Same Words, Different Worlds: Why Alignment Starts With Language

In our house, we have a code word that has survived nearly 35 years of marriage. Chicken pill. Yes, chicken pill. It started in the early days of our marriage, when my husband and I were juggling professional responsibilities, family life, and all the decisions that come with being adults. Some evenings, one of us would ask the seemingly innocent question: "What do you want for dinner?" And sometimes, that was one decision too many. We didn't want to consider options, check ingredients, or debate what sounded good. We just wanted someone to hand us a pill with all the necessary nourishment and call it good. The code word stuck. Today, it means, "I've made all the decisions I have in me." I suspect many of us understand that feeling. We're navigating rising costs, changing technology, shifting workplace expectations, and preparing for the holidays. Add family responsibilities, caregiving, community commitments, and everyday life, and it's easy to see how the mental load accumulates. And through it all, life keeps asking us to make decisions whether we have the energy for one more or not. The Decisions We Don't Count As an organizational psychologist, I've spent more than 30 years working with leaders navigating difficult choices. But decision fatigue isn't reserved for senior leaders. It affects parents, teachers, healthcare workers, small business owners, frontline employees, volunteers, and anyone managing competing responsibilities. When we think about leadership decisions, we often focus on the big ones. Strategic choices. Personnel issues. Financial commitments. Difficult conversations. Decisions that have consequences for other people. But those aren't the only decisions consuming our attention. There are hundreds of smaller ones. Do I respond to this email now or later? Is this something I should handle or delegate? Does this situation need my involvement? Should I address this issue today or give it another day? Do we have enough information to move forward? What do I say to someone who is frustrated, discouraged, or uncertain? Some decisions are significant. Others seem insignificant until they accumulate. And sometimes the most exhausting decisions aren't new ones. They're the same unresolved issues requiring our attention again and again. The same staffing issue. The same unclear expectations. The same process that doesn't work. The same conversation that hasn't happened. Each one requires attention, judgment, and a little more mental energy. And then we go home. Where someone asks what we want for dinner. Chicken pill. The Gap Between Responsibility and Capacity In organizational psychology, we often talk about cognitive load, the demands placed on our attention and working memory, and how those demands influence performance. Decision fatigue is a useful way to describe what can happen when repeated choices and ongoing mental demands begin to wear on our willingness or ability to engage thoughtfully with the next decision. The research is more nuanced than the popular idea that we have a fixed daily supply of decisions that eventually runs out. Fatigue, stress, complexity, motivation, and the conditions surrounding a decision all matter. But the everyday experience is recognizable. We become impatient with questions that normally wouldn't bother us. We postpone necessary conversations. We default to familiar choices because considering alternatives feels like too much work. We make a quick decision simply to move something off our plate. Or we ask for one more report, one more meeting, one more conversation, not necessarily because we need more information, but because we aren't ready to decide. And here's the challenge. The responsibility to lead doesn't automatically decrease when our capacity to make thoughtful decisions does. People still need answers. Work still needs to move forward. Problems still need attention. And sometimes, the people looking to us for direction are experiencing their own decision fatigue. That is a very real leadership gap. When Fatigue Starts Influencing Our Leadership One of the things I've learned through years of working with leaders is that we don't always recognize the difference between a difficult decision and a decision we're too tired to make well. Consider a supervisor who has spent the morning handling staffing changes, production problems, and customer concerns. By afternoon, an employee approaches with an idea for improving a process. Normally, the supervisor would be curious. Today, the answer is, "Let's just keep doing what we're doing." Or consider an executive navigating budget discussions and organizational changes. A team member asks for clarification on priorities. Instead of offering direction, the executive says, "Use your best judgment." That might sound empowering. But if expectations aren't clear, it may simply transfer the burden of deciding to someone else. A manager knows a difficult conversation needs to happen. But after a day filled with competing demands, the thought of one more emotionally complicated interaction feels overwhelming. So the conversation waits. Again. None of these examples necessarily reflects a lack of commitment or capability. Sometimes they reflect what happens when demands accumulate faster than we recover from them. And when we don't recognize that pattern, fatigue can begin influencing our leadership in ways we never intended. When Decision Fatigue Becomes a Team Problem Here's something we don't discuss enough. Decision fatigue isn't just an individual problem. Sometimes it's a problem with how we've organized our work and responsibilities. Think about a leader who has become the default decision-maker for nearly everything. Every question, exception, and small adjustment finds its way to that person's desk. The leader is exhausted because everyone needs something. But the team may be equally exhausted because they can't move forward without asking permission. Or consider an executive team that keeps revisiting a decision, requesting more information, considering another alternative, and scheduling one more discussion. Meanwhile, employees are spending their energy trying to interpret what direction they're supposed to follow. The absence of a decision doesn't mean the absence of mental effort. In fact, uncertainty can create additional work as people try to anticipate what might happen, develop backup plans, or make sense of incomplete information. And these patterns don't exist only in workplaces. They happen