In this solo episode of the Reality Based Leadership podcast, host Alex Dorr examines why many teams become stuck during organizational change. He argues that change itself isn’t inherently difficult; it is only hard for people who are unready. Dorr critiques the common habit of leaders opening change conversations with apologetic language (“change is hard, you’re busy, …”) which subtly signals a lack of confidence in the team’s capability. He recommends rehearsing announcements, communicating with empathy (clearly stating what is known, unknown, and possibly unknowable) rather than sympathy, and being mindful of the words used. Dorr outlines four pervasive myths about change: (1) change is hard, (2) we need time to grieve change, (3) there’s too much change, and (4) change fatigue is inevitable. He offers practical hacks—replacing the word “change” with “next,” and delivering change in bite‑sized, continuous‑learning increments—to neutralize drama and prevent fatigue. He cites rapid skill obsolescence data from healthcare (skill relevance dropping in 6‑18 months) to illustrate the cost of unpreparedness. The episode closes with a call to assess readiness, foster a growth mindset, and share the insights with teams, reinforcing the core reality‑based leadership principle that change is only hard for the unready.
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So, I was in a room recently with a leadership team, and within 5 minutes, I could tell exactly why they were stuck. Welcome into another episode of the Reality Based Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dorr, CEO at Reality Based Leadership. And today, we are talking about this team that was stuck. And it was quick to see because they were navigating some change and they had some restructuring going on. They're trying to modernize and they're trying to shift and they got their teams trying to respond to that. And they were getting into some language around change that was leading them to be stuck. And so that's what I want to focus on today because the idea of navigating change or overcoming resistance to change is a key skillset. It's a principle of reality-based leadership. And it's 13% of the drama is still leaders dealing with change. Now, real quick, I remember our company when, when we were first looking at this research and some of the research as I dig it up, looking at reality-based leadership archives, we've been talking about this for almost 25 or 30 years. And when you think about that as a skillset, like imagine you go around and you ask people, can you type on a keyboard? Are you able to type? Do you know how to type? Is there keyboarding, whatever we call it? And if I tell a group, raise your hand if you can type on a keyboard, everyone's got that skillset. And I even count, you know, when you're poking around at the keys like this, we can all type. But when I ask teams I work with, how many of you would say your teams are exceptional at capitalizing on change? When it happens, you're like, wow, good to know. Can't wait to respond to it and make it least disruptive to our business. Like, I'm ready to implement this new process. I'm ready to bring in this new You know, idea, almost all hands go down in the room. And if someone leaves their hand up, they're kind of like barely keeping it up because they're thinking of the few of those people on their team that are like, what? Change? And so the idea here is very simple. It's the idea that change is hard. That's what you hear out there. Let's just call it as it is. So many leaders make the mistake of leading with this hedge towards the idea that change is hard. Now, a lot of us try and start the conversation about a change to maybe soften the blow a bit, to help our teams maybe receive it a bit better. And it sounds like this. It's like, I know change is really hard. I know you guys got a lot on your plate. I know you're all super busy. I know we got a lot going on and there's a lot moving and shaking here. And out of the goodness of your hearts, if you could maybe just bring this into what you're doing. And this right here was the language I was hearing from that team. Now, it wasn't in one conversation. It was really in each leader that got up there in their own way was hedging on this idea that yes, what the business needed was this pursuit of this transformation. It was what their customers wanted. It was what technology was requiring. It was what, you know, the marketplace needed. And so they were almost apologizing for what the business needed. And I think that's a lesson in the idea that change itself isn't hard. It's only hard for the unready, is that we got to stop apologizing for what the business needs, what your organization needs, what your patients need. It's this apologizing for what's next that really gets us into a struggle as a team. And so the principle is that most teams and leaders have come to believe that change is hard. When it's actually a decision and a conversation about readiness, because when someone's unready for what's next, or when you're unready for what's next, notice you only have one option, and that's to resist change because it might start exposing you as incompetent for what the business needs, your organization needs, or what your position needs. And so this is where resistance to change starts. And so in this group, I mean, so many of us are talking about transformation. There's not a company I work with right now that's not transforming, modernizing. Trying to figure out this AI enhancement and how that fits in with all the disruption in technology. There's uncertainty, there's ambiguity. And so if leaders aren't principled on their approach to change, it can get into some enabling and some coddling that holds people back. Now, another caveat here is that when I roll out something like, I know change is really hard. I know you got a lot on your plates. I know you're all super busy. Now, for the goodness of your hearts, could you maybe check this out? When I do that, I actually, as a leader, am exposing my beliefs about my team. I'm revealing that they're not capable in my mind. Now, it doesn't sound like that, but that is usually what they're hearing. And then I don't think they got it. I don't think they can integrate this. I don't think they can prioritize with what we need now. Um, and that's what I'm revealing. So be very mindful right now, especially when you're rolling out a change or bringing in something new for your team, because I often have to rehearse. I'll look at what am I going to communicate? How can I get super clean with it? How can I deliver it with empathy and not sympathy? Empathy is, team, here's a new requirement that we've just found out about, and it's now become a priority. And what I'm going to do is, is explain it to you. I sometimes like to say, here's what we know, here's what we don't know, and here's what we may never know. And I'll make that visual for you. And so as we go through this, then I want to know what are your ideas to make it least disruptive to our business so we can move forward intentionally? What's your idea? What's your idea? See how that's empathy where I am not sugarcoating it, coming through clearly, and then we get into what's your idea to make it happen, to make it move forward, to make it least disruptive to our business. Now, sympathy is, again, all of that I've talked