The alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. The plan is simple: Squeeze in a workout before the day begins. They have been trying to be more intentional about their health, to sleep a little more, move a little more, and stress a little less.
Before they even get out of bed, a text message changes the morning. It’s nothing dramatic, just something that cannot wait until later. The workout gets shortened, breakfast becomes something grabbed on the way out the door, and the day begins feeling just a little different than expected.
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By 8:00 a.m., they are at their desk with a plan for the day. The first project is due, and after weeks of work, the client loves it. There is just one small revision. “It’ll only take 10 minutes,” they think.
Next comes another deadline. Like everyone else, they are using AI to work faster. The first response is not quite right; the second introduces new errors; the third is finally usable, but what should have taken five minutes has taken 20.
Have I been thinking about change all wrong?
Around 9:00 a.m., they remember an email leadership sent the previous week announcing a new process everyone is expected to adopt. They flag it to read later; not because they disagree with it or don’t care, but because they genuinely have not found the time.
Before they can get to it, a meeting is moved. A teammate needs help. A client changes direction. A “quick question” turns into a 20-minute conversation, while another request arrives that was not on the calendar when the day began.
Later that afternoon, their manager asks how the new process is going.
“Honestly, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”
Walking back to their desk, they make a mental note to get to it before they leave for the day. By the end of the afternoon, they realize they never did.
None of those moments felt particularly significant on its own. A revised deliverable, a meeting that moved, a new process and an AI tool that did not work quite as expected—none of them seemed like a big deal. Together, however, they completely changed the day.
I have coached leaders for more than 25 years, and I have heard versions of this story hundreds of times across different companies and industries. The job titles range from first-time managers to senior executives leading global organizations. The details change, but the pattern does not.
It has made me wonder whether we have been thinking about change all wrong.
When most people hear the word change, they picture something significant: a merger, a restructuring, a new CEO, an acquisition, or a company-wide AI implementation. We talk about change as though it is a destination or something organizations “go through” before eventually settling into a new normal.
But that isn’t how most people experience work anymore. Change isn’t experienced as a single event, but as a continuous series of interruptions that require them to stop, adjust, reprioritize and begin again.
Recently, a client told me, “I can’t get everything done. I feel like I’m failing.” As we unpacked the day, it became clear that no single overwhelming event had pushed them to that point. Their manager had changed three deliverables, they had spent four hours double- and triple-booked in meetings, and every time they sat down to make progress, something else demanded their attention.
None of those interruptions seemed unreasonable on its own, but together, they create a pace of work that is simply not sustainable.
That is what I think leaders often miss. It is rarely one major change that overwhelms people. More often, it is the accumulation of dozens of small changes that individually feel manageable but collectively consume people’s attention, energy, and capacity.
Technology has dramatically reduced the effort required to change plans. A meeting can be moved in seconds, a deadline can be updated with a few clicks and a new priority can be communicated to hundreds of people almost instantly. But while technology has made change easier to initiate, it has not made it any easier for people to absorb. Every revised deadline, moved meeting, or new request still requires someone to stop, think, reprioritize and begin again.
Early in my career, I carried a paper planner everywhere I went. Every meeting, every client deadline and every commitment was written by hand. If something changed, I could not simply drag a meeting to a different time or click “delete.” I had to erase it, cross it out, find another space on the page and rewrite it.
Changing the plan required effort, and more importantly, it forced me to acknowledge that the plan had changed.
Today, changing a schedule takes seconds. Meetings move with the click of a mouse. Deadlines are updated automatically. Priorities shift through an email or a notification that appears on your phone before you have even finished the task you are working on. Technology has made changing work almost frictionless, but human beings have not become frictionless.
Every schedule change still requires someone to mentally reorganize the day. Every new priority forces a decision about what will not get done. Every interruption carries a cognitive cost that does not appear on a project plan, status report, or performance dashboard. That is the part I think leaders unintentionally underestimate.
Organizations often measure change in initiatives. They count the number of systems being implemented, strategic priorities underway, or reorganizations planned for the year. But people do not experience work that way; they experience it one interruption at a time.
A leader may see one additional request, but an employee experiences that request landing on top of everything else they have already been asked to absorb. That distinction matters because leaders and employees are often answering different questions without realizing it.
When a leader asks, “Can you change this one thing?” they are usually evaluating whether that one request is reasonable. But the employee is not evaluating the request in isolation; they are evaluating their remaining capacity. Those are not the same conversation.
Leaders often evaluate the request as one change. Employees experience it as one more thing added to everything already on their plate.
This is why I do not believe the biggest challenge organizations face today is change itself. Organizations have always needed to evolve. Markets shift. Customer expectations change. New technologies emerge. Standing still is not a strategy.
The challenge is that we have become remarkably efficient at introducing change while paying far less attention to people’s capacity to absorb it. We have optimized calendars, automated workflows, accelerated communication and increased responsiveness. Ironically, those same advances have also made it easier to change priorities dozens of times a day. Every individual adjustment seems small, but collectively, they become exhausting.
When leaders see slower adoption, delayed execution, or employees who seem disengaged, it is tempting to conclude that people are resisting change. Sometimes they are, but I wonder how often they are simply running out of capacity.
Capacity is not only about workload, it is also about the number of mental shifts we ask people to make in a day. It is the invisible effort required to let go of one expectation, adopt another, remember where you left off, and begin again. That work rarely appears on anyone’s to-do list, yet it consumes energy just the same.
The lesson here is more intention, not less change
I do not think the lesson for leaders is to introduce less change. In many organizations, that is neither realistic nor desirable. The lesson is to become more intentional about understanding what people are already carrying before adding something new.
Before launching the next initiative, leaders should ask: What else have I asked my team to absorb recently?
Before assuming someone is resistant, they should consider whether the person is resisting this particular change or has reached the limit of their capacity to process all the changes surrounding it.
And before saying, “It’s not that big of a deal,” leaders should remember that they are probably evaluating one request in isolation, while someone else is experiencing it as the latest addition to a growing pile.
Leadership has never been about eliminating change. It has always been about helping people move through it. Today, that requires recognizing that change is no longer an occasional event that punctuates our work. It has become the backdrop against which all work happens.
The leaders who understand that distinction will not necessarily ask people to do less. They will become much better at understanding what people are already carrying, helping them make clear tradeoffs, and creating the capacity required before asking them to do more.
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