Change experts will tell you to “get clear on your vision” and “communicate the plan.” But what happens when you can’t predict what next month will bring, let alone next quarter?
This isn’t a leadership failure. For most of us, it’s the new reality. And it requires a completely different approach to how we navigate uncertainty together.
Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short
We’re living through what researchers call a supercycle of change—where climate, economic, political, social, and technological shifts collide and amplify each other. It creates constant “Oh FUD” moments—waves of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt that leave many of us quietly cracking. We look OK on the outside, but inside we’re falling apart.
Traditional change management assumed we could control and predict outcomes with detailed plans. But in complex systems with too many variables colliding, none of us can really know how things will play out. This may explain why our recent studies indicate that more than half of recent workplace changes have been unsuccessful, and poor change management has become a leading cause of burnout.
What Our Brains Actually Need
Here’s what we’re learning: To navigate this level of complexity, our brains need to feel “safe enough”—not certain, not in control, but safe enough to stay curious and open.
When we don’t feel safe enough, our nervous system‘s protection circuit kicks in. Thinking slows down. Creativity shuts down. Trust dries up. The very people we need most engaged during uncertainty begin quietly cracking under the pressure.
But when we do feel safe enough, our nervous system’s connection circuits come online, triggering curiosity, creativity, courage, and collaboration. Minds open up. Innovation lights up. Collaboration fires up.
So the question becomes: As leaders, how do we help our people to feel “safe enough” when we can’t eliminate uncertainty?
3 Important Shifts for Leaders
Based on our work with thousands of organizations, here are three fundamental shifts that create the conditions where people can navigate uncertainty together:
1. Stop pretending to have all the answers.
When we embrace “I don’t know,” we can ask better questions and truly listen to each other. This kind of genuine conversation—not just another status update—sustains connection amidst chaos.
This feels counterintuitive at first. Aren’t leaders supposed to have vision and direction? Yes, but there’s a difference between having a direction and pretending to know exactly how things will unfold.
When you stop pretending to have all the answers, you create space for the real conversations that help teams navigate uncertainty together. You move from telling people what will happen to asking: “What are we noticing? What are we learning? What might we try next?”
2. Discover what people care enough to own.
When we find out what people genuinely care about and invite them to self-organize around it, resistance becomes accountable momentum.
Studies suggest that while we can extrinsically manipulate motivation through rewards and punishments, this approach has a shelf life of about three months and won’t sustain change without continued reinforcement.
As leaders, isn’t it better to know what people care enough to own through their own choice? At least then we can have honest conversations about where we’re aligned and what small steps we can take forward together, rather than wasting time, energy, and money on something we don’t have genuine commitment for.
When people are invited to self-organize rather than being micromanaged or controlled, it’s actually amazing how fast things generally start to move.
3. Build capability, not certainty.
Strengthening our ability to sense what’s happening, adapt as the world around us and within us keeps shifting, and continue learning together—this is the real goal.
This isn’t about “making change stick.” Change isn’t meant to stick. It may stabilize and plateau for a period, but it’s meant to keep shifting as the world changes. If we’re focused on change sticking as our measure of success, we risk making ourselves more rigid and fragile rather than adaptable and resilient.
Given that researchers estimate the supercycle of complex change will take a decade or more to play out, we need greater levels of capability and confidence to sense, learn, and adapt together amid unprecedented uncertainty.
A Framework That Brings These Shifts to Life
All of this requires a different neurological approach to change. It takes what we call “HEART”—a framework that supports the human experience of change by:
- Honoring feelings: Recognize emotions as valuable data rather than problems to fix, helping people stay engaged instead of shutting down.
- Engaging purposefully: Turn announcements into conversations where people discover what they care enough to own.
- Appreciating strengths: Build confidence by helping people leverage what they’re good at to sustain momentum through uncertainty.
- Reaching out: Create psychological safety where asking for and offering help becomes routine, preventing isolation.
- Taking tiny steps: Break overwhelming change into manageable actions that build learning and adaptability.
These evidence-based factors work most powerfully when addressed across individual, team, and organizational levels. Our research with more than 1,000 workplaces found that organizations systematically addressing these factors experience significantly better outcomes and reduce poor change management experiences by up to 24 percent.
A Tool to Guide Change Choices
Here’s where theory meets practice. When you’re facing a change decision and uncertainty feels overwhelming, there’s a simple tool we created to help you: the Heart Check.
Our brains prefer quick decisions that feel safe right now, often missing the long-term consequences of our choices. This practice helps you move beyond that faulty safety calculation.
- Think about a change decision you’re facing. Place one hand on your heart, close your eyes, and take a slow breath.
- Imagine yourself taking one step forward with this change. Now play the tape forward: How might this feel in 5 minutes? 5 weeks? 5 months? 5 years?
- Stay with that future view. What does it tell you about what you truly care enough to own? What strengths could help? Where might you need support? What tiny steps matter most?
- Now play it backward—5 years, 5 months, 5 weeks, 5 minutes. What’s the next step you want to take?
This practice helps you move beyond your brain’s faulty safety calculations and sense your way into what actually matters.
Where Will You Start?
The leaders who will help their teams thrive through this supercycle aren’t the ones with perfect plans. They’re the ones willing to say “I don’t know,” discover what people actually care about, and build the capability to learn together through whatever comes next.
What’s one conversation about change you’ve been avoiding?