“If your company tells you to change, you’ve got two choices,” shares Ashley Goodall, the author of The Problem with Change and Nine Lies About Work, on the Mindvalley Book Club with Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani. “You can be a loser or you can adjust your mindset and be all happy about change.”
But change isn’t always a good thing, as Ashley points out.
In his interview to promote The Problem with Change, he breaks down why endless workplace shake-ups are hurting more than helping—and what leaders should be doing instead.
What’s the problem with change in the workplace?
Sure, change can feel exciting—fresh ideas, new challenges, re-energize repetitive routines, open doors for new roles… But here’s the unpopular opinion: too much change can make your workpeople miserable.
The endless churn of reorganizations, new strategies, leadership shake-ups… “Life in the blender,” as Ashley calls it. Instead of sparking creativity, constant change floods the brain with stress.
Uncertainty? Check. Lack of control? Double-check. The result? Burnout, high blood pressure, and productivity so low it’s practically underground.
If your company tells you to change, you’ve got two choices: you can be a loser, or you can adjust your mindset and be all happy about change.
— Ashley Goodall, author of The Problem with Change
The reality is, Gallup found only 32% of U.S. employees feel fully engaged at work. The rest? Checked out, overwhelmed, or just done. (That’s a whopping 68%.) And this disengagement is estimated to cost the global economy approximately $8.9 trillion (or 9% of global GDP).
“Constant change is making it harder for people to do their jobs,” Ashley explains. Teams spend more time adjusting to the chaos than actually working. And that can lead to “learned helplessness,” where people stop putting in effort because they feel powerless to influence results.
Take Amazon, for example. When the company demanded a full return to the office, it wasn’t exactly an invite employees were thrilled about. People had settled into hybrid work routines that, frankly, worked.
Forcing them back full-time without much input? That’s not change. It’s control dressed up as autocratic leadership, and it left morale in the breakroom trash.
Why stability may be the answer to long-term success, according to Ashley Goodall
Don’t get him wrong: Ashley’s not against change. As a matter of fact, a little change keeps things fresh.
What he’s advocating for is to not have the workplace be “another day in the blender.” Stability gives teams the chance to actually do their jobs—master their roles, build trust, and, you know, get good at working together.
“Long-term planning is people planning,” as Ashley puts it. Research shows that healthy, stable work environments significantly boost employee satisfaction and productivity. And if you want a thriving business 10 years from now, you have to create an environment where people want to stay, not just survive the next reorg.
Look at companies forcing rapid shifts without listening to their people (ahem, Amazon’s recent return-to-office mandate). The result? Disengagement, stress, and talented people quietly updating their résumés for their next career change.
Stability is what makes real innovation possible. When teams feel secure, they’re more likely to take creative risks, think long-term, and deliver impactful work—like launching a bold new project or collaborating on groundbreaking ideas without the fear of constant disruption.
Ashley Goodall’s tips for leaders to create stability in the workplace
If constant change has your people scrambling, it’s time to be honest with yourself and dial it back. Here are a few tips from Ashley to create stability without losing momentum.
1. Stop the endless team reshuffles
You can’t manufacture trust between workpeople. It’s something that comes with knowing each other beyond the job titles… through shared experiences, inside jokes, and weathering the occasional workstorm together. And it’s something that influences your people’s satisfaction and commitment to the company.
“Our experience of work is our experience of a team,” Ashley explains. “And that gets better, the richer the team comes to know itself as time goes by and you sort of learn who these people are, and you learn what they’re like, and you learn about their families and their kids, and you learn who’s the best person to go to for this, this, and this.”
So when teams get rearranged like playlists on shuffle, you’re forcing your people back to square one: figuring out dynamics, building rapport, and playing “who-does-what” all over again.
Ashley’s advice? Stop treating teams like temporary pop-up shops.
Stability allows your people to work from a place of trust, where they get each other’s strengths, quirks, and working rhythms. And when they feel secure in their roles and relationships, they’re way more likely to bring their boldest ideas to the table.
2. Make changes feel coherent
“There is no significance without coherence,” Ashley says. And he’s right.
Change is good, but only when it’s meaningful and logical. But when it feels random or disconnected, employees are left confused and disengaged.
To avoid this chaos, leaders need to weave every new policy or reorganization into a clear, overarching narrative that everyone can follow. Research found that leaders who cultivate a sense of coherence and compassion are better equipped to create environments where employees feel secure, understood, and valued.
Because, truth be told, at the end of the day, employees aren’t just cogs in a machine. They want to understand how their efforts contribute to the bigger picture.
“Your first job as a leader is to maintain coherence in an organization; make sure that people have a reliable sense of what leads to what,” Ashley advises. Explain the why behind each change—provide context, outline the benefits, and show how each change aligns with both individual and company goals.
When employees see that changes are thoughtfully designed and directly beneficial, they’re more likely to embrace them with enthusiasm.
3. Treat employees like humans, not SKUmans
“The organization tends to treat humans, therefore, as interchangeable, defined by a few salient numerical values in a database somewhere,” Ashley points out. It’s what he refers to as an SKU (stock keeping unit), where companies value employees only for their basic attributes (like age, tenure, or salary) rather than their unique talents, personalities, and contributions.
But this mindset only strips away individuality, reducing vibrant people to lifeless entries on a spreadsheet. That’s why Ashley emphasizes the importance of understanding what makes each person tick: “Do you write down what makes them laugh? Do you write down what sort of leader they respond to best?”
The thing is, most companies don’t (teams, yes, but organizations, no). But this is one of those leadership skills that truly separates good managers from great ones. In fact, research shows that employees with supportive supervisors who encourage growth feel more motivated, valued, and satisfied at work.
So when you take the time to understand your people—as humans, not “SKUmans”—you can create environments where employees feel valued and motivated.
Fuel your mind
If The Problem with Change by Ashley Goodall teaches one thing, it’s this: real leadership means taking care of your people.
Because when you stop the constant reshuffling just to please shareholders and focus on treating employees like, well, humans, the results speak for themselves.
Now, if you’re looking for more insights that go beyond corporate clichés, join the Mindvalley Book Club. You’ll get the best personal growth book recommendations sent straight to your inbox—bold ideas, fresh strategies, and leadership wisdom that lasts.
And here’s the exciting part: The Problem with Change is nominated for both the Mindvalley Book of the Year Award and the People’s Choice Award. Want to have your say? Nominate your favorite personal growth book for the awards.
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