at home, on volunteer boards, in community organizations, and anywhere responsibilities are shared. Sometimes one person becomes the keeper of all the details. The person who remembers, anticipates, organizes, follows up, and makes sure things happen. That person may be very capable. But being capable of carrying something doesn't mean you should always be the one carrying it. The mental load isn't always distributed equally. And this is where decision fatigue becomes more than an individual issue. It becomes a question of how we organize work, distribute authority, communicate expectations, and support one another. Sometimes the best way to reduce decision fatigue isn't to help people make decisions faster. It's to stop making them carry decisions they shouldn't have to make in the first place. When You Hit Chicken Pill: Five Ways to Respond We can't always control the number of decisions life requires. And there are certainly elements of our work and responsibilities we can't change immediately. But even when there are elements we can't change now, what can we do? I don't believe the answer is to somehow become better at making an unlimited number of decisions. Nor do I think we can solve this simply by telling people to practice more self-care. Certainly, rest and recovery matter. But so do the systems, expectations, and habits that determine how many decisions land on someone's desk in the first place. Here are five places to start. 1. Pause before you push through. Ask yourself: Is this decision genuinely urgent, or does it just feel urgent? Sometimes ten minutes, a short walk, or waiting until tomorrow creates enough space to think more clearly. Not everything deserves an immediate answer. And there's a difference between avoiding a decision and intentionally creating the conditions to make it well. 2. Separate the important from the routine. Not every decision deserves the same amount of your attention. Which choices genuinely require your judgment? Which could be simplified, standardized, or handled by someone else? Sometimes we've unintentionally trained our teams to bring every decision to us. And sometimes our organizations have built processes that require too many approvals for things that should be relatively straightforward. Protect your attention for the decisions that have meaningful consequences. 3. Share the thinking, not just the burden. There's a difference between involving others in a decision and simply handing them an unclear problem because you're exhausted. Inviting others into the thinking can improve the quality of a decision, broaden perspectives, and develop capability. But effective delegation requires context, boundaries, and the authority to act. "Use your best judgment" is only empowering when people understand what good judgment looks like in that situation. Otherwise, we may simply be transferring our decision fatigue to someone else. 4. Notice the decisions that keep coming back. If you're making the same decision every week, it's worth asking why. Is there an unclear expectation? A process that isn't working? A responsibility that hasn't been assigned? A conversation that keeps getting postponed? Repeated decisions often signal something in the system that needs attention. Sometimes the most valuable decision we can make is to resolve the underlying issue so we don't have to keep making the same choice. 5. Make recovery part of how work gets done. We often talk about recovery as something that happens after work. But organizations also influence how much mental energy people expend during the workday. Consider how decisions are distributed throughout the day and across the team. Are people moving from one high-stakes conversation to another without time to think? Are meetings creating clarity or generating more decisions? Do employees have enough authority to move work forward? Are interruptions and unnecessary approvals consuming attention that could be better spent elsewhere? Rest matters. So does designing work that doesn't unnecessarily exhaust people. And perhaps most importantly, we need to recognize that decision fatigue doesn't only happen to the person at the top. It can happen to anyone navigating competing expectations, unclear priorities, and responsibilities that affect others. Making Room for Better Decisions As leaders, we often measure our effectiveness by how much we can handle. How many problems we solve. How quickly we respond. How many people depend on us. But perhaps one measure of leadership maturity is learning to recognize when our decision-making capacity needs attention. Not as an excuse to avoid responsibility. But as part of taking responsibility seriously. Because when our choices affect other people, the conditions under which we make those choices matter. And we have a responsibility to notice those conditions in our teams as well. Is someone becoming unusually impatient? Are decisions taking longer than they should? Are people asking for permission on things they used to handle independently? Are we seeing more hesitation, more rework, or more conversations that circle back to the same unresolved questions? These aren't always signs of decision fatigue. But they may be signals worth exploring. Instead of assuming someone needs to be more decisive, perhaps we should ask what they're carrying. Instead of assuming a team needs more accountability, perhaps we should look at how much clarity and authority we've actually given them. And instead of expecting ourselves to have an endless supply of answers, perhaps we can become more intentional about which decisions deserve our best thinking. Back to Chicken Pill After nearly 35 years, my husband and I still use our silly little code word. And the beauty of it is that neither of us has to explain. We understand. One of us has reached the point where choosing dinner feels like an unreasonable request. It's a small moment of honesty. A little humor. And permission to stop deciding for a while. Its greatest value isn't that someone else figures out dinner. It's that we recognize when one of us has reached our limit without needing to explain or defend it. Imagine what might change if our teams had a little more of that awareness, too. Not an excuse to stop making important decisions. But an opportunity to recognize when people need clarity, support, a little breathing room, or simply fewer unnecessary choices. Because leadership isn't about making every decision. It's about creating the conditions for better decisions to happen. And sometimes, leading in the gap begins with recognizing that you've made one decision too many. Because sometimes the gap isn't between what we need to do and what we know how to do. It's between what life is asking of us and what we can offer next. A question for you: What is one decision you or your team keep making that could be simplified, shared, or eliminated? And whose mental load might become a little lighter if you did? Learn More: Visit drcelinapeerman.com to learn more about Dr. Celina and to book her for your next event Listen to over 24 hours of leadership content on the Workplace Chameleon Podcast at https://workplacechameleon.buzzsprout.com/ Check out our online, on demand leadership training where you can meet your staff where they are, when they're ready at leadershiplearningondemand.com Photo by Vitaly Gariev

