Right now, I should be writing for my clients. Instead, I am thinking.
Leaders are managing ungovernable change at a time when their employees are increasingly skeptical of their efforts: 79% of the 2,900 global employees surveyed by Gartner in April 2025 don’t trust their organization’s ability to change effectively. The majority believe that their organization has made poor change decisions in the past and are unlikely to be successful in the future.
~ HBR, “Why Keeping Up with Change Feels Harder Than Ever”
This HBR article popped up in my LinkedIn feed as I was preparing to start my day. Three years ago, I acquired a client in the change management space, and I’ve since been getting a crash course in corporate change. Three years before that, I had a client in functional programming, bestowing a precious awareness of how corporate tech and change overlap. My brain won’t shut up about it, and I’m starting to think I’m going crazy.
[Insert “why is it always thinking” meme here.]
I’m not surprised by Gartner’s stats. No one should be. Anyone who has worked a job or consumed a news article or been unemployed or gone online in the last 6–7 years understands that the working world is currently FUBAR. We’ve been forced to adapt to COVID, AI, an unstable political environment, and the constant churn-and-burn of companies thinking they can secure longevity on myopic, knee-jerk decisions. Everybody is tired.
But that’s not why my cognitive wheels are smoking. Instead, I’m thinking about the solution proposed in the article: mainly, routinizing change. The writers suggest that corporate leaders should create environments in which constant change is expected and equip employees with the skills to respond without—as the kids say—crashing out.
My bullsh*t detector is shrieking, y’all.
Teaching continuous adaptation sounds great in theory.
The question is, is it possible?
For starters, you need people who can effectively impart these skills. Make no mistake, these are advanced emotional and behavioral skills. You are conditioning workers out of their evolutionary physiology to navigate artificially complex and disruptive environments. This is the kind of occupational therapy that most people aren’t equipped to absorb, let alone guide.
Second, can the human mind even adapt to perpetual novelty? Cognitive Load Theory says it’s unlikely. Humans are naturally wired to operate on predictable patterns and systems. We continually reach for shortcuts and rules of thumb to reduce cognitive strain and increase efficiency.
What happens when these familiar supports disappear?
What, if anything, replaces them?
Not to mention that the corporate structure itself, not just the people in it, must also continually shift. Yikes.
Enter the cost of endless change: MVU
This brings me to an adaptation I’ve witnessed in the working world, which I call Minimally Viable Utilization. This is where companies implement software to solve sticky operational issues or boost productivity. Employees adopt the software and use it almost daily, but only at its most basic functionality to execute core tasks. The software’s higher-level features, which would presumably grant even greater productivity and innovation, go untouched—because employees are incentivized for speed, not depth.
Excel, one of the most powerful digital tools ever built, is an excellent example. With Excel, you can build highly sophisticated calculators using simple mathematical formulas—including invoices that instantly calculate line items, sales tax, and totals. You can use it to identify and extract duplicated data across thousands of rows. You can use V-lookups to compare and merge tables. Heck, artists even use it to create sewing patterns and digital paintings.
But do most people tap that level of functionality? No.
Instead, they compile lists. I’ve been guilty, too.
What I want to know is, how many software products have been bought and sold since 1985 to surface the functionality that Excel already possesses?
(Don’t get me started on all the project management tools that have devolved into pricey to-do lists, whole CRMs employed as digital rolodexes, and knowledge repositories with five versions of every file in different states of revision.)
How much is it really costing?
IT folks talk about “shelfware,” the software that’s purchased but never implemented. MVU is about companies acquiring increasingly sophisticated software subscriptions that end up functioning as single-task apps for employees. If everything is constantly in flux and the next cutting-edge “solution” awaits just around the corner, then it makes perfect sense for employees to spend their cognitive energy on, well, anything but mastery. And then the tools pile up as executives believe the next transformation will be the one to cure their company’s ills…
…when the medicine might just be worsening the illness.
Which begs the bigger question: Is all this rapid, ungovernable change really occurring outside of human control? Or is it something we’re doing to ourselves?
And can we do something better instead?
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