Could this be the ultimate stress buster?

There are a lot of proposed remedies for managing life’s stressors. You may have tried some of them – with varying degrees of success. Even if you have a high stress tolerance, most leaders have reported feeling an inordinate amount of stress in today’s business climate. I would like to propose something that de-escalates the natural stress responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn*: bringing a sense of curiosity.

Sound too simple? Let me share how I’ve seen it work.

Navigating Change

Yesterday during a client workshop on accountability, one participant spoke of her team’s resistance to change and wanted to know how to cultivate buy-in for the new expectations. Instead of starting with selling all the benefits of the upcoming change, we slowed the conversation down and examined what might be her team’s discomfort and fears related to the change. 

Curiosity can unearth the obstacles unique to the person struggling. It can help us shape the conversation in terms that address the root cause of resistance, rather than jumping into all the reasons the change is beneficial. It provides leaders with clarity about their teams’ challenges so they can meet them where they are to guide them through what is new and different. Curiosity in this context – especially when blended with validation and empathy – demonstrates respect for a team member’s journey.

One can simultaneously hold space for what is difficult while co-creating a path that moves someone beyond resistance. In other words, remaining curious optimizes the capacity to better navigate change. 

Fostering a Spirit of Collaboration

A conversation that embodies curiosity can illuminate potential roadblocks and begin a new kind of dialogue – one that invites real collaboration. When you enter the exchange with an openness, with mutual respect, and with the extension of trust, you shift the dynamics. In this collaborative, generative approach, you are building buy-in and capacity.

Curiosity vs. The Imposter Syndrome

The phenomenon of experiencing feeling like an imposter strikes nearly everyone. We can get triggered by not having advanced education or certifications, being new to leadership, or lacking confidence in a particular situation or skill set. You might think “Who am I to be doing x, y, z?!” (and rarely said in a curious sort of way – more likely a critical, fear-based question one’s value and worth).

If, however, we choose to be curious about the emotions that flared, we can move through them with self-compassion rather than defensiveness, rejection, fear, or shame. Feeling self-conscious about a skill level is normal. Staying in a place of hurt or insecurity can be diminishing and we can get stuck, often cloaked in our protective armor.

For example, if you feel vulnerable about a skill set, you can conduct an honest evaluation of where you are strong and where you would like to grow. That evaluation can include obtaining feedback from others. Then, you can create a game plan to elevate your skills and confidence in that area of your craft.

When you are on the edge of your comfort zone, what is the conversation in your head? If you default to being self-critical, you’ve forgotten to stay curious!

When you know your value, you know – and can tap into - your power. This kind of self-trust comes from healthy curiosity-inspired introspection.

Elevating Others

Similar to helping a team member through a change initiative, curiosity from a manager can expedite an employee’s learning. I have coached many managers who find themselves frustrated at their employees’ pace of grasping – and being effective – in their roles. Most managers default to “show and tell”. Telling the employees what they need to do or know, maybe even offering valuable context of what and why. Yet, few seize the moment to ask the kind of questions that illuminate what an employee is truly understanding and what is still unclear, and what the employee is ultimately motivated by.

The art of asking good questions

A natural part of being curious is asking open-ended questions and listening with an open mind.

• What was it about the old way that you liked?

• How do you think we should roll this out?

• What do you think are the risks?

• What would make this initiative successful?

• What are you excited about achieving this quarter?

I have long been a proponent of embracing the spirit of curiosity. It opens the doors of discovery – for innovation, learning, and growth. It fuels problem-solving by expanding one’s current thinking, making room for greater creativity and fueling imagination. I’ve even used the word to describe my own communication style. (In fact, when I am climbing and I come upon a particularly challenging sequence of moves, I find myself saying, “That’s interesting”. It keeps me curious rather than stressed and fearful!). By championing curiosity, the ego is diminished to make space for the fun of exploration. 

Embracing this kind of growth mindset can allow us to release the stressors of the need to be right in the moment, to be ridged in our thinking, and to let go of our need to control.

Albert Einstein famously stated, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” He is also credited with saying, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.”  Curiosity is a driving force for deepening our understanding and for reframing – and reducing - our stress.

How will you cultivate curiosity?

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* Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are natural stress responses that occur when we perceive a threat. They help us react to danger: fighting involves confronting the threat, fleeing means escaping, freezing is becoming immobile, and fawning is trying to please others to avoid conflict. [WebMD]

Make Space for the Case - Manage for the Results

I first heard that business idiom, “Make space for the case, Manage for the results”, while working at a creative marketing agency a few decades ago. It came from a boss who had a business coach guiding him on how to get results out of his staff. At first glance, I thought it was simply a way to placate an employee while pushing a corporate agenda. Hence, I was slow to adopt the practice. It felt manipulative and insincere.

