By Mike Pearson
There’s a number that keeps coming up in conversations with leaders at the moment. Not revenue. Not headcount. Ten.
Ten major changes a year. Ten pivots. Ten new priorities, all jostling for attention at once. That’s the pace many organisations tell us they’re operating at – up from two or three a decade ago.
Pause on that for a moment… That’s not “business transformation” in neat phases. That’s almost one significant shift every month. And that’s before you add in the less visible changes – the system upgrades, policy tweaks, role redesigns, process changes – the stuff that rarely makes the strategy deck but lands heavily in our working lives.
On paper, it can look energising, maybe even progressive. But in reality, it often feels relentless and draining. People aren’t just adapting to change; they’re absorbing it, carrying it, trying to keep everything moving while staying credible upwards, supportive sideways, and composed downwards.
And that’s the gap we don’t talk about enough.
Change is everywhere. Readiness… often isn’t.
What does that look like in practice?
It looks like roles shifting faster than job titles and specs are confirmed, strategy messages are refreshing before the last one has stuck, and leaders are trying to translate “what good looks like now” when they’re not entirely sure themselves.
And it looks especially hard in the middle.
Managers are consistently telling us they’re feeling squeezed from both sides. Pressure from above to deliver pace, certainty, and results. And pressure from below to create clarity, safety, and support in an environment that feels anything but settled. They’re expected to be steady while the ground keeps moving, to somehow take on that uncertainty so others don’t have to.
That’s not resistance. That’s load.
Across the organisations we work with globally, we hear the same thing expressed in different ways: “We’re constantly changing – but no one has stopped to ask whether we’re actually ready for this much of it.” The assumption seems to be that because change is now seen as ‘the norm’, people will simply adapt. Automatically. Endlessly.
But psychology doesn’t work like that.
This is where change readiness stops being a “nice to have” and starts becoming a leadership and performance issue. Because when change stacks faster than people can process it, something has to give – energy, trust, focus, confidence, or all four at once.
And when they start to crumble, no amount of urgency messaging fixes it.
Why all this change is more than a headache
Most leaders will tell you they understand why change is necessary. They’ll talk about agility. Competitiveness. Transformation. And they’re not wrong. But what we’re hearing is something more nuanced. And more worrying.
People aren’t just busy with change. They’re becoming overwhelmed by it.
In one recent survey, 79% of employees reported low trust in organisational change – not because they’re inherently resistant, but because the sheer volume and pace of change feels relentless. It keeps coming.
And it’s not just “too much.” It’s how that change is being handled – as if people will automatically be ready, without investing in the psychological flexibility and human agility that readiness depends on.
In another global study, 57% of employees said their organisation is poor at managing change. Put those two things together – high frequency and low capability – and you don’t have a resilience issue. You have a readiness problem.
That’s the moment where change readiness stops sounding like corporate jargon and starts looking like a very real organisational risk.
What change readiness actually means
OK, so let’s clear something up.
Change readiness isn’t about colourful timelines, motivational town halls, or another slide deck explaining why this matters. At its core, readiness is a shared psychological state – a blend of belief, confidence, and intent.
- People feel able to implement the change
- They believe it’s worth the effort
- And they’re willing to commit energy to making it work
When readiness is low, change can stall. Resistance rises. Burnout creeps in. Absence and sickness climb as people struggle to keep up with competing priorities and constant pivots. Innovation drops. Managers notice it in the small, telling ways: meetings running late, team members checking out, email threads going unanswered. Initiatives that looked compelling on paper quietly collapse under the weight of day-to-day work.
The good news? Readiness isn’t a personality trait. And it isn’t luck.
It’s measurable. And it’s influenceable, IF you focus on the right human capabilities.
Psychological flexibility & human agility: The hidden engines
One of the most powerful and underused of those capabilities is psychological flexibility.
This is about how people relate to pressure, uncertainty, internal narratives, and choice. You don’t need to be endlessly positive or pretend things are fine. It’s about responding well when the script changes.
Research shows that strengthening psychological flexibility reduces burnout and improves resilience by helping people stay engaged and effective when the pressure hits.
This is where human agility shows up in real terms:
- People don’t default to panic or avoidance
- They stay connected to purpose and values
- They take meaningful action even when clarity is incomplete
This isn’t soft. And it isn’t abstract.
It’s practical, observable, and measurable.
The true cost of skipping readiness
Here’s the uncomfortable reality: Across studies and surveys over the years, roughly two‑thirds of change initiatives struggle to deliver the outcomes they were designed to achieve.
That’s not just strategy gone wrong. That’s people stretched too far, leaders absorbing unsustainable pressure, confidence quietly eroding, and teams slipping into survival mode.
Many organisations believe they’re doing “change management.” What they’re often not doing though, is assessing readiness before they push go – and then building the human capability required to sustain momentum.
The result is something most of us can feel when we’re inside it: change fatigue. A learned emotional disengagement – the sense that it’s safer not to fully invest because this, too, will pass.
Psychological safety: the enabler we can’t ignore
When we look at teams that do navigate constant change well, one factor shows up again and again: psychological safety.
The ability to speak up. To question decisions. To admit mistakes early. And to explore uncertainty without fear of being penalised.
Unfortunately, psychological safety doesn’t make change comfortable. But it does make it possible. It turns learning into something that happens in real time, rather than hindsight when it’s too late.
Without it, readiness struggles to take root.
Failing, learning, and thriving through change
Real readiness is a learning capacity.
Organisations that treat change as an experiment – something to test, adapt and refine – build muscle memory. People learn how to change, not just what to change.
When these learning loops are designed into the system:
- Change feels less personally threatening
- People get better at navigating it, because they’ve practised doing so
That’s how readiness compounds.
So, what do we do about it?
If your organisation is experiencing more change than ever, and your people are feeling it, a few shifts matter more than most:
- Measure readiness before you roll out change – rigorously. We can help you assess how ready your people really are and pinpoint where capability needs strengthening. Get in touch to arrange a readiness assessment so you can turn readiness insight into real change outcomes.
- Develop psychological flexibility as a workforce capability. It drives performance under pressure.
- Build psychological safety into teams. Without it, readiness erodes fast.
- Treat change as a capability, not a sequence of initiatives.
Final thought
The world isn’t going to slow down. If anything, the tempo of change will keep accelerating.
What will separate organisations that cope from those that thrive won’t be better plans or bigger budgets. It will be whether people (at every level) have the capacity, clarity, and confidence to keep moving forward.
That’s what readiness really looks like.
And it’s the future of sustainable performance.