June 11, 2025 • 16 mins
Fear lies at the heart of resistance to organizational change. This revealing conversation explores how leaders can navigate the complex emotional landscape that emerges when teams face significant transitions.
What makes change feel so threatening to many people? We unpack the psychology behind those fight-flight-freeze-appease responses that emerge during times of uncertainty. Rather than dismissing these reactions, effective leaders acknowledge them while maintaining forward momentum – embracing the wisdom of "yes, it's scary, and we're going to do it anyway."
The discussion reveals a critical insight: creating safety during change doesn't mean eliminating discomfort. Instead, it requires validating emotional responses while preventing teams from wallowing in fear. As Tammy notes, "If you're walking through hell, keep walking" – because standing still only prolongs the pain.
We challenge the perfectionism that paralyzes many organizations, revealing how our educational conditioning makes us seek singular "right answers" when multiple effective solutions often exist. By reframing change as an iterative process of trying, learning, and adjusting, leaders free their teams from the paralysis of perfectionism.
The most powerful tool in a leader's arsenal? Reminding teams of their past successes. By highlighting how they've successfully navigated previous challenges, you build collective confidence for the journey ahead. While the path forward may not be perfectly clear, your shared history of overcoming obstacles creates the psychological safety needed to move forward together.
Ready to transform how your organization approaches change? Listen now and discover practical strategies for creating psychological safety that drives meaningful transformation rather than resistance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Karman (00:00):
Good morning Tammy and Scott.
Scott (00:03):
Good morning Karman.
Hello Sugar, I mean Karman .
Tammy (00:10):
Wow, someone might get after you, mister, if like, from
human resources calling.
Scott (00:15):
Yeah, oh, I was thinking you were going to say Todd
Todd's going to chase me down.
Tammy (00:21):
Todd would be like wow, you have someone who calls you
sugar Karman.
Karman (00:25):
Yeah, he'd be like wait, they were talking to you.
I thought you were salt.
Scott (00:36):
Karman is salty.
Tammy (00:37):
Karman is salty and people don't know Karman is so
sweet and kind and once you getto know Karman, there's a
little bit of that saltinessbehind all of it, which is
actually my favorite part of her.
Karman (00:51):
Like a good salted caramel.
That's exactly You're chewingalong and then you hit one of
those big pieces of sea salt andyou're like, oh yeah.
Tammy (01:05):
Yes, yeah, people are too too nice.
I don't trust them.
I need a little bit of dark.
Scott (01:14):
I must I must be super trustworthy then are you a
little bit of darkness?
Tammy (01:20):
you're a lot.
A bit of darkness, no, Ithought it was.
Scott (01:23):
The trustworthiness was like a scale equal to the level
of darkness no, no, you'd haveto read the first book to get
the trust, okay, and there's god.
I'm sorry, I got, I got, I gotconfused but the part of that is
it's.
Tammy (01:37):
It is truly to come back to that it truly is.
If you're not real authentic,right, it's hard to trust you.
And and if someone can't tellyou like the hard truths, you
can't, you can't trust them.
And so you do need someone whois like authentically.
They can't be happy all thetime, they can't be sunshine and
rainbows and sprinkles all thetime.
(01:58):
You gotta have that other side,Cause we all do, and so until
that person shows that to you,you don't trust them.
Karman (02:06):
So well, it's interesting that you talk about
trust this morning, because thatwas kind of related to the
topic that I had in mind.
Well, you know, we're workingwith a lot of clients who are in
big change seasons, andsometimes that's why a client
(02:30):
works with us, because they'regoing through a change and they
need a partner in that and we'rereally good at that.
But we also have some clientsthat we've been with for a long
time who are in new changeseasons.
I wanted to talk a little bitabout the role of safety in
(02:50):
change and maybe safety,trustworthiness, those things
kind of fit together a littlebit.
So when your organization isgoing through a big change, what
role does safety play?
Can it play a role Inherently?
Maybe change is just unsafe?
What should you be thinkingabout as a leader?
