Lessons About Change: What Moving Taught Me About Leadership, Part 2
PART 2: Capacity, Expectations and Finding Our Footing
In Part One of Lessons About Change: What Moving Taught Me About Leadership, I reflected on what we carry forward, what we might need to leave behind and the uncomfortable space between what was familiar and what hasn't quite become familiar yet.
Well, the boxes are still here. There are much fewer - but now it’s a narrative of “I can’t unpack that before I build this which means I need to move that in order to make room for this first”. I’m pretty strong with strategy but even this can feel challenging sometimes. Because it’s unfamiliar and because I want to get back to my normal, Now.
As the unpacking continues, I've been reminded that change involves more than planning, organizing and getting to the other side.
There are priorities to establish, unexpected discoveries to make, limits to recognize and new routines to develop – and patience, still practicing patience.
Here are a few more lessons that moving has reminded me about leadership and the human experience of change.
7. Unpack in the Right Order
Technically, every box needs to be unpacked. But they don't all need to be unpacked today even though I want to get to the end now.
Somewhere there is probably artwork I won't see for weeks, and that's fine.
Coffee? Towels? Kitchen utensils? The things required to function tomorrow morning? Those boxes matter now. Adapting is not always a choice - I have learned that until we get a microwave, I will have to drink cold coffee, if I don’t drink it fast enough.
Change creates an enormous temptation to treat everything as urgent. Not everything is urgent. That’s my nervous system misinterpreting discomfort.
Leadership requires identifying the relatively small number of things that create the conditions for everything else to work.
What do people need first? What information removes the most uncertainty? Which decisions are blocking other decisions? What can safely wait? What will calm nervous systems and that make a positive impact early and keep functioning moving forward?
Prioritization isn't simply deciding what matters. Almost everything matters to someone. Leadership is deciding what matters now.
8. You Notice Things Once the Furniture Is Gone
An empty room tells the truth.
Move the furniture and suddenly you see the scuffed wall, the outlet you forgot existed, the strange proportion of the room, the damage hidden behind a cabinet - and sometimes possibilities you couldn't see when the space was full.
Change can do the same thing to an organization.
Transitions disrupt familiar patterns enough that previously invisible dynamics become visible.
You notice who people actually go to for information. You discover where communication breaks down. You see which processes depend entirely on one person's institutional knowledge. You learn where trust exists - and where it doesn't.
The instinct may be to cover up those things quickly. But transitions provide valuable organizational information - aka data that informs us. Every shift, change and experience brings information that informs us. Let’s pay attention to that information.
Before moving the furniture back against the new wall, take a look at what the empty room revealed.
9. Sometimes You Have to Make Room Before Something New Can Enter
One of the persistent challenges of moving is space. There is only so much of it.
Organizations have capacity limits too, although we often behave as though they don't.
We introduce new initiatives without retiring old ones. We give high performers additional responsibilities because they're capable, we add meetings to solve communication problems and we ask leaders to develop new skills while maintaining every existing expectation.
Eventually, something gives: attention, energy, attitude, quality – or people.
Growth is not always additive. Sometimes growth begins by deliberately creating capacity.
Before asking “What should we add?” leaders might ask: What needs to leave so there is room for what comes next?
10. We Are Not Invincible
This one has been a lot harder to ignore.
I am an extremely organized person. I make schedules and timelines in my sleep, I create contingency plans and communicate often with collaborators. I anticipate what needs to happen next and try to solve problems before they become problems. I try to make it easier on the people around me that are affected.
If an organization could protect someone from the cumulative effects of change, I should be in pretty good shape, right?
During the depth of the change itself and move day, I had lost a tremendous amount of sleep. I didn't feel particularly energized some mornings, I wasn’t as cognitively sharp and chipper as I normally am at 6:00 am and problems I would ordinarily solve quickly sometimes require more effort. Frankly, I was wiped out. And there were still things that needed to get done. Work continued at full speed and capacity.
Thankfully in the past few weeks, the rapid fire cadence has slowed and critical priorities have been managed. It all got done. It has reminded me that good planning can reduce chaos, but it cannot eliminate the human cost of sustained demand.
We sometimes assume that if change is managed well enough – if the timeline is clear, responsibilities are assigned, communication is good and people know what comes next, that the experience itself shouldn't be particularly disruptive.
But human beings aren't project plans.
Even well-managed change consumes cognitive, physical and emotional resources. We are constantly processing new information, making decisions, adapting routines, solving unexpected problems and operating without the efficiency and familiar routines normally gives us – and all at individual rates. Those costs accumulate. It’s not dysfunctional, it’s the nature of being human.
Human beings have an extraordinary capacity to keep going (especially with adrenaline a strong coffee). We adapt, we compensate, we push through. Highly capable people may be particularly good at it. That's both a strength and a vulnerability.
Our ability to continue functioning at that level long term, can fool us into believing there isn't a cost. There is always a cost.
This whole process is not about “balance”. It isn't a reminder to take more breaks and it isn't a declaration that every period of intense demand can or should be avoided. Sometimes leadership and life genuinely require us to carry a lot for a while. We can do hard things – just like we have before.
