The Change Tolerance

One of the first variables to measure, as you assess turnaround readiness, is the organization’s change tolerance. In other words, how much change can your organization handle before resistance turns into disengagement or even chaos? It is very much like a rubber band—stretch it too far and it breaks.

Some organizations have a high tolerance and thrive on bold, sweeping transformations. Others have a low threshold, where even minor shifts can trigger disruption. Understanding where your organization stands on this spectrum is crucial. And the most critical element is your people. Consider the following key questions:

Culture

• Are people engaged?
• Are there silos (geographical, functional or otherwise)?
• How political is the organization?
• Is there trust in leadership?
• Does information flow freely throughout?

Most of these questions can be answered by walking the halls and talking to team members. You’ll be positively surprised at what people share with you if you take the time and interest.

People

• Do we have the right skills and capabilities?
• What is the talent pool looking like and can we lean on it more?
• How fatigued—or fed-up—are people?

Sit down with your HR team and function heads to explore these questions. If needed, augment your learnings with interviews with your leadership team’s direct reports.

Leadership

• Do you have the right skills and capabilities on the team?
• Is the team cohesive?
• Is there trust and healthy conflict, or only artificial harmony?
• Is there buy-in to your plans?

Beyond your own observations, I recommend seeking an objective, coach-led assessment—especially if you suspect lack of trust in the team, as people will hide their true colors in this setting. (If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading “The 5 Dysfunctions of A Team“ by Patrick Lencioni. It’s been my go-to model, and has worked wonders with every team I’ve led.)

Building Change Tolerance

Getting a well-informed reading on your people and leadership team should be a top priority. Remember, people challenges are often the most difficult and resource-intensive to address. They are also the most impactful to the rest of the organization, and have the potential of completely derailing your turnaround plans.

Once you’ve assessed the change tolerance, ask yourself whether it aligns with the level of change your turnaround requires. If the answer is yes—great (consider yourself lucky!) But more often than not tolerance will be too low. If that is the case, then you have a bigger, more immediate challenge to tackle: increasing the change tolerance.

Increasing tolerance isn’t done overnight. It requires intentional trust building—especially true if you’ve been parachuted into the organization from the outside. Since trust is built slowly, by delivering on promises, small wins matter even more and can help you build early momentum. This will demonstrate that change is both manageable and doable, and will ultimately allow you to stretch the change tolerance further.

Finally, always stretch carefully. Continuously assess the tension with your team, and work to increase the organization’s capacity and resilience to change. Over time, culture will become more adaptive and capable of handling larger more transformative changes.

Cranking up the change tolerance is an ongoing task. As the saying goes, change is the only constant, and this has never been truer than in today’s fast-paced world. Keep challenging the organization to achieve more—but ensure you’re doing so on the right foundation.