19 AUGUST 2026
The Hardest Change to Manage Is the One We Need to Make Ourselves
One could argue that the biggest barrier to growth is a lack of talent or ability. In my view, it is comfort.
We become comfortable with our job, our role, our routines and our circumstances. And then something interesting happens:
The world changes, but we don't. We stay in the job that stopped challenging us. We remain in an organisation whose future looks increasingly uncertain. We tolerate a manager who is holding us back. We continue doing work where we know we are no longer adding the value we once did. And we become remarkably good at explaining why staying is the rational decision.
- "The market isn't good right now."
- "I'll move when the right opportunity comes."
- "I've already invested too many years here."
- "Things might improve."
- "It's too risky."
Some of these reasons are legitimate. But sometimes, fear simply learns to speak the language of rationality.
Research on status quo bias has shown that people have a strong tendency to prefer maintaining existing circumstances, even when alternatives are available. That's why the risk of change often feels greater than the risk of staying. Leaving a stagnant job creates uncertainty. But staying may quietly cost us years of learning, growth and opportunity.
And this isn't just a personal problem. Organisations behave in much the same way. A company finds something that works. It builds processes around it. It rewards people for following those processes. Eventually, yesterday's success becomes today's comfort zone. Then the market changes. Technology changes. Customers change. Competitors change. But the organisation keeps doing what made it successful yesterday. Until yesterday's strengths become today's weaknesses.
Research on career adaptability offers another interesting perspective. A meta-analysis of 90 studies found that career adaptability is associated with outcomes including career planning, exploration, employability, performance, income and life satisfaction.
Perhaps successful people don't necessarily have better plans. Perhaps they are simply better at adapting their plans when reality changes. They have a direction, but they don't become emotionally attached to one particular route.
They try. They fail. They learn. They pivot. They try again. From the outside, their journey may look like a carefully designed career. From the inside, it probably looked much messier.
This is why I believe change management is not just an organisational discipline. It is a life skill. It doesn't mean constantly changing jobs or abandoning everything familiar. It means knowing when to stay, when to learn, when to experiment and when to pivot.
Have a destination. Don't become attached to the route.
So perhaps the questions we should ask ourselves are,
- Is my comfort helping me grow, or helping me avoid growth?
- What could I lose by refusing to change?
Because growth rarely comes without uncertainty. Not every risk will pay off. Not every change will work. Not every pivot will lead somewhere better. Failure is inevitable. But so is change. The real choice is whether we manage it deliberately, or allow circumstances to manage it for us.
Perhaps the most important form of change management isn't the one we practise inside our organisations. It is the one we practise on ourselves.
Research: Samuelson & Zeckhauser, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty (1988); Rudolph, Lavigne & Zacher, Journal of Vocational Behavior (2017); McLaren et al., Journal of Organizational Change Management (2025).