Tammy (03:16):
I love that.
Maybe change is just inherentlyunsafe.
Just that phrase, Karman, issuch an interesting phrase.
You want to play with that onea little bit, Scott.
Scott (03:28):
I mean, I don't know that it's unsafe.
I guess I'm still wrapping myhead around the statement here.
Yeah.
Tammy (03:38):
So I think it feels unsafe.
Okay, there's some people.
Scott (03:44):
For some it would.
Well, yeah, that's, that'ssuper fair.
Tammy (03:47):
It feels unsafe, right.
And so that's the piece that Ithink is really, really
interesting.
I saw this I don't evenremember whether it was a movie
or whatever it is but there wasa child who was wanting to go
into the pool but was scaredright and was kind of making the
(04:11):
comment like I want to go, butit's just scary, I'm really
afraid.
And this old wise woman said,yep, and you do it anyway.
And you know, I remember beinglike that was such an
interesting way of looking at itthat there's a lot of stuff in
(04:32):
life change, marriage, havingkids.
You know, I just went through adeath of two parents.
I mean, reality is all of thatis scary and you do it anyway.
In that space.
It's one of the things, Karman,I think you're right.
(04:52):
I think one of the pieces whenan organization is going through
change, for many people they'reafraid and they might not even
want to use that word and yetdown inside in their gut, yeah,
this thing that they're havingto face is frightening, right.
(05:13):
And so there is then this piecethat says as a leader, how do I
manage through that?
How do I help people throughthat?
Because their gut, and thentheir brain, which follows that
gut oftentimes is saying danger,will Robinson, danger, and in
(05:34):
that space, if we can't helpthem through that, they're not
going to make it through this.
Scott (05:39):
I had never really thought about it as danger or
fear or that's because you're amaverick, scott.
Tammy (05:48):
Mavericks like say fear.
Are you kidding me?
No, let's go right.
You don't have that thing inyour gut that you're afraid of,
but a lot of people do.
Scott (05:58):
Yeah yeah.
Well, I mean, they're weird.
Tammy (06:02):
No, you're the weird one, honestly, but I mean, that is.
You just said something reallyimportant, right?
(06:23):
Yeah?
Some people are going to lookat it and say why are you afraid
?
Yeah, yeah, all the time You'renot.
What you feel is not valid,well, what you're feeling isn't
valid, right?
Well, they both are Okay.
It's just a different responseto the same stimulus.
Scott (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, and I had.
I had just in my head.
I had not ever paired it withfear.
I had always paired it witheither not understanding or I
have, as a leader, I haven'tdone my job to bring them along,
which really is exactly whatyou're saying.
I had just never equated it tothat word before.
Tammy (07:00):
To the foundation of where it came from.
Scott (07:03):
Yeah.
Tammy (07:03):
Yep, yep, and that's Scott.
That's interesting, right, okay, that's one of the pieces like
even if you look at thedifferences between you and I in
that space is recognizing like,where does some of this stuff
come from so that we can getpast it?
(07:25):
Talked to so many organizationswhere they're like just give
them the information, give themthe context, you know they'll
get there.
We might not have dealt withthis thing and we've made the
world unsafe for theseindividuals, not intentionally,
(07:46):
right?
And is it really unsafe?
Probably not.
Okay, however, they're stillexperiencing that.
And then here's the deal If weallow them to stay in that space
for too long, we then tell themthat their fear is like valid,
(08:09):
they, they have a right to befear, to be fearful, that this
it truly is.
And then they sit in that fearand that's when they're like
hell, no, I won't go.
Okay, so recognizing that itcan be fear, that it is not safe
for them, is one thing.
Wallowing in it and staying init for any length of time and
(08:32):
not doing the job of moving themthrough it yes, it seems scary,
we're going to do it anyway.
That old wise woman tellingthat kid yep, it's scary, do it
anyway.
And I think that might be oneof the really the missing pieces
of change is recognizing thisemotional response to it, not
(08:53):
the context, the literal, youknow.
