How To Build A Foundation For Constant Workplace Change

Change is coming whether your leaders announce it or not, and pretending it’s a one-time “initiative” is how teams get stuck, exhausted, and cynical. We dig into a more realistic approach: change readiness. When the pace of workplace change keeps accelerating, the goal isn’t to win every fight or perfect every rollout plan. The goal is to build a foundation that still works when the ground won’t sit still.

We talk about why so many change efforts stall, how resistance spreads through side conversations and culture, and why that “drama” becomes an invisible tax on performance. We also explore the uncomfortable math of speed: tool changes, hiring shifts, new policies, new platforms, and AI disruption can stack up fast, making it feel like there’s never a stable moment to catch your breath.

Then we offer a practical metaphor that reframes everything: hiking. If you expect uneven terrain, you stop demanding a perfectly level path and start training, equipping, and thinking differently. We unpack traits that make people more adaptable without turning them into “change cheerleaders” curiosity, asking what’s good about this, deciding what’s worth the fight, and focusing on what you can control. We also name a real human factor: some of us strongly prefer structure and certainty, and we can honor that preference while still building the skills to navigate constant change.

If you want better change management, stronger leadership, and a calmer way to handle organizational change, listen now.

Transcript

Karman 0:30

Good morning, Scott and Tammy. Good morning, Karman.

Scott 0:36

What's up? Karminsky, the great Karminsky.

Karman 0:41

I should have my fortune teller outfit on.

Scott 0:46

Yeah, you're I I can see you in this purple cape and the you know the head, the head swami thing. I don't know what that's called. I'm sure I just said something. You know, unpolitically correct. Turban, that's the word turban.

Tammy 0:58

You did say something politically incorrect. Turban swami is politically incorrect. I don't know, but it doesn't sound right. No, it doesn't sound right.

Karman 1:07

I just which of course didn't stop Scott from calling me that. So, you know, here we are.

Tammy 1:15

Maybe he was thinking back to the Johnny Carson time periods, right? So I mean we'll hearken it back to you know historical perspective for anybody who's over 50 who watched Johnny Carson, right?

Karman 1:28

Maybe they will remember historical, politically inappropriate appropriations.

Tammy 1:34

That's correct, Karman. That's that's you nailed it.

Scott 1:37

So sorry, according to the internet, Swami is not inherently offensive, it is a respectful and honorable, honorable, honorable term.

Tammy 1:49

You can't even say honorable, doesn't it?

Scott 1:51

I read honorable. The word on the screen is honorific, and so yes, I'm like, I've never heard honorific before, and so now I'm thinking there's has to be a song.

Karman 2:02

Honorific is usually a noun, yeah, like title.

Scott 2:07

Yeah, so it's it's a respectful honorific for a Hindu spiritual teacher or master who has achieved self-mastery. So I was being thoughtful and kind to so do you want to take it back? No, no, okay. I mean, I think it still fits.

Karman 2:25

Okay, well, that's very kind of you.

Scott 2:28

His intent was not honorific, but but he'll take it since he didn't get caught, and it's probably still some terrible appropriation since I am you know, but yeah, now in some western context, the term can be misused to imply someone is a charlatan, a cult leader or a deceptive spiritual teacher.

Tammy 2:51

That's that's you, Karman, a deceptive spiritual leader, spiritual leader, yeah. Like well, if if only I had a big following, like I, you know, then you could make a hundred thousand dollars a year, you know, doing YouTube videos, you know, with your cult following. Yeah.

Karman 3:09

Well, if I were gonna have a cult following, um, it might be about the topic of change, which is one of my favorite, you know, become more related topics. And I've been doing a lot of change workshops this week. And what I wanted to talk about today is this like subtle shift that we've been making as we talk about change. And we're discussing it a little bit more in the workplace about being change ready than about how you lead slash push change. And I I just wanted to talk about like what's behind that? Why is being change ready the direction that that we seem to think is more applicable these days?

Failure Rates And Faster Change

Tammy 3:58

Let's put some, let's put again some historical con, you know, like context behind that, going back into the old days, right? So if you really think about how people talked about change historically, it was all right, senior leaders have made a decision, and that decision is gonna shift the way that we prioritize, the way that we do work, the way that we want to make decisions, right? So we used to, you know, be very process-oriented, and now we're gonna kind of shift a little bit and we're gonna be customer-oriented, and we have to like really meet their needs. So instead of saying that doesn't work for our process, we would be like, let's see what we can do to help you. That used to be a big decision was made at the top of the organization, and now we're gonna cascade it through the organization so that we as a group will now act and behave and decide that aligns with this new point of view. Well, things have changed. Right. So, Scott, that used to be the way change came to the organization, right? A big change initiative. What are we seeing now?

