There’s something fitting about the Year of the Horse arriving now.
In Chinese astrology, the horse symbolises energy, momentum and bold action. It represents the explorers – those who don’t simply follow the path laid before them but forge one of their own.
And if there was ever a year that required more explorers, it’s this one.
As I shared in my last blog, we’re not heading toward a calmer, more predictable normal this year. Change isn’t slowing down, it’s accelerating. It will come in waves – big ones. And we need to be intentional about how we ride them, rather than letting them simply crash over us.
This year will reward the decisive, the courageous, and the proactive.
As the eternal optimist (more Anna than Polly), I am always looking for the opportunity within disruption. Experience has shown us that through setbacks and uncertainty, we don’t just survive, we evolve.
But before we can even explore the opportunity, we need to talk about something else.
Loss.
The Uncomfortable Truth about Change
Our external environment isn’t being very subtle right now. Everywhere we look, headlines are screaming:
“Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months for all white collar work to be automated by AI”
“39% of Worker Skills to Become Obsolete by 2030, World Economic Forum Warns”
“Godfather of AI WARNS: Everything Changes By 2027″
The message is clear. Change is not hypothetical, it’s here. So why are we so slow on the uptake? Why do people and entire organisations seem stuck? Even in the AI arms race, most of us are yet to realise any tangible gains (according to McKinsey).
And that’s telling, because in many ways, humans are good at change. We are naturally adaptive and evolution is proof of that.
But psychologically, change is hard. When change appears, especially rapid, structural change, our brain does not interpret it as opportunity first. It interprets it as threat.
And what happens is that the amygdala, our brain’s threat detector, lights up. Stress hormones are released. Fight, flight or freeze kicks in, and our rational thinking narrows. And when we’re operating from protection mode, we don’t scan for gain, we scan for loss.
So, we’re not afraid of the change itself, we’re afraid of what it might take from us:
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Status
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Identity
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Familiarity
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Competence
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Control
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Belonging.
And that’s the real friction.
The Conversation We’re Avoiding
Here’s what surprises me most.
Despite the headlines, in Workshops and Keynotes, when I explore these shifts – AI, evolving roles, changing expectations, redefined skillsets – there is often a pause in the room…
It’s not resistance but a recognition. You can almost see it – the quiet recalculation happening behind people’s eyes. The dawning awareness that what we’ve always known… What we’ve built our competence around… What has made us valuable… Might be shifting.
And that’s confronting. Because now the conversation is no longer about technology. It’s about identity. Yet in most organisations, that potential loss goes unnamed.
So we’re asking people to experiment, innovate and adopt new tools, whilst they’re wondering:
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Will my expertise still matter?
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Will my role still exist?
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Will I still be valued here?
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Where do I fit in with what’s coming?
And then we wonder why adoption is slow.
You see, you can’t ask someone to embrace a new future when they are grieving the present.
So What Do We Do?
We need to start understanding deeper. Instead of asking “How do we get our people to change faster?” We should be asking “How do we build the capacity for change?”
That means strengthening:
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Emotional capacity – to tolerate discomfort
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Cognitive capacity – to think differently
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Identity capacity – to evolve safely
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Energy capacity – to avoid survival mode.
But before any of that, it starts with something far simpler. A conversation. One that asks: What might we be losing?
Change doesn’t fail because we lack ambition. It fails because we underestimate human psychology.
If this year is about intentional change, then let’s stop pushing harder and start understanding deeper. Name the loss.
Before selling the future, acknowledge what feels uncertain or threatened. Change will be uncomfortable, and perhaps the first step of that is having an uncomfortable conversation.
Because loss is about endings. And endings require acknowledgement.
If we don’t reconcile with what we’ve lost – the old system, the old certainty, the old identity – we unconsciously resist what’s next.
So, before you gallop toward what’s possible, have you reconciled the loss?