This is the reason why theintellectual side of this, yeah.
Scott (09:02):
And it it almost is an element of as we're talking
about it.
It's it's like the the re inchange and the reaction that
people can have in if we kind ofuse just fear as the base right
, fight, flight, freeze, appease, and you start to think about
(09:29):
that in in change many timesthat's what people are doing
that's exactly what they aredoing, right and so it's just.
It's interesting, I, I've, I'veall.
I don't know how I've thoughtabout it is right or well, I'm
sure it's right, because I'malways right.
Uh, it's right or wrong, but wejust we just like stump scott?
Tammy (09:52):
I don't.
This might be the first timeever in the podcast.
Karman, way to go, Let me bringsomething to the table.
And he's like wait a minute.
This is new thinking for me.
Scott (10:05):
I would have always categorized it as the emotional
response of change which, if youback it is, I mean if you kind
of just back the bus and go downthe YYY path, I mean we're kind
of cutting down to the core ofit, and so it's just interesting
to think about in that regard.
Tammy (10:24):
And you know the piece about that is if we, instead of
rejecting that they shouldn'tfeel this way, if we accept that
they feel this way, it's ourjob then as the leader to go
okay, and we're going to do itanyway.
So it's realizing that it'sthere and moving them and saying
(10:46):
it's okay that you feel thatway and we're going to continue
to take steps in this direction.
I think the unsafe thing iswhen we tell them it's not okay
to think that or to feel thatit's the acceptance of that.
What you are feeling is valid,it's okay, all right, and we're
(11:08):
not going to stop there.
So go back to.
It's still my favorite quote ifyou're walking through hell,
keep walking, okay, becausestopping in the middle of it
makes it worse.
And so in this space it's likeyep, you feel that way and let's
go prove that we can solve this, that we can move forward, that
(11:30):
there is a place where this isgoing to get better.
We did not.
We don't live in a world whereeverything's perfect every day,
everything's good all day, thatwe're not going to have any
problems or we're not going tohave any pain and we're not
going to have any difficulties.
The fact of the matter is islife is more than just having
(11:51):
everything be perfect and smilesand easy all the time.
We go through peaks and valleys.
If we look at what thisorganization has done, what you
have done as an individual, youhave successfully gone through
peaks and valleys multiple timesin your lifetime.
Everything about your pastbehavior has said you have
(12:13):
successfully traversed crap andfound your way through it.
This organization, we face thiscrap, this change, this thing.
This is the stuff that'shappened in the last five years,
10 years, 20 years.
If we have successfullytraversed this in the past, why
would we think that we can'ttraverse it now?
And so do we have the perfect,right answer?
(12:35):
No, will we try something,learn from it, get better?
Try something, learn from it,get better?
Try something, learn from it,get better and get through the
valley to the other side.
Yeah, because historically,that's what we've done and
historically, we're going to dothat together in your brain and
my brain.
Together, we can do this, and Ido think that's what we've done
, and historically we're goingto do that together and your
(12:56):
brain and my brain together, wecan do this, and I do think
that's that big part of it.
It's like acknowledge the fear,move past the fear and
recognize.
It's a journey that is going tobe iterative, and I think
that's the other thing aboutpsychological fear.
In this case it's like butwhat's the perfect, right answer
?
There isn't.
(13:16):
It's a journey.
Scott (13:19):
Yeah, whatever you pick that works is the right answer.
Tammy (13:23):
Whatever you pick actually teaches you a lesson.
Right?
You do something and you learn,and you do something and you
learn, and you do something andyou learn.
I think trying to find theperfect, right answer is the
thing that freezes us and that'sfearful.
What if it won't work?
Lots of things don't work.
(13:44):
It's just the step to findingout what will work, right?
I think that's another reasonwe're so fearful.
It's like oh, it's not going towork.
And then what are they going tosay?
It's information, it's data.
Scott (13:58):
Well, and we've been taught for years and years and
years.
It's about getting the rightanswer so you can get the right
grade.
Tammy (14:08):
And, once again, that is the one right answer.