Scott 5:17

The piece that as you were talking, I was thinking, well, if we if we go to some of the data, if we look at like right now, according to like HBR, McKenzie, Bain, they're really saying, hey, 70% of the time change fails. Change initiatives fail. Change initiative fail. We we want to get to the other side of this, and 70% of the time we don't we don't get all the way there. Now, again, we could probably say some of that is oh, what we wanted to achieve was maybe unachievable and we were a little inflated. Like, so some of that maybe is like we can sit and split hairs about is that semantics, is that whatever? Let's just say it's half right. That means a third of the time we don't achieve what we intend to achieve, which to me is still huge.

Karman 6:03

Absolutely, absolutely, because a lot of drama for not getting anywhere, yeah, no kidding.

Tammy 6:09

And that's the piece that Karman, that I think it's like if you think about change that your organization has gone through, right? And our listeners, like, think about how much resistance is out there and how much drama that causes and how much talk. So we've all been in that spot, even when we're not the executives in that spot. We've been in a place where everybody's talking about it, but they're not talking about it out loud. They're talking about it in private conversations and at lunch and all that kind of stuff, and they're pushing back and pushing back and pushing back. And that drama drains an organization. In fact, it makes an organization they become something else that they never intended. It's not part of the change, but you see all of this negativity that's kind of coming to the top, right? It's it's a tough time inside of an organization.

Scott 7:00

To me, the other the other side of this is the rate of change. Okay, so if you look up the kind of the estimated rate of change and you think of, okay, if 2020 is kind of the the baseline, whatever rate of change was happening in 2020, in 2023 it was twice as fast. The rate of change was happening two times more in 2023 than 2020. This year is five times as fast. There's a 500% faster rate of change. And in 2030, it is expected to be a thousand percent faster. So in I'm saying if you compare 2030 to 2020, so in that span of 10 years, a thousand percent faster rate of change. I always think of it like a candle. I need I need to be good at both ends, I need to be good at leading change, and I need to be working on how is my organization, how are my employees, how are my staff, how's my team more and more ready for change because that is going to be constant, period.

Tammy 8:01

So the rate of change that I experienced when I grew up, and I grew up in the 60s and the 70s, right? I was in high school in the 1970s, okay. And I remember my grandparents talking about like how crazy things had gotten and how everything was different, okay. But for me, that was kind of normal, right? I mean, I was still a young kid and I could I kind of rolled with the punches, right? And I don't know what the rate of change was then to now, but what you just said, 2020, I can touch and I can feel, okay. COVID. I remember 2020 very, very clearly. Okay. And you are saying that from 2020 to 2030, right? Which is just a couple of years from now, the rate of change is gonna increase by a thousand percent percent.

Karman 9:01

That's almost unconceivable. Listeners, Tammy's the top of Tammy's head is kind of blowing off right now, and there's like a little bit of like steam and I don't I don't know what, like kind of shooting up.

Tammy 9:17

I mean, like to really get your arms around what that means, right? That is that is something that I I don't know that I can really, really get my arms around that in that space.

Scott 9:31

Now, I think we also have to put pro likely maybe in a little bit. I think of this in perspective, right? So I think of you know, some people say, Well, yeah, AI. Okay, yeah, to me, AI is one change. Now, I might integrate AI or have AI in some other things, and maybe that you know gives me three or four changes. Just think about policy changes from a from a government regulatory perspective. Okay. Think about, I'm thinking about Tammy for us in just the last year. We stopped using project management system A. We started using projects management system B. That's a change. We've hired four people in the last five, four and a half, five months. That's a change, right? You've shifted how you're working this year, that's a change. And you start to look at some of those. Yeah, some of those are big, like big changes, some of those are little changes. There is just so much. We use HubSpot, and I emailed you and Jen, like, hey, there's a pretty significant change coming in April.

Karman 10:39

And more steam, more steam coming out of Tammy's head.

When Your Foundation Won’t Sit Still

Scott 10:44

Right. And that was followed by we just got the change done, right? To to the to to the newer interface. So you look at that and you're like, holy crap, 10 10x, when you start to think about it, really isn't that far-fetched.

