“If we could just get through this transformation, we’ll finally reach stability.”
Does this sound familiar? In over 10 years of supporting organizations in implementing change, I’ve seen many attempts to frame transformation as a storm to be weathered or a hill to be climbed.
By now, it's widely accepted that the rate of change is increasing. One phase of transformation ends, and the next is already beginning – often with phases overlapping. The result? Employees burn out, leaders lose momentum, and change fatigue takes hold. This relentless pace can leave organizations feeling exhausted and unprepared.
In the past, change often arrived in the form of isolated events – a crisis, a disruption, a shift in the market. And organizations responded reactively, relying on quick reflexes to get through.
Reflexes may save you in the moment, but they don't build strength or adaptability. Today, the challenge is different. Change is no longer rare or short-lived.
The choice for leaders is clear: Will you allow your organization to keep reacting out of reflex? Or will you deliberately build its change capability – strengthening it with practice and preparing it to respond better each time?
At The DO, we think of this as building your change muscle. Muscles grow through consistent training and the routines that sustain them. Organizations, too, become stronger when they embed change into everyday practices rather than treating it as a series of emergencies.
So what constitutes strong change muscle? From our work with partners across industries, we see four essential areas.
Change starts with people – and that includes you as a leader. Resilience, adaptability, and the capacity for learning are core to navigating disruption. These skills can only flourish when psychological safety is present: When people feel able to ask questions, voice concerns and experiment without fear.
I’ve seen organizations stumble when individuals freeze in the face of uncertainty.
But I’ve also seen partners thrive by investing in their people’s adaptability and creating environments where curiosity is rewarded. Building your organization’s change muscle starts here – with every individual’s ability to flex, learn, and grow.
When change arrives, too many organizations scramble to form ad-hoc teams. It’s reactive, exhausting, and rarely sustainable. Stronger organizations build structures in advance: Cross-functional “change councils” to give feedback on initiatives, networks of change agents, or simple rituals for reflection and iteration. Informal peer-to-peer networks complement top-down efforts, enabling communication and feedback to flow in both directions.
Think of these practices as steady training reps. They weave change into the operating system of your organization, creating learning loops from one transformation to the next. But like any muscle, they need consistent cultivation and investment, so the routines and networks are ready when they’re needed.
How you frame change matters. I’ve seen organizations communicate transformation solely through urgency – the “burning platform” story. Urgency may work once, but not on repeat. Of course urgency has its place, but it can't stand alone.
Organizations that succeed share a narrative of ongoing transformation. This framing not only reduces anxiety, it also recognizes past achievements and highlights small victories along the path forward. One of our partners, for example, regularly presents a timeline of past transformations, implicitly reminding employees that change is not a crisis but a constant.
This shift reframes disruption as part of an ongoing journey. It normalizes adaptation and reduces fatigue by showing people that they’ve succeeded before — and can succeed again.
None of this works without leaders who walk the talk. Employees quickly sense when there’s a gap between what leaders say and how they act. The most effective leaders don’t just align on strategy, they also model the openness, adaptability, and consistency they expect from others. Leaders are, in many ways, the personal trainers of the organization’s change muscle.
The good news is, strengthening your organization’s change muscle doesn’t require a massive program. It starts with consistent practice. And it starts with you!
Ask yourself:
When faced with change, am I lettig my organization to react out of reflex – automatic, short-term, unsustainable? Or am I consciously building the muscle that will help us respond better next time?
How do I model openness, and where might I unintentionally be modeling fatigue?
What small habit could I practice this week to embody the adaptability I want my organization to have?
The more consistently you – and your team – train these ways of working, the stronger your organization’s change muscle becomes. And in a world where change is constant, that strength is what turns fatigue into resilience, and disruption into opportunity.
