By Keith Misson, CEO, HBSUK

This week I found myself in two very different conversations about the challenge of change.

One was about implementing a new system. The other was about operational pressures and workload.

On the surface they were completely different discussions. But the issues shared a common root cause.

Both came down to capacity.

Not financial capacity. Not technical capacity.

Human capacity.

And it reminded me of something I’ve seen many times over the years: most change doesn’t fail because people are resistant to it. It struggles because we’re asking people to absorb something new while continuing to carry everything they already have.

The hidden challenge of change

Let’s start with simple premise: most people want things to improve.

They want better systems, simpler processes and fewer frustrations in their working day.

When you’ve done something hundreds or thousands of times before, your brain becomes incredibly efficient. Much of the process happens automatically.

When you introduce something new, the way you think needs to be different.

Every click requires thought. Every step needs checking. Every decision takes more attention than it used to.

That extra effort might seem small in isolation, but it builds quickly when people are also managing meetings, emails, deadlines and day-to-day responsibilities.

Eventually fatigue sets in.

Decision-making slows down. Stress increases. People start looking for shortcuts and, unsurprisingly, the easiest shortcut is often the old way of doing things.

What gets labelled as resistance to change is often something much simpler. Mental overload.

The multitasking myth

I’m as guilty as anyone of convincing myself that I can handle several things at once.

I suspect most of us have told ourselves the same story.

Science suggests otherwise.

What we call multitasking is usually rapid task switching.

We move between emails, Teams messages, reports, meetings and phone calls believing we’re being productive. In reality, our brains are constantly paying the cost of switching our attention, and that cost is literally the energy and chemistry that makes us what we are.

It’s a bit like driving through stop-start traffic. You eventually get where you’re going, but you burn far more energy getting there.

The result is less focus, more mistakes and more mental exhaustion.

Some simple habits can make a genuine difference:

+ Focus on one important task at a time where possible
– We can manage three (roughly) pieces of work in progress
+ Break large pieces of work into manageable chunks
– But don’t try and hold it all in your head, that’s costly, so use a tool like Kanban to manage your work in progress
+ Create clear stopping points before moving on
– Write things down with clear next steps so your brain can ‘leave the task on the paper’

None of these ideas are revolutionary. The challenge is remembering to use them when things get busy.

The leadership lesson

The biggest lesson for me isn’t really about productivity. It’s about recognising that people are human and come with all the real human limits that this entails.

When organisations are delivering transformation, introducing new technology or asking teams to work differently, it’s easy to focus on timelines, milestones and implementation plans.

What’s easier to overlook is the cognitive load we’re placing on the people making that change happen.

I’ve seen some incredibly successful transformation programmes over the years, particularly in healthcare, and they all tend to share a common characteristic.

They don’t just focus on the change.

They create space for people to make the change.

They reduce competing priorities.

They give people time to learn.

They accept that attention is finite.

And they understand that capacity matters just as much as commitment.

In healthcare especially, we ask extraordinary things of people every day. New systems, new pathways, new priorities and growing demand, all while continuing to deliver care and support patients.

That’s why creating space for change is every bit as important as designing the change itself.

One question worth asking

If you’re leading a project, introducing a new tool or trying to improve a process, it might be worth asking a simple question:

What can we stop doing to make room for this?

In my experience, meaningful change rarely fails because people don’t care.

More often, it struggles because we’re asking people to carry too much at once.

Sometimes creating space is more powerful than launching another initiative.

Right, that’s enough cognitive bandwidth for one article.

I’m off to find a coffee and make sure I’m not attempting three things at once.