Fast forward, and a deeper dive into the philosophy and its nuances, and I have embraced it. I see how it has the potential to generate a more informed and reasoned approach. It suggests a focus on understanding the context and evidence behind decisions, rather than just outcomes.

When we are strictly focused on outcomes and pushing our agenda, we fail to bring others along and we fail to see the validity of their concerns. On the other hand, when we get mired down in all the reasons why something can’t be done, we can start believing them.

Making space for the case.

What does this mean? And what does it look like in practice?

Creating space to truly listen to a team member’s perspective – their concerns, reasons, frustrations, and even resistance, is a valuable discovery process. They bring a unique viewpoint that might astutely inform your decision and its ultimate rollout. Let’s face it, whether you are officially in sales or not, you need to enroll others in decisions, changes, and initiatives for them to bear fruit.

You want to create the kind of culture where people can respectfully contribute their opinion, especially if it is dissenting. They might just help you mitigate a risk you didn’t anticipate. If it fosters a robust dialogue, then you can have increased confidence in an idea being better vetted.

If your decision or approach shifts as a result of their willingness to chime in, then they will know their voice matters. Even if you do not change course, but acknowledge their position, you have demonstrated respect by hearing them out. Either way, you are creating space – and an expectation - to collaborate.

Being willing to invite the opinion of naysayers into a constructive conversation takes some skill. First, you want to genuinely hear what they have to say. Second, you want to listen for what they are not saying. You likely will need to ask follow up questions – preferably open-ended – to get to a shared and meaningful understanding of the situation. What discomfort or fear do they have? What obstacles do they name that you might be instrumental in helping them remove? By naming the true resistance we get to the heart of the matter, and we don’t need to get caught up in the swirl of drama – excuses, finger pointing, blaming, and victimhood.

You can validate (make space for the case), without giving up on the desired results.

Validating is recognizing and affirming a person and their feelings and opinions as valid or worthy. Invalidating is when we deny, reject, or dismiss someone’s feelings, thereby sending the message that their subjective emotional experience is somehow inaccurate, insignificant or unacceptable.

Validating is NOT agreeing with someone. It is not placating, coddling, or manipulating. It is slowing down the conversation enough to hold space for another’s reality, without judgment.

In a coaching session today, a client and I were navigating the issue of her direct report’s tendencies to slip into commiserating with his team instead of guiding them to a collaborative solution. In the direct report’s desire to be helpful, he is unintentionally sabotaging the change the organization is trying to implement. My client shared that her direct report, “allows the conversation to sit in the negative for too long. He needs to learn how to shift it into a collaboration.”  He would benefit from the art of making space for the case, while managing for the results.

What results are you seeking? And why do they matter?

Having clear goals and focused priorities can be an aligning tool for a team. They help people focus their limited resources and understand what is expected of them.

Results with Context. If you can explain the desired results in the context of why it matters and how it will benefit the various stakeholders, you’ll likely have more impact. “Because I said so” might (sometimes) work with kids, but not an ideal approach with professionals!

Shepherding Change. If the results you want, for example, involve creating more efficiencies in your operations, or improving quality of work, you are asking people to do things differently. Behavioral change can take time to shift. It can feel awkward, even threating. People can be concerned about their continued value and worth. One can acknowledge the discomfort of change without changing the action needed to be taken.

Create a road map. Any decision or initiative that you are committed to advancing will benefit from a clear plan of action. If that road map speaks to what will change and how team members will be a part of that change – it will increase the organization’s capacity to drive the results it needs to thrive. It can also mitigate the fears because it anchors the conceptual into the tangible. Suddenly, what was impossible, is happening.

As a leader, your ability to make space for the case is an expression of care. And to manifest your vision, you may need to guide people past their self-limiting beliefs and their undeveloped skills in enrolling others in change.

Bringing others along takes patience and persistence, but the cultural shifts that come with it will bolster your organization’s capacity to navigate change and growth.

“Make space for the case ~ Manage for the results” can be change the entire conversation into one that is collaborative, constructive, and actionable. 

Change is Not the Enemy

Let’s talk about change.

Not the strategic roadmap version of it, or the sanitized bullet points in a PowerPoint deck. I mean real, messy, uncomfortable change—the kind that stirs up feelings, disrupts routines, and makes people clutch their coffee cups a little tighter in morning meetings.