I've noticed a pattern in several of my recent conversations with leadership teams. 3 days. 3 companies. Same thing. And it reminded me I've seen it many times before. The issue wasn't that people weren't good at what they did. In fact, quite the opposite. They knew their functions. They cared about their teams. They understood their responsibilities. They were working hard and, in many cases, doing very good work. The opportunity was in what happened between them, between departments, between leaders, between one step of a process and the next, between the person who decides and the people who have to execute it. It was in the space between my team and our organization. And that space matters more than we sometimes realize. We spend a great deal of time teaching leaders how to lead their teams. We talk about communication, accountability, trust, performance, motivation, and engagement. All those things matter. But there is another side of leadership that deserves just as much attention. If we're going to lead great teams, we have to be great team members ourselves. As our responsibilities grow, that can become harder. A leader may belong to a department team, senior leadership team, project team, client team, implementation team, or temporary working group, all at the same time. We aren't simply leading our team. We are members of multiple teams, and the organization needs something from us collectively that it cannot get from any of us individually. That is an important distinction. The Work Doesn't Stop at the Edge of Our Department Organizations aren't relay races where we simply run our portion, hand off the baton, and declare our work complete. What happens at that handoff matters. I've said for years that every time there is a handoff or transition, there is an opportunity to improve something in multiple directions. I learned that on my first 2nd shift job at age 16. A handoff can improve communication or expose its absence. It can clarify accountability or muddy it. It can transfer knowledge or lose it. It can strengthen a relationship or add another layer of frustration. It can catch a problem early or send that problem farther downstream where it becomes more expensive and difficult to solve. Think about how many handoffs happen in your organization every day. A customer moves from sales to operations. A new employee moves from recruiting to onboarding to their manager. Finance needs information from operations. A project moves from planning to execution. A senior leadership team makes a decision that managers then have to translate for employees. The quality of the work on either side of that transition can be excellent, and the overall experience can still fail because of what happened between them. This is why I don't consider workplace relationships separate from performance. Relationships are part of how performance happens. Working relationships influence how quickly information moves, how easily concerns are raised, how decisions are made, and how effectively people work through problems together. When those relationships are stronger, we are better able to surface problems earlier, reduce duplication and rework, navigate disagreement, and make better cross-functional decisions. That isn't the soft side of work. That's the work. I’m also known for saying, “Every time the team adds a person or a person moves out, you have a new team.” The name on the organizational chart may not change. Seven of the eight people may be exactly the same. The regular meeting may still be on Tuesday at 9:00. But the team itself has changed. Someone new brings knowledge, experiences, expectations, habits, relationships, communication preferences, questions, and ways of looking at the work. When someone leaves, knowledge, relationships, routines, and informal ways of getting things done may leave with them. We tend to focus on getting the new person "up to speed." That's important, but there is another question worth asking: How does the team need to learn to work together now? The same principle applies beyond staffing changes. A team can become a new team because its purpose changes, responsibilities shift, a major project begins, new technology changes a workflow, or the organization goes through significant change. We shouldn't assume that because people worked well together yesterday, they automatically know how to work well together under today's conditions. Teams require recalibration. So Where Is the Gap? I think there is a gap between doing your job well and helping the organization work well. Cross-functional leadership lives in that gap. It's easy to advocate for collaboration when everyone's priorities align. The real test comes when they don't. What happens when the best decision for the organization makes something harder for your department? What happens when another team needs information from you sooner than is convenient? What happens when you disagree with a decision but are still responsible for helping execute it? What happens when solving the larger problem requires resources, flexibility, or compromise from your area? Those moments tell us a lot about whether we are simply strong functional leaders or whether we are also strong organizational leaders. So, if you are thinking about your own leadership team, project team, cross-functional process, or working relationships, here are five places I would start. 