The lesson is more fundamental: we are not invincible. Capacity is not character and exhaustion isn't evidence of poor planning or insufficient commitment.
The fact that someone can continue carrying a heavy load tells us very little about the cost of carrying it.
The cost of carrying too much for too long, matters when we lead other people. During sustained organizational change, some of our most capable people may be the least likely to look overwhelmed. They organize, they compensate, they solve problems, they pick up what others drop and they smile while doing it. They make it look easy. They continue delivering and it is easy to assume they're doing well.
Competence can conceal depletion. And, sometimes the person who keeps saying, “I've got it,” really does have it.
That doesn't mean it isn't getting heavy. And it does not label anyone less capable than they usually are.
11. A New Address Doesn't Make It Home
There is a specific date on which a move officially happens – new keys in hand, addresses change, furniture arrives.
Technically, you've moved and there’s a brief moment of we got there – and yet that doesn't mean it feels like home yet. That part takes a little longer. You start learning the sounds of the house. You establish new routines, you figure out where things belong, the unfamiliar gradually becomes familiar and the nervous system starts to calm.
Organizational change has its own version of moving day.
The reorganization takes effect, a new leader may start, a new system launches, a policy becomes official and the list on the implementation plan starts getting checked off.
Leadership may understandably want to declare the change complete and yet implementation and sustained execution have their own dates. Integration takes time. More patience is needed.
People need repeated experiences before new expectations and trust becomes normal. New routines have to become automatic and a slightly changed organization has to become grounded again with that sense of comfort and ownership.
The process of change can't always be accelerated simply because the implementation plan says we're finished.
12. Change Looks Different In A New Place Surrounded By Boxes
Perhaps that's the lesson moving has reinforced for me most.
From the outside, a move is an event, something to organize, plan, visualize and be excited about its outcome. From the inside of a new destination, it is a transition that requires many layers of pause and patience – from boxes and address to nervous system and process.
The same transitional awareness is critical in organizations.
Leaders often experience change from the perspective of planning, strategy and intended outcomes. Employees experience it through altered routines, uncertainty, changing relationships, new expectations and dozens of small disruptions that may never appear on an implementation plan and come with layers of emotions.
Strong leadership requires holding both perspectives.
Yes, we need to know where we're going. And we also need to understand what it's like for people who are still looking for the box with the coffee maker – or those who are still delivering a service while the accumulated weight of the transition is beginning to show.
So, as I sit here surrounded by boxes with only mental images of future execution and a nervous system that wants to scream “Are we there yet!?”, I'm reminded that leading change isn't simply about getting people from one place to another, with grace and a recognition that change and any accompanying distress or discomfort, is temporary. We will be back online soon. And yes, again we have done something challenging and survived.
Curiously, in hindsight, it doesn’t seem that it was too stressful.
Consider This:
Leadership and change is about deciding what deserves to come with us. Knowing what we're willing to leave behind, creating clarity in the messy middle, paying attention to what becomes visible along the way and making room for what comes next and the people managing it. It’s critical to acknowledge that business still beats human! We can be effective, essential and function as the high performers we are and still reserve enough mental capacity for a new reality to become familiar. We will then start to reengage at full capacity and cadence – and now get excited about possibility and opportunity.
For organizations – and apparently for those of us still surrounded by cardboard boxes – change doesn't end when we arrive. Sometimes that's when the real work begins.
Leading forward,
Michelle
Bridging The Gap – where insight leads to impact.
A monthly reminder that thinking requires space.
The Noise of Expectations
Not all noise comes from the world around us. Sometimes it's the conversation happening inside our own heads.
“I should be further along by now. I should have figured this out. I should be back to normal. I should be doing more.”
The word “should” often disguises self-criticism as an expectation.
We rarely stop to question those expectations. We simply carry them, allowing them to influence how we measure our progress, our mindset, our productivity and even our worth.
Whose expectations are they anyway? Are they still relevant to the circumstances we're navigating today?
When life changes, our expectations don't always change with it. We continue measuring ourselves against familiar standards, even when the environment, demands and resources available to us are different. Before we realize it, we’re right back to telling ourselves what we should be doing.
This month, consider these questions:
What expectations am I holding onto that no longer reflect my current reality? What expectations need a realistic update?
Notice what comes to mind when you ask yourself those questions.
Now, ask yourself:
Is this expectation helping me move forward or simply adding to the noise?
Clarity sometimes begins when we question the standards we've been using to measure ourselves.
Be curious.
Because The Heart Of Every Great Organization Still Beats Human.®
-Michelle Ogle, Bridge Executive Coaching
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Michelle C. Ogle, M.A., Executive Coach, Organizational Consultant
Human behavior drives every organization.
For more than 30 years, Michelle has studied what captures attention, creates engagement, builds trust, influences decisions and drives behavior. As an executive coach, organizational consultant, and Possibility Strategist, she helps leaders apply those insights to strengthen relationships, align teams, and lead with greater impact.
Because The Heart Of Every Great Organization Still Beats Human.®
-Michelle Ogle, Bridge Executive Coaching