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6

Part One · Build Trust

Continuity During Change

Change fatigue is more about the instability of meaning than the volume of change

In brief

Change fatigue comes from the instability of meaning more than the volume of change. The chapter explains the three causes of narrative instability and how cadence, personal presence and clearly stated constants keep meaning stable when circumstances are not.

What the chapter covers

  • Change Fatigue Is a Communication Problem
  • The Three Causes of Narrative Instability
  • What Stability of Meaning Requires
  • Cadence as Trust Infrastructure
  • Showing Up Personally
  • What Claudia Did Next

People burn out from repeatedly committing to changes that turn out not to have been real.

Questions for your team

  1. How does our current change connect to what came before? Could each of us explain it?
  2. What will not change? Have we said so out loud?
  3. Where have past initiatives been announced and then quietly dropped?
  4. How will we hear what people think, not only what they are willing to say formally?

Field Guide Tool #6

The Change Cadence Planner

Structures the communication architecture for a significant change: narrative stability assessment, the three-cause risk diagnostic, the cadence design, the constants inventory, and a monthly review template.

Best used before any major change is announced.

Reading as a team?

This chapter is part of Session 2 of the Team Reading Guide.