1. Look Beyond Your Lane: Before making the next significant decision in your area, ask who else will feel the impact of it. Not just who needs to approve it. Who will implement it? Explain it? Support it? Answer questions about it? What happens one or two steps downstream? Being a strong organizational team member requires understanding how the priorities and decisions in our own area affect other functions and the organization as a whole. It also means being willing, at times, to prioritize what is best for the organization even when it creates challenges for our own area. Your lane matters. But so does the whole road. 2. Examine the Handoffs: Pick one process that regularly crosses functions and pay attention specifically to the transition points. Ask what the person receiving the work actually needs from you—and what you need from them. Where does information get lost? Where do people wait unnecessarily? Where are assumptions being made? Where is work duplicated? Where does someone regularly have to go back and ask for something that could have been provided the first time? Sometimes we spend tremendous energy improving individual parts of a process while ignoring what happens between them. Don't just improve the work. Improve the movement of the work. 3. Invest in the Relationships Your Work Actually Depends On: One exercise I've recently used with leaders is to identify the five working relationships they rely on most to be effective in their roles. Then we explore what they need from each relationship, what the other person needs from them, how strong the relationship is today, and what they could do to invest in it. But there is one more question I particularly like: Are the five relationships you invest in most the same five relationships your role requires you to invest in most? That's worth some consideration. We naturally invest in people we like, people we see frequently, and people with whom working comes easily. But some of the most important relationships in an organization cross boundaries. They may require more intentionality precisely because proximity doesn't create them for us. 4. Recalibrate When the Team Changes: When someone joins or leaves a team, don't simply update the roster and keep moving. Take time to revisit how the team works. What do we expect from one another? How will information move? Where do responsibilities overlap? How will we raise concerns? How are decisions made? What does this new person need from us? What do we need from them? Has anything else changed that means some of our old ways of working no longer serve us? You don't need a two-day retreat every time somebody changes jobs. You do need to acknowledge that the system has changed. New member. New team. Give people an opportunity to build the team they are now rather than expecting them to keep operating as the team they used to be. 5. Ask What the Organization Needs From You Collectively: This may be the most important question of all: What does this organization need from us collectively that it cannot get from us individually? It's a question I've been using with leadership teams because it moves the conversation beyond individual expertise and functional responsibility. If the answer is nothing, then you probably don't need a team. You need a group of competent individuals doing their respective jobs. But most organizations need far more. They need leaders to solve problems that don't fit neatly inside departmental boundaries. They need competing priorities to be reconciled. They need information shared. They need risks to be identified from multiple perspectives. They need decisions that consider customers, employees, operations, finances, quality, safety, and the future—not simply one functional viewpoint. That's why merely putting talented people together doesn't automatically create an effective team. Great Teams Need Great Team Members: We talk a lot about building great teams. Perhaps we should spend a little more time asking ourselves whether we are being the kind of team member those great teams require. Do I share information that helps others succeed? Do I consider downstream impact before making decisions? Do I raise concerns directly instead of allowing frustration to build elsewhere? Do I follow through? Do I seek to understand before offering my own perspective? Am I willing to adjust my approach when circumstances change? Do I make it easier or harder for other people to do good work? Those aren't abstract characteristics of teamwork. They are individual behaviors, and they're very similar to the behaviors I ask leaders to assess in themselves when we work on building stronger teams. We don't get to declare ourselves collaborative because we attend the same meetings, share an organizational chart, or use the word team. We demonstrate it in the spaces between our responsibilities: in the handoffs, the conversations, the relationships, the decisions, the disagreements, and the moments when what is best for the organization doesn't perfectly align with what is easiest for our own area. That's the gap. And for many organizations I've been working with lately, I think it's a gap worth paying much more attention to. Learn More: Listen to over 24 hours of content on the Workplace Chameleon Podcast: https://workplacechameleon.buzzsprout.com/ Check out our online, on demand learning system, a great way to meet your teams where they are, when they're ready to learn: https://www.leadershiplearningnow.com/ Photo by Alex Radelich

Organizational psychologist Dr. Celina Peerman encourages organizations to use the back-to-school season to rethink how they prepare new, emerging, and experienced leaders for what comes next. As students across Iowa head back to classrooms this month, organizational psychologist and leadership strategist Dr. Celina Peerman says there is another group that should be thinking about learning this fall: the people leading our workplaces. “Back-to-school season is a great reminder that learning doesn’t stop when we finish a degree, earn a certification, or get promoted,” said Peerman. “The strongest leaders I know are continuous learners. They remain curious, keep developing their skills, and recognize that what got them to their current role may not be enough for what comes next.” That need is particularly important for employees stepping into their first people-leadership roles. Organizations frequently promote employees because they are strong individual contributors, technically skilled, dependable, or knowledgeable about the operation. But leading people requires an additional set of skills. from communication and feedback to coaching, accountability, decision-making, relationship building, and navigating change. “A promotion gives someone a new title. It doesn’t automatically give them the skills or confidence to lead people,” Dr. Peerman said. “New people leaders need support as they