Tammy 10:59

It's not far-fetched, it just seems, I guess I'm just gonna empathize with maybe other people that are listening, or maybe they're gonna empathize with me. It seems like, how in the heck could I possibly continually have the stuff underneath my feet keep moving, right? Because, like, when I can have a foundation, I can stand and I can manage stuff and I know what's going on, and then I can take action. And what you're saying is that the stuff underneath my feet, that foundation is gonna keep shifting. And maybe it's a degree or two, right? But when you're a little off balance, it's kind of hard to be able to make good decisions and feel safe and secure and to like know that you are doing the right thing. And, you know, foundation is the thing that for me allows me to be able to successfully go after all the challenges in the world. And you're saying that we're gonna tip that foundation, and it's not just tip it and it just stays there, it's like, oh, and then it tips the other way, and then it tips the other way. It's like all this stuff. So there's this piece of me that says, truly, truly, how do you do it when you don't have a strong foundation?

Scott 12:18

Yeah. And I'm wondering if there's a perspective of saying it's not about saying I want to strengthen my foundation, it's about saying I want to change my foundation.

Tammy 12:28

Okay, talk to me about that.

Scott 12:29

So, okay, I want my foundation to be solid, I want it to be structured, I want it to be nope. We now live in constant earthquakes, which means my my right, I now have to have a foundation that I can figure out how do I walk on this. And my foundation is how do I become more accepting? How do I become more curious? How do you start to think about what are the traits of people that are, I'm gonna say, more comfortable with change that and again, not to say let's just have change for change's sake, but it's gonna be thrust on us, is what you're really saying.

Tammy 13:09

It's not going to be the executive leaders who make these big decisions who are changing our world. The world is simply changing, right? Is and so for me, and just I'm gonna put another visual, right? I'd like to walk on a really level surface, but when you hike, that's not a level surface, right? When you hike, it's like sometimes there's a rock in the way, and sometimes there's a river you have to traverse, and sometimes, right? And you're you're actually in this space where, and I think there are a lot of people in the world who like that hiking thing, right? You're out there and it's like there's something new and there's something different, and in that space, you're finding your way, even though what you're walking on isn't level, right? In that space. And maybe that is really for me the thing, and you know, I have to be honest with you, I just thought of this off the top of my head. It's not like I planned any of this stuff, but like that might make sense to me. It's like, yeah, my foundation isn't the same, but I can figure out a way to walk it.

Scott 14:15

And you think about okay, if I'm gonna go hiking and I know it's going to be uneven, oh, I wear boots so I don't twist my ankle, and maybe I have trekking poles to help me keep my balance, or right, I have tools, tools, and techniques to manage that. And I know some people are thinking, well, Scott, I don't know what the change is. Yeah, I understand that. Um, neither do I, because if I did, I'd be a wealthy bastard. I mean, I'm a bastard, I'm just not a wealthy bastard. Right?

Tammy 14:48

And so that's but when you're hiking, you don't always know what you're gonna find.

Scott 14:53

Yeah, rattlesnake, scorpion, bear, rock, rain, dead body, you just never know that has become a raging river.

Tammy 15:05

I mean, you know, in that spot. And there are things that you do to prep and to prepare. And, you know, one of the things, in all honesty, is I'm not gonna go out on a you know 20-mile hike without building up a little bit of skill set and a little bit of you know, you know, muscle mass to be able to do that. I mean, there's there's things that you have to do to help you through that stuff, right? And and maybe that's really what we're talking about. It's like you have to prepare for the unknown so that when the unknown happens, you are not going to be freaked out. Yeah, you can get through it, and I believe there are fundamental mindsets, tools that people can use as their foundation to make that easier, to be prepared, to be prepared, and then we can stop like bitching and moaning, BMWing about our bosses who are making all these changes when reality is the world is making all the changes, yeah, and the organization from the top to the bottom needs to be able to traverse those changes in order to be successful, yes, and we can sit and we can say it's not right, I'm gonna fight it, I don't like it.

Scott 16:24

Like the reality is it is going to continue to happen.

Tammy 16:28

Yeah.

Scott 16:29

And you know, there's the graveyard is you know full of people who really thought they could resist that change.

