, which also shape how we respond emotionally. There is no standard way to go through change.
Feelings are information, not something to move past
The emotions that come with change — fear, frustration, sadness, confusion, anger, disappointment — are all signals. And so are enthusiasm, curiosity, and other more comfortable feelings. They tell us something about how our needs are being affected.
When we feel anxious, it may be a signal that our need for security is under threat. When we feel angry, it may be telling us that something we value, like fairness, autonomy, or respect, is not being met. When we feel sad, it may be because we are losing something that gave us meaning or a sense of belonging.
Seen this way, feelings are information.
They help us understand what is happening to us at a deeper level than the surface events. The difficulty is that in many workplaces, there isn't much room for this kind of understanding. Emotions are often seen as something to manage or move past, rather than something to listen to.
Waking up in midwinter like Moomintroll
There's a Moomin story that has stayed with me for years, Moominland Midwinter. In it, Moomintroll wakes up in the middle of winter, a season he's never experienced before. Everything he knows is covered in snow. The landscape is unrecognisable. His family is hibernating, and he's alone.
I think this captures beautifully something about what change can feel like: waking up in a world that looks different from the one we knew. The familiar landmarks are gone. The rules of this new season are unclear.
But Moomintroll doesn't go back to sleep. He begins to explore. He meets creatures he's never encountered. He stumbles, he's frightened, he's confused, and slowly, he begins to find his way. Not by pretending winter is summer, but by learning what winter is.
I find this story comforting because it doesn't pretend change is easy or skip to the happy ending.
It simply says: This is disorienting, but you can find your way through.
The starting point is understanding, not willpower
None of this is about being strong or toughing it out. If anything, I've found the opposite to be true: the most useful starting point in change is not willpower but understanding.
Understanding that our brains are doing what they were designed to do. The discomfort, resistance, or swirl of emotions that can come with change are all natural human responses. That different people will experience the same change in very different ways, and all of those responses are valid.
In my experience, this kind of understanding doesn't remove the difficulty. But it can change our relationship to it. It can loosen the grip a little and open up space for curiosity to exist alongside the discomfort. And that is the key to discovering our ability not only to survive but also to thrive in change.
In the next post, I'll look at what happens when the pressure of change starts to affect how we behave and how that behaviour, in turn, affects the people around us.