make that transition. We shouldn’t expect them to figure it all out through trial and error and while that is one way to learn, it shouldn't be the only way.” Peerman, who has spent more than 30 years working in organizational psychology, leadership development, human resources, and operations, believes organizations also need to begin developing leaders before positions become available. “Future leaders won’t wait until we have an opening on the organizational chart,” she said. “They are already on our teams. The question is whether we are intentionally helping them develop the judgment, communication skills, confidence, and ability to lead others that they will need next.” A Back-to-School Checkup for Your Leadership Bench Peerman suggests organizations use this Fall to ask five questions:  Who are we developing before they get promoted? What support do our first-time supervisors and managers receive? When did our experienced leaders last intentionally invest in their own development? What will our leaders need to know and be able to do two or three years from now, not just today? If a key leader left tomorrow, who would actually be ready to step forward? Leadership development, Peerman emphasizes, should not be limited to a single class or reserved only for senior executives. It can include mentoring, facilitated learning, stretch assignments, coaching, peer discussions, reflection, feedback, and opportunities to practice new skills. It also needs to continue throughout a leader’s career. “The workplace keeps changing, so leadership has to keep learning,” Peerman said. “We’re asking leaders to navigate new technology, changing employee expectations, increasingly complex workplaces, knowledge transfer, and ongoing change. Continuous learning isn’t an extra anymore. It is part of the work of leading.” For organizations considering where to invest as they finish 2026 and begin planning for 2027, Peerman encourages them to look beyond filling current positions and consider the strength of their entire leadership pipeline. “Your next leaders are probably already working for you,” she said. “Give them opportunities to learn before you desperately need them to lead.” Future leaders won’t wait. Neither should their development. About Dr. Celina Peerman Dr. Celina Peerman is an organizational psychologist, leadership strategist, professional speaker, and author with more than 30 years of experience in human resources, operations, and leadership education. Through The Peerman Group, she and her team work with organizations to strengthen leaders, teams, and workplaces as they navigate change and prepare for the future of work. Peerman is a four-time author, two-time TEDx speaker, and Certified Speaking Professional (CSP®) .

For much of the last several years, my work has focused on one central question: How do we help people become more ready for change? I've had the privilege of working alongside organizations navigating leadership transitions, mergers, new strategies, rapid growth, workforce shortages, economic uncertainty, and countless other moments where the future felt anything but certain. One lesson has remained remarkably consistent. People don't experience change the same way. The same announcement that fills one employee with excitement may leave another feeling uncertain. One person sees opportunity while another quietly worries about what they might lose. Even when people are moving through the exact same organizational change, their experience of that change is uniquely their own. As an organizational psychologist, I've always found that fascinating. As a leadership strategist, I've learned it matters. Because organizations don't adapt. People do. And organizations adapt only when enough people are prepared, supported, and willing to move forward together. That realization has shaped much of my work over the past several years. We've talked about change readiness at the individual level. We've explored how teams build trust, communicate, solve problems, and navigate uncertainty together. We've helped leaders create cultures where people are more willing to learn than fear what comes next. Today, those same conversations have taken on a new urgency. Almost everywhere I speak, someone eventually asks, "Where do we begin with AI?" It's a fair question. Artificial intelligence is moving quickly. New tools seem to appear every week. Organizations feel pressure to act before they fall behind. But I don't believe the first question leaders should ask is, "Which AI tool should we use?" I believe the better question is, "How ready is our organization to adapt?" Because organizational AI readiness doesn't begin with technology. It begins with people. Organizations that are succeeding with AI aren't simply buying better software. They're creating environments where people are willing to learn, managers know how to lead through uncertainty, information is organized, processes are understood, and thoughtful governance supports responsible innovation. In other words, they're building on capabilities that have always mattered. AI hasn't changed the fundamentals of leadership. It has exposed them. So if you're wondering where to begin, here are four conversations I'd encourage every leadership team to have: 1. Start with your people. Ask what they're already experiencing. What tools are they using? What excites them? What concerns them? Listen before you lead. 2. Look at your work. Before searching for new technology, identify the repetitive tasks, bottlenecks, and frustrations that consume your team's time. The best AI opportunities usually emerge from improving work, not chasing trends. 3. Assess your organizational readiness. Consider your leadership, culture, data, governance, and processes. AI creates the greatest value when these foundations are already being strengthened not after the technology arrives. 4. Choose one place to learn. Resist the temptation to launch dozens of disconnected initiatives. Start with one meaningful workflow. Improve it. Measure it. Learn from it. Then build on what you've discovered. I've come to believe that organizational AI readiness is simply the next chapter in a much longer story. It starts with individuals who are willing to learn. It grows through teams that know how to adapt together. And it becomes an organizational capability that prepares people not only for AI, but for whatever comes next. Technology will continue to evolve. That much is certain. Leadership will continue to shape how people experience that change. And perhaps that's the conversation we should be having more often. Learn More: Check out https://www.drcelinapeerman.com/bookstore to find out more about our Clarity Series of books on leading through change. Visit https://workplacechameleon.buzzsprout.com/ to listen to over 24 hours of content on the Workplace Chameleon Podscast Photo by Alan Aprilio

