Have you noticed how even well-planned organizational changes can leave teams feeling scattered, resistant, or quietly overwhelmed? Our research with more than 1,000 workplaces has found that ‘poor change management’ is consistently the most frequent cause of burnout in workplaces right now.

The problem isn’t a lack of project plans. Organizations have those in abundance. The gap is neurological. Too much focus on timelines and deliverables while overlooking what uncertainty does to people’s brains.

The HEART of Neurologically-Informed Change

Based on our work with thousands of teams, we’ve identified five neurological necessities for navigating change successfully. We call them HEART: Honor feelings, Engage purposefully, Appreciate strengths, Reach out, and Take tiny steps.

The impact is measurable. Teams with high collective HEART capabilities achieve 71% change success rates compared to 56% for teams with low HEART capabilities. When teams use these approaches, on average teams report a 17% reduction in how frequently they experience ‘poor change management’, lowering the risks of burnout.

What do they do differently?

**Honor Feelings. **People often spend enormous energy trying to keep their feelings about change under wraps. Fear about job security. Anger about what’s being taken away. Overwhelm about the pace. But when we don’t make space for these emotions, people’s brains interpret the need to silence themselves as a threat signal, thinking slows down, creativity shuts down, and trust dries up. But when we make space to acknowledge difficult emotions, you can create the psychological safety people need to embrace complex changes together.

Try to get curious. When team interactions become difficult, pause and ask: “What else might be happening for this person?” Transform your assumptions into genuine curiosity about their experience. When struggle is met with curiosity and generosity, uncomfortable emotions strengthen bonds instead of breaking them.

**Engage Purposefully. **Too often, change feels like something being done to people rather than with them. Emails replace conversations. Plans arrive fully formed. Efficiency trumps engagement. When change arrives without consultation, people’s brains struggle to find personal relevance and questions multiply, uncertainty spreads and hope falters. In contrast, when people are engaged in meaningful conversations to design solutions — shaping the why, the what, and the how — together, people start finding resources, prioritizing actions, and taking responsibility for achieving the shared outcomes they want.

Try to invite self-organization. Ask: “What are people energized to tackle together? Who wants to own this challenge?” Let your team self-organize around what matters most rather than imposing structures that drain their momentum.

**Appreciate Strengths. **When teams hit obstacles, the reflex is to dissect failures. “What went wrong?” “Who dropped the ball?” “Where are the gaps?” This deficit hunting causes confidence to erode and capabilities to be overlooked as everyone burns precious energy on damage control. But when we can align what people are good at with what needs to happen, they enter that state of flow — they’re “in the zone” — where change becomes energizing instead of exhausting. They learn to dial up their strengths when they’re hesitating and dial them back when they’re overwhelming others or burning themselves out. Work stops feeling like something to endure and becomes something that sustains them.

Try to have a strengths check. During weekly check-ins, ask: “What did you enjoy working on? What are you looking forward to? What support do you need to develop your strengths?” Connect strengths to energy and engagement.

**Reach Out. **People tend to go to great lengths to hide their struggles. They avoid asking questions that reveal gaps in their knowledge. They refuse to ask for help in case others think they can’t cope. And, they pretend they have everything under control while quietly falling apart inside as problems multiply, knowledge is hoarded and relationships fracture. But here’s what people miss: none of us have it all figured out. When teams normalize asking for help, something powerful happens: shared struggle replaces individual failure. Each request, whether answered or not, builds trust by saying “I value what you know.” Once people see asking for help as learning together rather than failing alone, it transforms uncertainty from a threat into a catalyst for collective growth.

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Try to hold help huddles. Run 10-minute stand-up meetings where team members share what they’re working on and one task they’d like help with. Make asking for help a regular team ritual.

**Take Tiny Steps. **When change feels complex, our brains crave control. Detailed deliverables. Clear deadlines. Guaranteed results. But when our roadmaps collide with reality, even the best laid plans can quickly fall apart as uncertainty flares, frustrations fester, and actions falter. The truth is that complex changes have too many moving parts to predict reliably. Even the best forecasting tools cannot map every ripple effect in advance. This is why tiny steps beat grand plans — they let us test and learn as we go.

Try to ritualize reflection. Create “learning lab” sessions where teams share what’s working, where they’re struggling, what they’re learning, and what they want to try next. Use insights to adapt strategies and treat setbacks as learning opportunities.

Where Will You Start?

Change isn’t going to slow down. But we can get better at navigating it by understanding what our brains need to feel ‘safe enough’ to engage with uncertainty. The HEART framework provides practical ways to help teams access the connection, creativity, and collaboration that complex change requires.

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