Even in organisations where change programmes are running well, we’re facing a real challenge.
This short piece comes as part of a collaboration with friend and associate, the behavioural Change expert, Deborah Hulme of Minerva Inspires.
At the time of writing, it’s 14 months after the Covid pandemic’s first lockdown in the UK. Most of our collective clients have made significant shifts in the way they work. Along with the rest of the world’s office-based organisations, nearly all reacted with immediate changes, just to keep up day-to-day functionality. Many, too, have made or begun broader changes in strategy and structure. But there's a tension at play: just as the need for change has grown, our collective capacity to handle it has shrunk.
Neuroscience helps us understand why. The stress and fatigue of pandemic living have left many people depleted. Even those lucky enough to stay physically well still had to deal with anxiety and distraction. And yet most change methods in use today don’t acknowledge this reality, let alone offer ways to address it.
So what do we need instead?
We need change approaches that blend business expertise with the human insight needed to make change possible. That includes a deeper focus on wellbeing, team connection and psychological safety. Here’s what we’d recommend:
- Understand your capacity for change, both organisational and within the team, grounded in real human needs
People are far more able to adapt when they feel safe, supported and connected. To relax and experiment with a new way of doing things, we need to feel we belong. This is well established in research but is yet to be commonly reflected in day-to-day change work.
To map people’s readiness and capacity for change, consider the measurements and data that will fuel understanding: for example, what does perceived safety look like? What clear lines of sight are available to monitor a sense of belonging? h
- Support your leaders to keep learning
These days, leading through change takes more than authority. To build lasting capacity, leaders need to create safe spaces where people can collaborate and trust each other without hesitation. That means continuously strengthening their own capabilities. Make time and space for this learning, it’s how you get the best from diverse, fast-moving teams. Encourage reflection, coaching, and peer learning as part of everyday leadership.
3. Invest in team wellbeing and belonging
Change won’t last long if people don’t feel connected to it. Strengthen your teams’ sense of belonging and collective resilience by putting wellbeing, inclusion and open communication at the heart of your change programme. Share updates, encourage reflection, and support people to learn together as change unfolds. These human connections are what keep up change capacity and boost performance over the long term.
4. Make your change approach work with human nature
We’re wired to seek safety, connection and purpose, and these instincts are even sharper during times of change. Align your change approach with the way people naturally adapt and learn. Create trusting environments where collaboration feels safe, and people have what they need to innovate and improve. Rather than making change work despite our humanity, we’re better off leaning into our own safety-seeking nature to create something that lasts.
This way of working shouldn’t be radical, but there are change leaders still reaching for traditional techniques that seem to overlook the people involved. We believe that humans are the real engines of change, and we make it our business to support them.
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Deborah Hulme is founder of the Neuroleader Academy™ and Minerva Engagement, consultants and practitioners of applied neuroscience for high performance and wellbeing. Her passion for leadership and organisational wellbeing has been fuelled by a career in which she’s been instrumental in delivering sustainable change and engagement strategies across multi-national organisations. Deborah works hand in hand with organisations to deliver high performance and to create environments in which trust and wellbeing flourish.
For more about Minerva Engagement, please visit www.minervaengagement.com