Artificial intelligence has become one of the defining conversations of our time. While it may feel hourly, daily we hear of more breakthroughs, another platform, or another prediction about how work will change. Boards are discussing AI strategy. Leadership teams are evaluating new tools. Employees are experimenting with generative AI while quietly wondering what these changes might mean for their work, their careers, and the organizations they have helped build. In my work, this conversation is really about people, not technology. As an organizational psychologist, I have spent more than three decades studying how individuals, leaders, and organizations respond to change. Throughout my career, I have watched organizations navigate economic downturns, mergers, workforce shortages, globalization, remote work, and countless other disruptions. Every generation experiences technological change. Every generation encounters uncertainty. Artificial intelligence is certainly changing the workplace, but I believe it is doing something even more significant. It is accelerating uncertainty. That distinction matters because uncertainty influences how people think, communicate, make decisions, collaborate, and engage with their work. While AI may be the catalyst, uncertainty is becoming the condition leaders are increasingly being asked to navigate. I believe uncertainty is emerging as one of the defining leadership challenges of our time. Beyond the Technology Technology has always reshaped work. Personal computers transformed offices. Email changed communication. Smartphones altered our expectations around accessibility. Remote work redefined where work could happen. Artificial intelligence continues that evolution, but with one important difference. It reaches into areas we have traditionally associated with uniquely human expertise, writing, analysis, creativity, research, communication, and decision-making. As a result, employees are not simply learning a new tool. Many are quietly asking much bigger questions. Will my role change? What skills should I be developing now? How will my work be evaluated? Will I be able to keep up? These questions are not signs of resistance. They are signs that people are trying to make sense of an uncertain future. One of the observations I continue making in organizations is that leaders often describe employees as resistant to AI. I wonder if, in many cases, what they are seeing is a response to uncertainty. Those are two very different challenges requiring two very different leadership responses. Leadership Has Always Been About Creating Clarity One misconception I encounter regularly is the belief that effective leadership removes uncertainty. It does not. Every meaningful innovation has involved uncertainty. Every strategic decision carries unknowns. Every organization that chooses to grow, reinvent itself, or pursue new opportunities steps into territory where outcomes cannot be fully predicted. Leadership has never been about creating certainty where certainty is impossible, it has always been about creating clarity. Clarity of purpose. Clarity of expectations. Clarity of values. Clarity of priorities. When people understand these foundations, they become remarkably capable of navigating uncertainty together. As organizations begin implementing artificial intelligence, employees are not expecting leaders to predict every technological advancement. They are asking leaders to communicate honestly, make thoughtful decisions, establish ethical boundaries, invest in learning, and provide confidence that people remain part of the future being created. Technology cannot do those things. Leadership can. Listening Before Drawing Conclusions Over the past year, I have had the privilege of leading a national research initiative exploring uncertainty in today's workplace. While our analysis is still underway and I am not yet ready to share findings, one observation already stands out. More than 600 professionals, representing a wide range of industries, leadership roles, and career experiences, voluntarily chose to share their perspectives on uncertainty, leadership, work, and organizational change. That response alone tells me something important. People want to have this conversation. Not because they expect leaders to eliminate uncertainty. But because they are looking for thoughtful ways to navigate it together. I look forward to sharing what we learn as the research progresses. Looking Forward Artificial intelligence will continue to evolve. New capabilities will emerge. Organizations will continue adapting in ways none of us can fully predict. History tells us that technological progress will continue. What remains uncertain is how organizations will choose to lead through it. My hope is that we resist framing AI as either something to fear or something to embrace without thoughtful consideration. Instead, I hope we see it as an opportunity to strengthen the capabilities that have always defined exceptional organizations: thoughtful leadership, ethical decision-making, trust, communication, continuous learning, and a deep understanding of human behavior. Technology may reshape the work we do. Leadership shapes how people experience that change. And perhaps that is the conversation we should be having more often. Learn More: Visit https://www.drcelinapeerman.com/uncertaintyinitiative to follow the results of our Uncertainty Initiative. Check out https://www.leadershiplearningnow.com/ to see some of our complimentary online, on demand webinars to learn how you and your staff can lead through the gaps Listen to the Workplace Chameleon Podcast at https://workplacechameleon.buzzsprout.com/ Photo by Steve A Johnson

