Most people think they need a change. What they actually need is a transformation. And there’s a significant difference.
A change is a tweak. A transformation is a questioning of everything: your beliefs, your assumptions, the stories we tell ourselves, until something truer takes its place and you arrive somewhere more expansive than where you started.
Here’s the problem. Most of us reach for the tweak when we need the transformation. And a few years later we’re in the same place, frustrated and feeling like we are in a hamster wheel. Different season. Same problems. It’s like reading a book when you need to rebuild the entire library.
Signs you might need a transformation
How do you know a few tweaks won’t be enough? Here are the signals:
- Deep down, things have not been working for years
- Something is off, has been off for a long time, but you can’t put your finger on it
- Something big has shifted: how you see things, your external environment, your home life, your work life
- Fear over possibilities is drowning out excitement
- You keep making changes, but end up back in the same place
For some of us, transformation is forced. A career shift. An organizational crisis. Something in our personal or family life that suddenly changes everything. That shift might be the thing that finally shifts the trajectory.
What transformation actually looks like
As I often do in my work and in Leading Below the Surface, I’m going to use a personal example to illustrate this. Bear with me, it’s not the context you might expect, but it’s one that’s fresh in my mind.
I was raised very religious.
The places of worship during my childhood wouldn’t let women or girls enter the church unless we were in a dress. Girls weren’t allowed to play outside during service like boys were. We didn’t have those privileges. Being expelled from the church is one of the most defining moments of my life. And my experience isn’t unique.
Fast forward a few decades. I’ve stumbled upon multiple examples of these same communities shifting toward inclusion, love, and relevance.
From the outside looking in, the culture of the churches I grew up in was evolving. People were being welcomed in for the first time. Attendance had been lower. Services felt flat. So the church not only opened its doors, it also started expanding who was welcomed into its community. That’s transformation. Not a rebrand. Not a tweak. A full questioning of everything, including who belongs, why they belong, and what the organization exists to do. I see similar examples in team and departmental coaching. Tweaks won’t work. Leaders need a full transformation that includes a realignment to values and where the organization is today.
Why most people abandon transformations too soon
Real transformation doesn’t feel like progress at first. It feels like loss. You’re questioning things you’d rather leave alone. Beliefs you’ve built your identity around. Ways of operating that got you here, even if they’re no longer serving you.
That’s exactly when most people stop.
Here’s what gets in the way:
Fear. There are four fears that tend to show up most:
- Fear of failure
- Fear of what you might find when you start questioning everything
- Fear that the people around you won’t come with you
- Fear that you’ve waited too long
Any of these sound familiar?
False signs it’s not working.Transformation is slow and nonlinear. There will be moments where things feel worse before they feel better. You might spend more time in the pit than you would expect, but you have to go there in order to get through it.
Comfort in the tweak. Making a small change feels like progress. It quiets the discomfort just enough to keep going without really changing anything. Until a year later when you’re back in the same place wondering why nothing has shifted.
The cost of questioning deeply held beliefs. This is the hardest one. Real transformation asks you to examine things you’ve never examined: assumptions about who you are, what you deserve, how leadership works, what your organization is for. That’s uncomfortable. And, the discomfort around this questioning doesn’t stay contained with just the problem at hand. It often seeps into other areas of your life.
The discomfort is not a sign it’s not working. It’s a sign it is.
The cost of not transforming
There are risks to transformation. It takes time. It requires courage. It asks you to sit in uncertainty longer than feels comfortable.
But those risks don’t outweigh the cost of staying stuck.
When individuals avoid transformation, they keep repeating the same patterns: different jobs, same frustrations. Different relationships, same dynamics. Different strategies, same results.
When organizations avoid transformation, the cost is even higher. The external environment moves faster than the internal one. And by the time people are ready to act, the gap is much harder to close.
The churches in my story didn’t transform because they was ready. They transformed because the cost of not transforming became impossible to ignore.
That’s usually how it works.
Working with leaders and organizations in transformation
If you’re recognizing yourself or your organization in any of this, that’s not a coincidence. The signs are usually there long before we’re ready to name them.
This is the work I do with leaders and organizations at Change Coaches. If you’re ready to have that conversation, let’s connect. You can reach me directly at [email protected] or message me here on LinkedIn.
I’d love to share how we’ve supported leaders and organizations through this work.
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