Here’s the thing: we all know change is constant. And yet, when it shows up—a new system launches, a reorg is announced, or the “way we’ve always done it” is up for debate—our gut reaction is often to resist.

Why is that?

At the heart of our discomfort is the feeling of not being in control. (Any other “control enthusiasts” out there?!). Even if we didn’t love the old way, at least we understood it – and our place in it. The predictability brought comfort. Change, on the other hand, forces us into unknown territory—and that triggers fear, loss, and sometimes a sneaky little emotion we rarely admit in the workplace: grief.

Grief? Yes. Grief over a role in which we once had more clarity. Grief over lost status. Grief over norms that suddenly vanish in the name of “efficiency.”

Even welcomed changes can be stressful. The uncertainty combined with real or perceived risks can be daunting. It is natural to experience resistance – often in the forms of avoidance, worry, delayed decision-making, and giving into negativity biases. We may hunger for such absolute reassurance of choosing the “right” path that it puts us into an analysis paralysis.

Left unchecked, resistance can lead to frustration, communication breakdowns, credibility issues, relationship struggles, energy suck, and stagnation.

But here’s the opportunity: what if, instead of reacting from fear, we responded with curiosity?

This is where becoming a change agent comes in. Not necessarily in title, but in mindset. Change agents don’t wait to be convinced—they get curious. They ask questions like: “What’s possible now that wasn’t before?” or “What do we want to create together?”

Being a change agent doesn’t mean pretending change is easy. It means acknowledging the discomfort and choosing to engage anyway. It means advocating for context, compassion, and communication—because people don’t resist change as much as they resist being changed without their input.

Leaders with a healthy relationship to change find they can make better and more timely decisions, have a bias for action, and know how to inspire others. They also can identify when it is time to shift gears (neither too soon or too slowly), with an understanding of when their team’s groove has gone into autopilot and morphed into a rut of inertia.

You may not consider yourself an agent of change, but if you are a leader, you set the tone. If you tend to be cautious around change, be transparent about your assessment of a situation and invite others to make their case. If you tend to make change too rapidly – or fail to bring your team along – you could benefit from slowing down and providing the business case so that you don’t fall victim to, “ready, fire, aim”.

Change leadership means creating clarity, reducing fear, and empowering action.

Leaders who embrace change as a natural phenomenon create a culture of initiative-taking, possibility thinking, problem-solving, and innovation. This is not change for the sake of change but change with purpose – aligned with the organization’s vision and goals, designed to grow the next generation of leaders, and tuned into the evolution of the industry and shifts in the market.

So how do you build this kind of mindset?

In my resiliency workshops, we talk a lot about adopting a growth mindset as a way to navigate new situations, challenges, or life’s curve balls.

Notice your own resistance. What is it trying to protect? Then move to empathy – for yourself and others. Your coworkers aren’t being “difficult”—they’re navigating uncertainty just like you. Listen more. Validate concerns. Create space for people to process.

Take action. Even small moves matter. Be the person who translates ambiguity into enthusiasm. Offer solutions. Connect dots. Celebrate wins, even the tiny ones. And when things go sideways—and they will—lead with honesty and accountability, not spin.

Making the Case for Change

In Jim Collins’ book, “Good to Great”, he argues that the problem with “good companies” is that they get complacent. Done thoughtfully, change can give you a competitive advantage and revive lethargic cultures. It can propel teams away from tolerating mediocracy and light a fire for growth. Done poorly, and it can simply be disruptive and chaotic. Think, “squirrel” or “flavor of the month”. The common response I hear from long-term employees in these workplaces? They choose to take no action and tell newcomers, “this too shall pass”.

Building trust during times of change is one of the most critical responsibilities of a leader. An effective way to do that is to be transparent, sit with the messiness of it, model adaptability, and rally others forward.

Because here’s the truth: change is rarely a solo sport. It’s collective. Cultural. Cumulative. The more we embrace that, the more resilient, creative, and aligned our organizations become.

How do you do change?

Whatever your relationship is to change – resist it, embrace it, begrudgingly accept it, or actively seek it out – it is an inevitable force in our workplaces.

Most people have a complex relationship to change. We can desire it while actively resisting it.  We can energetically seek it out only to not be satisfied with it once we get it – feeling perpetually restless. We may avoid it unconsciously with statements like, “we’ve tried that before” or “nothing’s going to change”. Perhaps you are totally comfortable with the idea others changing!

So, let’s reframe our relationship to change. It’s not just something to endure—it’s something to shape.

And maybe—just maybe— change is not the enemy; it is merely an invitation to evolve.