Preferences, Mindsets, And Better Questions

Tammy 16:37

Do you know, Scott? If we go back and we use predictive index, you know, it's uh that's an assessment that helps us understand more about ourselves and others, right? And if we look at it, one of the drives is the C drive. And the folks who have a high C really don't prefer change, they like to know what's happening and know what the world is going to give them coming forward so they can plan for it. Now, that's not saying that that's bad or good, it's just saying it is. But anybody on that, on that continuum that has a high C, and guys, 50% of the world is going to be on the right hand side, right? So, like 50% of the world struggles with this kind of stuff. And honestly, we need to know that, and we don't want to see them in the graveyard, we want to see them be successful because there's a ton of really wonderful things about folks who actually would prefer to have that stable foundation that the organization needs. And this change thing is going to be hard for them. Doesn't make them bad, pooky human beings. It just means that we need to help them build the skill set to be able to get through this without it kicking them in the face.

Scott 17:58

And I would, the other part I would say, and at some point they have to build the skill set and want to build the skill set themselves and not freak out at every change. Right. Right. And so, yeah, I might, I might have, I might take some time to kind of get used to that, the speed or how you know whatever that is. The next change and the next change and the next change, I would I would expect becomes easier and easier and easier for that person because they're learning along the way.

Tammy 18:26

And yes, I still might not prefer it. Oh, totally.

Scott 18:31

Yeah, no, what do I prefer? What are my preferences? Yeah, am I modifying that I can't build the skill set?

Tammy 18:38

And that's the piece, right? It's like, yeah, there I don't prefer conflict, but I have built a skill set to manage it, and I don't freak out about it anymore when there are people are have you know heightened emotions or maybe even yelling and screaming at each other. There was a time period when that would have frightened me and I would have run away. And it doesn't frighten me anymore. I don't prefer it, but I can stay in it, and that's the piece, right? You can prefer to have that steady foundation that never changes. But because the world is not gonna give us that choice anymore, learning how to walk when the world is changing and rocking and do that successfully is the skill set. And that might be one of is it gonna be the most important skill set that we need to build?

Scott 19:30

When you when you to me, and this is just how I have been thinking about it, is number one is it it is a choice, so you can say, Hey, I'm gonna continue to resist change and I'm I'm not gonna get good at it, and all of those things, and frankly, you'll be left behind. So assuming you want to be relevant or employed or both, your ability to do this becomes crucial. So when I think of it, yeah, my ability to manage slash lead change, I think is a core skill set.

Tammy 20:05

Yeah. Just that's another thing to sit in for just a second, right? I am imagining in my head, just so you know, people who have fought things that they had no control over. And I have seen people be miserable for the like forever, because they're like, that's not right, and I can't let it go. That's not okay, and I am gonna sit here in my misery for the rest of my life. And I think that's one of the pieces is if we can get our arms around that truly, it is the way that the world is working right now, and whether we like it or not, we can't make it be different. So if you want to fight it, you're probably going to not have a life that is gonna be fulfilling and you know, feel good to you and like the life that you would want. You're gonna start looking at everything as what's wrong in the world, and the more you pay attention to that, the more that it kind of eats at you. But if you can find a way to say, I don't like it, and I can build the skill set to help me find ways to move through it, even though it's not my preference. You still have a chance to be vibrant, you still have a chance to add value to an organization, you still have the opportunity in those spaces to like be the best version of you, right? So that's the choice. Are you gonna say it's not right and I hate it and I'm gonna not do it? Or are you gonna find a way that says this is our new reality, and I am gonna figure out the methodologies so that I can have a good and happy and productive life?

Scott 21:47

And it's not to say that every change is going to be good or every change is going to be bad. No, it really is just like when I start to think about all right, what are those trades? Well, to me, one is curious. One is, oh, can I ask myself what's good about this? Am I asking myself, you know, is it worth the fight? Or am I, you know, and and are there some changes that might be worth the fight? Yes, we were talking about this yesterday, Tammy, with with Kelsey. Okay. There there's some new rules that have been put in by the current administration. This is not a political conversation, this is just a reality. We could sit and fight and fight and fight. It may be the right thing to say, hey, I want to go do policy work and I want to try and change minds. The reality is those are signed. So I can sit and say they're the dumbest thing ever or I love them or whatever's in between. Or I can say, Hey, am I going to go do the policy work, which is the long game? Great. I can do that. And how do I work within those boundaries? How do I make the best of what it is? Rather than spend the energy fighting and complaining about it, it is what it is.

Tammy 22:58

Right.

Scott 22:58

Right. If you don't like it, you go, you can go voice your perspective in policy work and at the polls. Otherwise, it's how do I deal with what I've been dealt?