Google has it, you know AI hasit.
There, the one right answerGoogle has it, you know, ai has
it.
There is one right answer.
Instead of recognizing thatthere are so many right answers
and we got to figure out whatright answer works for us, for
ourselves, for our teams, forour company, in the context and
(14:31):
in the place that we're at, thatfallacy of polarization, it's
one or the other.
There's no multitudes.
There are multitudes of rightanswers and I'll tell you I'm
sure someone listening to thisis like no, there's not.
I'm like there probably is lotsof ways to get to the outcome
(14:54):
you're looking for.
Some of them are better thanothers in different contexts, in
different situations.
There's very seldom just oneright answer.
That's a hard one to swallow.
Good morning Tammy and Scott.
Scott (00:03):
Good morning Karman.
Hello Sugar, I mean Karman .
Tammy (00:10):
Wow, someone might get after you, mister, if like, from
human resources calling.
Scott (00:15):
Yeah, oh, I was thinking you were going to say Todd
Todd's going to chase me down.
Tammy (00:21):
Todd would be like wow, you have someone who calls you
sugar Karman.
Karman (00:25):
Yeah, he'd be like wait, they were talking to you.
I thought you were salt.
Scott (00:36):
Karman is salty.
Tammy (00:37):
Karman is salty and people don't know Karman is so
sweet and kind and once you getto know Karman, there's a
little bit of that saltinessbehind all of it, which is
actually my favorite part of her.
Karman (00:51):
Like a good salted caramel.
That's exactly You're chewingalong and then you hit one of
those big pieces of sea salt andyou're like, oh yeah.
Tammy (01:05):
Yes, yeah, people are too too nice.
I don't trust them.
I need a little bit of dark.
Scott (01:14):
I must I must be super trustworthy then are you a
little bit of darkness?
Tammy (01:20):
you're a lot.
A bit of darkness, no, Ithought it was.
Scott (01:23):
The trustworthiness was like a scale equal to the level
of darkness no, no, you'd haveto read the first book to get
the trust, okay, and there's god.
I'm sorry, I got, I got, I gotconfused but the part of that is
it's.
Tammy (01:37):
It is truly to come back to that it truly is.
If you're not real authentic,right, it's hard to trust you.
And and if someone can't tellyou like the hard truths, you
can't, you can't trust them.
And so you do need someone whois like authentically.
They can't be happy all thetime, they can't be sunshine and
rainbows and sprinkles all thetime.
(01:58):
You gotta have that other side,Cause we all do, and so until
that person shows that to you,you don't trust them.
Karman (02:06):
So well, it's interesting that you talk about
trust this morning, because thatwas kind of related to the
topic that I had in mind.
Well, you know, we're workingwith a lot of clients who are in
big change seasons, andsometimes that's why a client
(02:30):
works with us, because they'regoing through a change and they
need a partner in that and we'rereally good at that.
But we also have some clientsthat we've been with for a long
time who are in new changeseasons.
I wanted to talk a little bitabout the role of safety in
(02:50):
change and maybe safety,trustworthiness, those things
kind of fit together a littlebit.
So when your organization isgoing through a big change, what
role does safety play?
Can it play a role Inherently?
Maybe change is just unsafe?
What should you be thinkingabout as a leader?
Tammy (03:16):
I love that.
Maybe change is just inherentlyunsafe.
Just that phrase, Karman, issuch an interesting phrase.
You want to play with that onea little bit, Scott.
Scott (03:28):
I mean, I don't know that it's unsafe.
I guess I'm still wrapping myhead around the statement here.
Yeah.
Tammy (03:38):
So I think it feels unsafe.
Okay, there's some people.
Scott (03:44):
For some it would.
Well, yeah, that's, that'ssuper fair.
Tammy (03:47):
It feels unsafe, right.
And so that's the piece that Ithink is really, really
interesting.
I saw this I don't evenremember whether it was a movie
or whatever it is but there wasa child who was wanting to go
into the pool but was scaredright and was kind of making the
(04:11):
comment like I want to go, butit's just scary, I'm really
afraid.