Over the past several months, I have been exploring a question that affects every industry, every organization, and every individual: How are people experiencing uncertainty today? The response to our Uncertainty Survey has been encouraging, insightful, and at times deeply personal. Leaders, employees, business owners, educators, and professionals from a wide range of backgrounds have shared their perspectives on change, ambiguity, decision-making, and the realities of navigating an increasingly complex world. Why Uncertainty Matters More Than Ever Human beings naturally seek certainty. We want to know what comes next. We want predictable outcomes, clear expectations, and confidence that our decisions will lead us in the right direction. Organizations are no different. Processes, systems, strategic plans, budgets, and goals are all designed to create a greater sense of predictability and control. Yet many leaders would agree that today's environment feels anything but predictable. Economic shifts, changing workforce expectations, evolving technologies, information overload, global events, and increasing complexity have created a landscape where uncertainty is no longer an occasional challenge. It has become a constant condition. The challenge is not simply that change exists. The challenge is that change is arriving faster than many people, teams, and organizations are prepared to process. AI Is Accelerating the Conversation Among the many forces contributing to uncertainty, one stands out because of both its pace and potential impact: Artificial Intelligence. Nearly every week, new tools emerge. New capabilities are announced. New predictions are made about how AI may reshape jobs, industries, communication, creativity, learning, and decision-making. For some, this creates excitement. For others, it creates questions. For many, it creates both. Organizations are asking: · What work will change? · What skills will matter most? · How should we prepare our workforce? · What should leaders be doing now? · How do we engage AI responsibly while maintaining trust? These are important questions. But I believe the most important AI conversations are not ultimately about technology. They are about people. The Human Response to AI As an organizational psychologist, I am fascinated by the behavioral side of technological change. When people encounter something new, their reactions often vary widely. · Some approach it with curiosity. · Some approach it with caution. · Some feel energized by the possibilities. · Some feel overwhelmed by the pace. · Some dive in immediately. · Some avoid it entirely. None of these responses are unusual. In fact, they are remarkably human. Technology adoption has never been solely a technology challenge. It is fundamentally a human behavior challenge. The success of any transformation depends on factors such as: Trust Communication Learning Confidence Adaptability Leadership Psychological safety The organizations that thrive in the years ahead will not simply be those that implement new tools. They will be the organizations that help people navigate change with clarity, confidence, and support. What We're Learning While survey analysis is still underway, one theme continues to emerge in conversations across industries. People are not necessarily asking for certainty. They are asking for clarity. They want honest conversations. They want practical guidance. They want opportunities to learn. They want leaders who acknowledge both the challenges and the opportunities ahead. Whether I am speaking with professionals in manufacturing, healthcare, education, government, energy, nonprofit organizations, or small businesses, the questions are remarkably similar. How do we prepare for what comes next? How do we help people adapt? How do we create organizations that remain resilient even when the future is unclear? These are leadership questions. These are human questions. And increasingly, they are AI questions as well. Looking Ahead Over the past year, these conversations have led me to an even larger question: How do we help people engage confidently with AI while remaining deeply human? That question sits at the intersection of uncertainty, leadership, adaptability, learning, and the future of work. It is a conversation I believe organizations can no longer afford to postpone. I look forward to sharing more about what we're learning through the research, the themes emerging from conference audiences and organizational leaders, and a new learning opportunity we have been developing around the human side of AI adoption and readiness. The Future Will Need Both We may not be able to eliminate uncertainty. But we can learn how to navigate it more effectively. The future will require technological capability, certainly. Yet it will also require adaptability, curiosity, communication, judgment, and leadership. The organizations that succeed will not simply adopt new technologies. They will help people learn, grow, and thrive alongside them. Learn More: Follow the results of our Uncertainty Initiative here: https://www.drcelinapeerman.com/uncertaintyinitiative Visit https://www.drcelinapeerman.com/bookstore to purchase any of the Clarity Series or Beautifully Over It Listen to over 24 hours of leadership content on the Workplace Chameleon Podcast at https://workplacechameleon.buzzsprout.com/ Photo by Luke Jones

I’ve been sitting with this pattern for a while, and I think we need to talk about it differently. Across organizations, industries, and roles, I keep hearing the same things: “We’re making decisions without all the information.” “Things keep changing.” “It’s hard to know what’s coming next.” These aren’t isolated comments. They’re patterns. And they point to something bigger than just “a lot of change.” Uncertainty Isn’t Temporary. It’s the Environment We’re Working In Now. For years, we’ve treated uncertainty as something temporary. A disruption. A phase. A period to get through until things settle down. But what if that assumption is no longer true? What if uncertainty isn’t something we’re moving through…but something we’re operating within? What’s Different Now Uncertainty has always existed. But the nature of it has changed. It used to show up during major events: economic downturns, organizational shifts, and global disruptions. Now, it shows up every day. Not as a single challenge, but as a stack of them. Rapid advances in technologies like artificial intelligence Shifting economic conditions Evolving workforce expectations The constant pace of information These forces don’t arrive one at a time. They overlap. They compound. They accelerate. And they don’t wait for us to catch up. The 3 Shifts I’m Seeing Everywhere As well as healthcare, manufacturing, higher education, and public systems, the same shift is happening: 1. From Episodic → Constant Uncertainty is no longer occasional. It’s part of daily work. 2. From Isolated → Compounding Challenges don’t resolve before the next one begins. 