How Much Change Can People Really Cope With?
Last year, while participating on a panel with some remarkable talent, an audience member asked precisely this question: "How much change can people cope with, especially at work when it can feel relentless?"
My answer then remains my conviction today: people have tremendous capacity to cope with and even thrive during periods of change. In fact, we navigate changes successfully all the time without even realising it. However, this capacity isn't unlimited, and it flourishes under specific conditions. When these conditions are absent, resilience falters, and if not noticed and addressed, the dangerous slide toward burnout begins.
The Science of Change Capacity
Before exploring the conditions that support change resilience, it's worth understanding the limits of our adaptive capacity. Prosci, a leading change management research firm, has extensively studied what they term "change saturation"—the point at which people can no longer effectively adopt or sustain new ways of working. Their 2023 Best Practices in Change Management report found that 78% of organisations exceed their employees' capacity to absorb change.
This limitation isn't a sign of weakness—it's simply human psychology at work. Our brains are wired to conserve energy, and navigating change requires significant cognitive and emotional resources. When these resources become depleted faster than they can be replenished, our ability to adapt effectively diminishes.
Four Essential Conditions for Thriving Amid Change
My research and experience point to four critical conditions that determine whether people merely survive change or genuinely thrive through it.
1. Active Involvement: Being treated as a stakeholder, not a recipient
When people are positioned as passive recipients of change rather than active participants in shaping it, resistance naturally follows. Professor Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety at Harvard Business School demonstrates that engagement in change processes significantly increases when people feel their input matters.
I've personally led many changes in organisations where we have invited employees to contribute to exploring the ‘how’ a vision can be realised. Engagement and adoption have been significantly better than when similar changes were simply announced and imposed. This isn't merely about making people feel good—it creates better outcomes by incorporating diverse perspectives and identifying potential obstacles early.
Active involvement might look like:
Requesting input on how changes will be implemented (even when the ‘what’ is non-negotiable)
Creating feedback mechanisms that genuinely influence plans
Empowering local teams to adapt centrally-driven changes to their specific contexts
Identifying informal influencers who can contribute to change design before broad announcements. These people will be key to driving positivity through the organisation.
2. Part of a bigger connected Story
Multiple, isolated and seemingly random changes drain resilience far more quickly than those that connect to a meaningful narrative. When people understand how individual changes contribute to a larger purpose they value, their capacity to manage that disruption increases substantially. It is given purpose, context and benefits.
McKinsey's research confirms this observation, finding that change initiatives with a compelling narrative are significantly more likely to succeed than those without one. We all know this though, it’s not a surprise, however do we keep telling the story and showing the connections, or do we assume as we have told everyone already that the job is done? Rather than experiencing each change as a separate disruption, when we keep connecting them to the bigger purpose employees see it as progress toward a meaningful destination.
Connected storytelling involves:
Clearly articulating a future vision with clear purpose
Helping employees locate current changes within a longer journey
Reinforcing connections between separate initiatives that might otherwise appear disjointed
Celebrating milestones that demonstrate progress toward the larger vision
Telling brilliant stories is not easy though, especially when the news may be tough to here. For valuable insights and exceptional work, I highly recommend Lookup and their expertise in addressing challenging narratives; Storytelling in a Headwind. You can read their work here https://wearelookup.substack.com or check out Matthew Hook | LinkedIn.
3. Psychological safety and support
Environments where people feel safe to voice concerns, admit struggles, and request help, create dramatically higher change resilience. Dr Emma Donaldson-Feilder, occupational psychologist, emphasises that psychological safety serves as a buffer against change-related stress.
In my experience I have observed that the safest and most effective teams through change are those where vulnerability is welcomed rather than punished. Their ability to adapt more effectively to change is because they process challenges collectively rather than in isolation. When people know they won't be blamed for implementation difficulties or learning curves, they approach change with curiosity rather than fear.