And this old wise woman said,yep, and you do it anyway.
And you know, I remember beinglike that was such an
interesting way of looking at itthat there's a lot of stuff in
(04:32):
life change, marriage, havingkids.
You know, I just went through adeath of two parents.
I mean, reality is all of thatis scary and you do it anyway.
In that space.
It's one of the things, Karman,I think you're right.
(04:52):
I think one of the pieces whenan organization is going through
change, for many people they'reafraid and they might not even
want to use that word and yetdown inside in their gut, yeah,
this thing that they're havingto face is frightening, right.
(05:13):
And so there is then this piecethat says as a leader, how do I
manage through that?
How do I help people throughthat?
Because their gut, and thentheir brain, which follows that
gut oftentimes is saying danger,will Robinson, danger, and in
(05:34):
that space, if we can't helpthem through that, they're not
going to make it through this.
Scott (05:39):
I had never really thought about it as danger or
fear or that's because you're amaverick, scott.
Tammy (05:48):
Mavericks like say fear.
Are you kidding me?
No, let's go right.
You don't have that thing inyour gut that you're afraid of,
but a lot of people do.
Scott (05:58):
Yeah yeah.
Well, I mean, they're weird.
Tammy (06:02):
No, you're the weird one, honestly, but I mean, that is.
You just said something reallyimportant, right?
(06:23):
Yeah?
Some people are going to lookat it and say why are you afraid
?
Yeah, yeah, all the time You'renot.
What you feel is not valid,well, what you're feeling isn't
valid, right?
Well, they both are Okay.
It's just a different responseto the same stimulus.
Scott (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, and I had.
I had just in my head.
I had not ever paired it withfear.
I had always paired it witheither not understanding or I
have, as a leader, I haven'tdone my job to bring them along,
which really is exactly whatyou're saying.
I had just never equated it tothat word before.
Tammy (07:00):
To the foundation of where it came from.
Scott (07:03):
Yeah.
Tammy (07:03):
Yep, yep, and that's Scott.
That's interesting, right, okay, that's one of the pieces like
even if you look at thedifferences between you and I in
that space is recognizing like,where does some of this stuff
come from so that we can getpast it?
(07:25):
Talked to so many organizationswhere they're like just give
them the information, give themthe context, you know they'll
get there.
We might not have dealt withthis thing and we've made the
world unsafe for theseindividuals, not intentionally,
(07:46):
right?
And is it really unsafe?
Probably not.
Okay, however, they're stillexperiencing that.
And then here's the deal If weallow them to stay in that space
for too long, we then tell themthat their fear is like valid,
(08:09):
they, they have a right to befear, to be fearful, that this
it truly is.
And then they sit in that fearand that's when they're like
hell, no, I won't go.
Okay, so recognizing that itcan be fear, that it is not safe
for them, is one thing.
Wallowing in it and staying init for any length of time and
(08:32):
not doing the job of moving themthrough it yes, it seems scary,
we're going to do it anyway.
That old wise woman tellingthat kid yep, it's scary, do it
anyway.
And I think that might be oneof the really the missing pieces
of change is recognizing thisemotional response to it, not
(08:53):
the context, the literal, youknow.
This is the reason why theintellectual side of this, yeah.
Scott (09:02):
And it it almost is an element of as we're talking
about it.
It's it's like the the re inchange and the reaction that
people can have in if we kind ofuse just fear as the base right
, fight, flight, freeze, appease, and you start to think about
(09:29):
that in in change many timesthat's what people are doing
that's exactly what they aredoing, right and so it's just.
It's interesting, I, I've, I'veall.
I don't know how I've thoughtabout it is right or well, I'm
sure it's right, because I'malways right.
Uh, it's right or wrong, but wejust we just like stump scott?
Tammy (09:52):
I don't.
This might be the first timeever in the podcast.
Karman, way to go, Let me bringsomething to the table.
And he's like wait a minute.