about. Team, I know you're all super busy. I know we got a lot going on. See, that's a big difference there. So really know that it's, it's, it's key to get clear on what we're communicating as the change. Might even rehearse it in front of the mirror. If you're someone that walks like I do, I sometimes walk it out and maybe even, uh, if you see a tree over there, like talk to it, to a tree, although you might look a little weird. But practice delivering that change or that new announcement cleanly. So we're not putting our drama onto the announcement with others, because that'll start that change resistance. And then we're leading with it super hard. So that's the first thing. Now, the other thing is to look at the myths around change. These will help you. And that's the main thing I wanted to focus on in this episode is there's 4 myths that I'm hearing out there around change. And the first one is this idea that change is hard. Which we just hit on pretty, pretty strongly there. Now, the second one, you don't hear this as much, but I used to hear, we need some time to grieve this change. And, you know, we just got a lot going on. Like, we just need some time to grieve, you know, what was. And when I first heard this, I'm like, oh my gosh, did someone lose a loved one, a pet, you know, a spouse? I was like horrified. And they're like, no, we just, we just lost our software or we just, you know, moved our desks a little bit. Or we just lost, you know, our window and we're in a new place, um, in the, you know, at the office. And what people were using there is some old philosophy that, that is great philosophy of the steps of going through change. It's, but it's for dying patients in hospice. That was that work that actually got translated for the workplace. And there's definitely some grieving and some denial, and there's some steps in that. But I think we can agree that most changes at work aren't the same as that experience. So we have to watch, you know, what frameworks, what philosophies are we using that maybe aren't as helpful when going through change and helping our team through change. Now, another one that is, is simple but very powerful is there's too much change. I'm hearing that everywhere. And at times, I'll be honest with you, I think I'm somewhat falling for that. But as leaders, we're never given too much than we can actually handle. Now, it might call us to update our skillset, to modernize our approach, to check in on our level of willingness to meet the moment. So that might be what's going on, but there's never too much than we can handle. So it's getting a little clear on where do I need to evolve and get more skilled? Am I using an old approach for the new reality, or am I lacking willingness to show up and be there as a leader? Am I getting a little tired? Do I need to recheck in? And lean back in, but there's too much change. I like as an activity, and this sounds a little bit crazy, but replacing the word change with next. It's the most simple activity is have your team for a week at least say, we cannot use the word change. We're going to call it next. And we can all call each other out. You can call me out if we do it. And so when someone comes in and says, oh my gosh, did you hear about Those 3 new nexts that they've just announced, and I can't handle any more next. And if there's one more next that we have to absorb and figure out, I'm going to lose my mind. And you start to see how much drama is on top of the word change just by putting the word next. And so that little hack can get us one laughing a little bit, and it just softens that initial response to change, and it helps a ton in your team. You'd be surprised. Now, the last myth I wanted to hit on is a really big one because I think this is the culmination of all those others that we're leaving unquestioned, all rooted in change is hard. We're not questioning whether that's equally hard for everyone. And it's that we are change fatigued. And I'll tell you what, that a lot of our approaches to change right now are going to make it fatiguing because what some groups do is they let people like fall asleep And wait for the next time we need to change or upskill or modernize, then we have to like wake people back up with a big change management initiative. And so then it's like, wake up, get through it, fall asleep, wake up, get through it, fall asleep. And this is really fatiguing because it's so up and down. It's like a roller coaster. The modern approach that I want all of you thinking about here on this podcast is change comes in bite-sized pieces. If you're open and just staying in tune with your workplace and the world, it's going to grow you each day a little bit. And if you say yes to the moment and keep responding to what's next, getting a little bit better, a little bit more skilled, staying in continuous learning mindset, you can grow in these bite-sized pieces. And so it's not one big change jump. You're just climbing up the ladder. But what happens is when people skip 10, 15, 25 upgrades, All of a sudden they need to be here and they're only right here. And now it's too late and we have to do a big change initiative and it's upskill everyone. And so this change fatigue comes from missing those bite-sized developments. And so leaning into those, watching for people when they're stepping down from the call to greatness, not answering, you know, into the next thing they can learn, make sure we're not enabling that as leaders. And so Big principle here in reality-based leadership is that change isn't hard. It's only hard for the unready. So I ask you to finish this podcast. Where are we starting to fall behind in our readiness? Where are people thinking they know everything and there's not much more to learn? That's not going to be working in this day and age, especially with how fast things are shifting. And I'll leave you with a stat that blew my mind and it's probably changed, but at one point in healthcare, if you really stopped growing and developing in your career, this is years ago. They said in about 18 months, you'd basically have a skillset that's not relevant. And this was maybe a decade ago, maybe longer than that. Now, and this was a couple of years ago, it was 6 months. Basically, if you weren't staying ready for what's next and resisting change, 6 months, your skills might not be relevant enough to add and contribute in the way we're needed, at least in healthcare. And now I don't know what the recent data is, but it could be even faster than that. So to leave you with as an individual, if we're getting a little stagnant in our development and we're resisting change, know that as we resist change and fall behind, it soon affects our performance. And then we have only one option is to resist more change because that's exposed. So you got this, something to think about. Change is only hard for the unready. Thanks for listening in. I hope you're loving these podcasts, especially the ones as we go back to the basics and we're learning about the core principles of reality-based leadership. If you're liking this, feel free to not keep it for yourself. Share it with your teams, have a conversation about it, see if we can challenge each other's thinking and keep growing together. So let's keep ditching the drama, love people up, but we gotta call 'em up to greatness, and I'll see you on the next episode.