What change are you ready to champion?

New Paths, Old Resistance

How to keep things right-side up during times of transition.

By Karen Natzel, Business Therapist, K Communications

Let’s face it. Change can be messy. Chaotic. Uncertain. It can also be invigorating and full of possibilities. Change can lead to growth, if we choose to lean into – rather than resist - it.  If we can learn to be fluid, open, and curious to the change we are facing, we can move through the discomfort and into its potential benefits.

Big organizational change typically falls into three buckets: shift in strategy or priorities, change of people / positions, and a redesign of how work gets done. Any one of these can be overwhelming, but often organizations experience change in each of these categories simultaneously. Whatever the change, implementing a few best practices can make it less arduous and more impactful.

Shift in Strategy/Priorities

If external or internal forces require your organization to move in a new direction or to reprioritize your resources, learning how to tell the story of what and why is essential. When you can clearly paint a picture of the reason these changes are in motion, you shorten the adoption of the change and soften the disappointment if a beloved project is being shelved.

When you can explain the changes in context of your team members’ roles and motivators, you make it relevant and compelling, giving them a reason to give the new ideas or initiatives a try. Without a strong story that captures what is in it for them, it can sound like noise and feel like a burden. To lead your team through this chapter, you will need to understand what they truly care about and help them see how they can contribute to the new direction or focus.

Poor implementation of strategy is often a result of a failure to acknowledge natural resistance to change and a missed opportunity to generate engaged buy-in. When you empathize with the struggle and create space for them to shape the outcomes, you’ll generally find you can get better traction.

 Share your vision. Give people something to which they can say an enthusiastic, “Yes!”.

Change of People/Positions

You may have heard the adage, “Right person in the right role”. The wisdom behind this is about leveraging strengths, passions, experience, and ambitions. To set someone up for success in a new role, co-create goals for the first 90-days, 6-months, and year. When those goals are aligned with the organization’s purpose and are in service to a meaningful contribution, you have a winning formula.

New roles, shifts in responsibilities, new colleague relationships, and new authority all mark the experience of a leader’s journey. As one new leader recently confessed, “It’s surprisingly lonely in this role.” It can be daunting to step into a new position. One of the most common laments I hear during times of change is a lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities. This can be befuddling to senior leaders who feel like they have laid out the role and want the new leader to step up and own it.

 Accepting a lack of clarity as a natural condition of leading can foster a healthy bias for action. Rather than waiting for clarity to strike, great leaders take what they see as the next best possible action. Grant yourself – and your team – the permission needed to evolve.

Operational Redesign

At some point, how you’ve always done things will not serve how you need to do things now. By right-sizing your operations with the appropriate workflows and processes, you create a necessary framework for people to understand how work gets done. A process with clear handoffs helps illustrate what people need to do in their respective roles to deliver great work – and it shows the interdependence of cross-functional teams. Effective processes are not patchworked together but also not over-engineered.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

There’s a reason my mantra is “Have the conversation”. Transition breeds confusion. People feel uprooted. Trust can be in jeopardy. A commitment to communicating – keeping people informed and in the loop, engaging in brainstorming sessions, and checking for understanding brings people together.

Leaders, having been privy to the change for a much longer period, often forget to recalibrate to where their people are. Slowing down to roll out the change with some intentionality can help people feel valued and respected. After all, implementation is in the hands of the people!

Leading change isn’t just about presenting a new direction, opportunity, or operational restructuring. It’s about listening to what isn’t working and finding ways to remove the obstacles. It’s about articulating clear expectations and offering supportive guidance. People need feedback – and this is especially true in the face of uncertainty and in the space of new habit formation. By giving specific, real-time positive and constructive feedback, you are reinforcing your expectations while helping them manifest the desired change, one attitude and one behavior at a time.  

As you step into the role of change agent, consider:

• What problem(s) are you trying to solve with the proposed change?

• What are the priorities? Too many or a lack of clarity will torpedo your efforts.

• What are the impacts you are seeking? When you see any proof of progress, acknowledge and celebrate it.

• How aligned is your leadership team? Beating the same drum and in plain speak can aid in advancing the cause.

• How will you be a resource to your team? Hold space for real conversations.

When we move with change, we may find creativity-infused thinking that ignites a fresh perspective. If we move along with the status quo, insisting things are “fine”, we will stagnate.

Leaders who stay grounded in a compelling and shared purpose, and demonstrate a commitment to creating meaningful value, will be better positioned to navigate the sea of change.

Go ahead, experiment, say yes to evolving your organization to what’s next. You don’t need permission to start making a difference.