This is new thinking for me.
Scott (10:05):
I would have always categorized it as the emotional
response of change which, if youback it is, I mean if you kind
of just back the bus and go downthe YYY path, I mean we're kind
of cutting down to the core ofit, and so it's just interesting
to think about in that regard.
Tammy (10:24):
And you know the piece about that is if we, instead of
rejecting that they shouldn'tfeel this way, if we accept that
they feel this way, it's ourjob then as the leader to go
okay, and we're going to do itanyway.
So it's realizing that it'sthere and moving them and saying
(10:46):
it's okay that you feel thatway and we're going to continue
to take steps in this direction.
I think the unsafe thing iswhen we tell them it's not okay
to think that or to feel thatit's the acceptance of that.
What you are feeling is valid,it's okay, all right, and we're
(11:08):
not going to stop there.
So go back to.
It's still my favorite quote ifyou're walking through hell,
keep walking, okay, becausestopping in the middle of it
makes it worse.
And so in this space it's likeyep, you feel that way and let's
go prove that we can solve this, that we can move forward, that
(11:30):
there is a place where this isgoing to get better.
We did not.
We don't live in a world whereeverything's perfect every day,
everything's good all day, thatwe're not going to have any
problems or we're not going tohave any pain and we're not
going to have any difficulties.
The fact of the matter is islife is more than just having
(11:51):
everything be perfect and smilesand easy all the time.
We go through peaks and valleys.
If we look at what thisorganization has done, what you
have done as an individual, youhave successfully gone through
peaks and valleys multiple timesin your lifetime.
Everything about your pastbehavior has said you have
(12:13):
successfully traversed crap andfound your way through it.
This organization, we face thiscrap, this change, this thing.
This is the stuff that'shappened in the last five years,
10 years, 20 years.
If we have successfullytraversed this in the past, why
would we think that we can'ttraverse it now?
And so do we have the perfect,right answer?
(12:35):
No, will we try something,learn from it, get better?
Try something, learn from it,get better?
Try something, learn from it,get better and get through the
valley to the other side.
Yeah, because historically,that's what we've done and
historically, we're going to dothat together in your brain and
my brain.
Together, we can do this, and Ido think that's what we've done
, and historically we're goingto do that together and your
(12:56):
brain and my brain together, wecan do this, and I do think
that's that big part of it.
It's like acknowledge the fear,move past the fear and
recognize.
It's a journey that is going tobe iterative, and I think
that's the other thing aboutpsychological fear.
In this case it's like butwhat's the perfect, right answer
?
There isn't.
(13:16):
It's a journey.
Scott (13:19):
Yeah, whatever you pick that works is the right answer.
Tammy (13:23):
Whatever you pick actually teaches you a lesson.
Right?
You do something and you learn,and you do something and you
learn, and you do something andyou learn.
I think trying to find theperfect, right answer is the
thing that freezes us and that'sfearful.
What if it won't work?
Lots of things don't work.
(13:44):
It's just the step to findingout what will work, right?
I think that's another reasonwe're so fearful.
It's like oh, it's not going towork.
And then what are they going tosay?
It's information, it's data.
Scott (13:58):
Well, and we've been taught for years and years and
years.
It's about getting the rightanswer so you can get the right
grade.
Tammy (14:08):
And, once again, that is the one right answer.
Google has it, you know AI hasit.
There, the one right answerGoogle has it, you know, ai has
it.
There is one right answer.
Instead of recognizing thatthere are so many right answers
and we got to figure out whatright answer works for us, for
ourselves, for our teams, forour company, in the context and
(14:31):
in the place that we're at, thatfallacy of polarization, it's
one or the other.
There's no multitudes.
There are multitudes of rightanswers and I'll tell you I'm
sure someone listening to thisis like no, there's not.
I'm like there probably is lotsof ways to get to the outcome
(14:54):
you're looking for.
Some of them are better thanothers in different contexts, in
different situations.
There's very seldom just oneright answer.
That's a hard one to swallow.
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.