Effective support mechanisms include:
Creating a common language that makes it OK to question or be unsure
Normalising struggle during transitions through appropriate leader vulnerability
Creating spaces for teams to discuss change challenges without judgment
Training managers to recognise and respond to signs of change fatigue and low resilience which unchecked can lead to burn-out
Acknowledging the compounding effect of personal life changes occurring alongside workplace transformations
The most effective leaders recognise that employees don't experience workplace changes in isolation from personal life events. Major life transitions like moving house, relationship changes, health challenges, caring responsibilities all draw from the same limited human reservoir of adaptive energy that workplace changes require.
4. A Sense of progress and stability
This might seem paradoxical, but people and businesses benefit from anchors of stability to successfully navigate change. We would argue that change resilience isn't about constantly ploughing forwards through multiple changes, but it's about the clever use of strategic and timely rest periods. Factoring moments of pause, reflection and measuring backwards to create space for celebrating achievements and allowing recovery time.
Additionally, visible progress markers help people maintain momentum through extended change periods. The brain responds positively to evidence of forward movement, releasing dopamine that reinforces adaptive behaviours.
Progress and stability are supported by:
Clearly defining what will remain consistent during change processes
Breaking larger transformations into visible milestone achievements
Building in 'change holidays', periods where no new initiatives are introduced
Celebrating and acknowledging successful adaptation
Ensuring changes are fully embedded before launching the next wave
When resilience fails: The path to burnout
When these four conditions are absent, even the most adaptable individuals eventually reach their limits. This is where low resilience, if left unaddressed, creates the dangerous slide toward burnout.
Dr Christina Maslach, creator of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), identifies excessive workload as one of the primary factors contributing to burnout. Being in constant change significantly amplifies workload through ongoing demands of the old and new ways, learning curves, and shifting priorities.
The progression typically follows a predictable pattern:
Change Fatigue: Characterised by decreased enthusiasm and increased cynicism
Change Resistance: Active disengagement from change efforts, declining performance, and increased absenteeism
Burnout: Complete emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and dramatically reduced personal accomplishment
The CIPD's 2023 Health and Wellbeing at Work report found that employees facing many significant workplace changes quickly, without adequate support, were much more likely to report burnout symptoms than those experiencing fewer changes or having strong support.
In my coaching, I've experienced high performers who have sleepwalked into burnout when facing too many changes without some of these essential conditions in place. The continual changing demands from senior leaders with no interaction, consideration or explanation.
Building organisational change resilience through TQ leadership capability
Beyond individual resilience, organisations can systematically enhance their change absorption capacity through creating a culture of high Transformational Intelligence (TQ). High TQ has emerged as a critical framework for leaders guiding teams through complex change. The 5 aspects of TQ at Becoming Stronger are as follows
a. Understanding of Transitions
b. Adaptability
c. Social connection and collaboration
d. Emotional Capability
e. Resilience and energy management
Targeted support to leaders and team managers proactively prepares leaders to build adaptive skills and support their teams through significant change. For organisations, the benefits are enhanced leadership effectiveness, improved organisational agility, and the creation of a resilient workforce capable of maintaining productivity during complex transitions. Leaders who invest in transition coaching create environments where uncertainty becomes an opportunity for strategic growth, empowering team members and enabling the organisation to pivot with collective intelligence and shared purpose.
Final thoughts
As businesses are existing in times of constant change, the organisations that thrive won't be those that change the fastest or implement the most initiatives. Rather, success will belong to those who master the delicate balance between necessary transformation and human capacity. Those that create a culture of TQ that drives talent to enjoy the evolution of your business, developing themselves alongside.
The question isn't simply how much change people can handle—it's how we can create conditions that expand that capacity while honouring fundamental human needs. By ensuring active involvement, connected storytelling, psychological safety, and balanced progress with stability, we can build organisations where people don't merely survive change but genuinely enjoy it.
After all, our capacity for adaptation is one of humanity's greatest strengths. When properly supported, it enables not just organisational transformation, but personal growth and collective flourishing even in the most challenging times.