Tammy 23:10

That's I will say that is one of the things I think that's an interesting example to talk about. And if you can just take it and not worry about, you know, the left or the right political point of view.

Scott 23:21

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't really matter what party doesn't matter which party point.

Tammy 23:24

Yeah, it really is the spot that says, What things can I control? And if I can't control it, how can I work inside of whatever that thing is to make the best of it? Right. And that is like, I can't control that my parents divorced, my dad married a woman, and I don't prefer her. Can't control that. How can I make the best of what that situation is? Do I still want a relationship with my dad? Right. Is my dad actually happy? Okay. I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuffs. So, in that space, how do I find the good in something that I can't control, don't even necessarily like? And that is, I think, one of the most important pieces of helping yourself through changes in your life that you don't necessarily prefer. Look for what's right. And by the way, that's a skill set that we had to learn in the middle of COVID. Let's go back to that. All sorts of things happening, right? That makes our world miserable. But one of the things was that point of gratitude. What's right about today? What is working? Paying attention to the stuff that is positive into your life instead of paying attention to all the negativity, right? That is one of those important skill sets. We should probably talk about that in another podcast, right? Get into the details of hey, change is what are those traits so much faster, but what are those traits? So that might be something that we'll talk about in a future podcast, Karman. What do you think? It's on the list of as I'm saying.

Scott 25:09

I think if we go back to Karman's original question, which was something around why is it important to not be a dumbass when there's change around? I think that's the title of this podcast.

Karman 25:18

Yeah, yep, excellent. Yeah, I'm changing the spreadsheet now.

Tammy 25:25

You know, don't be a dumbass about change.

Scott 25:27

Yeah. I mean, the rate of change is going faster. Some of it you can control, much of it we cannot. And so I when I think about it, it's it's how do I make the best of it? How do I build the traits to be more and more prepared? And how do I bring others along? Because I actually think that's a key thing. Like, okay, if I get myself there, but I have to battle all of my peers all the time, that's just as draining. Absolutely. And so, you know, I have to work on myself, and then how can I support others through that?

Tammy 26:02

And honestly, I liked this one because it is this. I mean, there's so much in there. There's some pretty meaty stuff in what we just talked about. It was really good. And and without that foundation, though, I'm not sure even these next conversations make as much sense.

Scott 26:19

Yeah.

Tammy 26:20

Right. And so I I think that was I think that was well done. And Scott, I actually did not know that stat. So I wasn't like, but it was like, hold on a second. That is one big mother stat.

Scott 26:35

Yeah, I know. I have that as part of the presentation in May at the ASQ conference in May.

Bears, Sacrifice, And Survival Jokes

Tammy 26:41

I mean, you gotta sit in that for a minute, right? Also, really recognizing everything that has been out there on change that we have used for years and years and years is about a big the managers made a decision. It was something we decided was good for us, yeah, and now has nothing to do with that. The world has not made a decision if it's good for us or bad for us, the world is just doing it. You know, that thing about hiking versus just walking, it made sense to my brain. It's how I put my head around it in that moment.

Scott 27:16

So, and if you think about it, is how do you get yourself so you are ready that when you need to hike, you hike. When you need to dance, you dance. When you need to run, you run. When you need to walk, you walk.

Tammy 27:29

Might be where you take it next, right? Because reality, you meet a bear on your hike, you better be prepared to run.

Scott 27:36

Well, there's two things you need to do. You push down the person that's with you, and then you run. You only have to outrun one person, that's all. That's all so true.

Tammy 27:47

Trust me, I'll be the one on the ground because the rest of you are faster and stronger. Take the weakest among you and leave them for the prey.

Scott 27:55

Yes.

Karman 27:56

I think Tammy just volunteered as tribute. That's I think that's what I just heard.

Tammy 28:00

I'm reading the old testament. Oh my gosh, you know, there's certain things, you know. The the Canaanites, they sacrificed their young. In this case, you guys are gonna sacrifice your old. That's how it works. I mean, it makes sense to me. It actually does make sense to me. I'm just telling the truth. You should actually, you know, when there's crises, who do you take care of? The ones who can actually move the society forward. It's just it's just logical. I've told Michael that if you know the zombie apocalypse comes, don't bother. Like, you can run, just leave me, it'll be okay. I'll die quickly. It'll be fine. And he's always like, No. And I'm like, if you stay behind, you'll die too. Just run, it'll be fine.