3. From Delayed Response → Real-Time Pressure Leaders are expected to act before clarity fully exists. And That Changes Leadership We’ve trained leaders to: gather all the information create a plan communicate clearly execute with confidence But what happens when: the information is incomplete the plan keeps changing clarity isn’t available and confidence feels premature Leaders are now being asked to: make decisions they can’t fully validate guide teams through things they don’t fully understand provide stability in environments that aren’t stable That’s not a small shift. That’s a different job. This Is the Work This is why we launched the Uncertainty Initiative. Remember, this is not to confirm that uncertainty exists, we already know that. It is to better understand: how it’s showing up where it’s creating friction and what actually helps people move forward As part of that work, we’ve also launched a national survey to hear directly from individuals across industries about how uncertainty is showing up in their day-to-day work. Because while patterns are emerging, this is bigger than any one perspective. And...I'd add The Hidden Impact Behind every strategy shift or organizational change are people trying to: make sense of evolving expectations stay focused while priorities move support others while navigating their own uncertainty manage the mental load of constant adjustment Uncertainty doesn’t just impact strategy. It impacts how work feels. So What Do We Do? If uncertainty isn’t going away, the goal can’t be to eliminate it. The goal must shift. We move from creating certainty to building the capacity to operate within uncertainty. Which ultimately means: making decisions without perfect information communicating even when answers aren’t complete helping teams move forward without false clarity leading in the space between what was and what’s next Final Thought At some point, we have to stop waiting for things to settle down. The question is no longer, “When will things get back to normal?” Instead, it’s: “How do we lead when ‘normal’ keeps changing?” Learn More: Follow the results of our Uncertainty Initiative here: https://www.drcelinapeerman.com/uncertaintyinitiative Visit https://www.leadershiplearningnow.com/ to learn about our online, on-demand leadership training Photo by Rahul Saraf

"Celebrations give us energy for what comes next.” – Dr. Celina Peerman When the path ahead feels uncertain, it’s easy to delay celebration and to tell ourselves, “We’ll celebrate when things calm down. When we know more. When we’re sure this will last.” But the truth is, the unknown rarely slows down long enough for us to catch our breath. And if we keep waiting for certainty before celebrating, we’ll miss the moments that remind us why we’re still showing up. Celebrations aren’t just for endings; they’re a vital part of how we move through transitions. They give energy to the in-between, that space between what was and what will be. A Lesson from A Favorite Manufacturing Teams I was recently walking through a manufacturing facility when the HR manager shared about a fun event they had held. She looked disappointed and said, “Only nine people participated.” I asked, “Did the nine have fun?” Her face brightened. “They did.” “Did others watch them have fun?” I asked. She nodded, smiling now. “Yes, there was quite a crowd cheering them on.” That’s when it struck me: we often confuse celebration with participation. We measure fun in numbers or how many people showed up. But celebration isn’t about attendance; it’s about energy. Let’s stop counting celebrations and fun by numbers and start measuring them by quality, by connection, joy, and the spark that reminds people why their work matters. Sometimes the most powerful celebrations happen in the smallest moments, a shared smile in the hallway, a thank-you note after a long week, or a team that pauses long enough to say, we did that together. In uncertainty, the temptation is to push forward harder and faster. But celebrations remind us that progress doesn’t only come from motion, it comes from meaning. They anchor us to what matters most. So, celebrate the team that tried something new. Celebrate the decision that took courage. Celebrate the learning that came through failure. Celebrate the quiet persistence that doesn’t always get noticed. Because celebrations don’t just mark where we’ve been. They give us energy for what comes next. Learn More: Listen to over 24 hours of content on the Workplace Chameleon Podcast at: https://workplacechameleon.buzzsprout.com/ Visit the bookstore at https://www.drcelinapeerman.com/bookstore to purchase any of the books in the Clarity Series or Beautifully Over It. Photo by Jason Leung

When the world feels uncertain, focus is one of the few things still within our control. Uncertainty invites distraction, the pull to do more, scroll more, fix more, or overthink what we can’t actually control. But the leaders who stay steady don’t necessarily know more; they simply notice better. They pay attention to what matters most, especially when everything else is loud. “Focus isn’t about doing more. It is about doing what matters most, on purpose.” (39 Squirrels, Focus section) Our attention becomes the signal we send to ourselves, to our teams, and to those watching how we lead. When we rush from one urgent thing to the next, we teach people that everything is equally important. But when we pause, name what deserves our focus, and protect it, we create clarity in the middle of chaos. Attention shapes culture. What leaders attend to, others begin to value. What we ignore, others stop investing in. During uncertainty, the gap between noise and signal grows wider. The discipline of attention, not perfection, not prediction, becomes our new form of certainty. Try this: 1. Notice what’s pulling your attention most this week. 2. Name what actually deserves your attention right now. 3. Protect it. Schedule it. Revisit it daily. Because where your attention goes, your impact grows. Reflection questions What’s one thing this week that truly deserves your full attention? What distractions have been stealing energy from what matters most? How might your focus signal certainty to those around you? “You don’t have to do it all. You just have to do what matters next.” (39 Squirrels, Closing Comments.) Let’s keep learning together. Learn More: Purchase 39 Squirrels or any of the Clarity Series by visiting: https://www.drcelinapeerman.com/bookstore Listen to over 24 hours of content on the Workplace Chameleon Podcast: https://workplacechameleon.buzzsprout.com/ Photo by Devin Avery