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Opening Salvo
Leadership volatility has become a defining feature of modern work. Priorities shift quickly. Direction changes without warning. Reorganizations happen before the last one has settled. Employees brace themselves for impact, then adjust again, and again, and again.
I’ve seen teams respond to these rapid shifts with disciplined professionalism. They absorb uncertainty. They adapt quietly. They execute even when goals move mid-stride. On the surface, it looks like resilience. Beneath the surface, it’s something different. It’s compliance by fatigue.
When people experience too many directional changes, they stop reacting with curiosity or urgency. They comply out of exhaustion. They avoid questions because it feels safer to follow the newest instruction than to understand it. Employees may appear engaged, yet many are desensitized after too many shifts.
Leaders often underestimate the cost of this pattern. They assume quiet compliance is alignment. They interpret muted reactions as agreement. They mistake stillness for stability. But when employees stop responding to change, this pattern signals thinner trust and a team that is struggling to stay connected to the work.
Leaders must protect teams from excessive shifts by creating stability around what matters most. They must anchor expectations, communicate decisions with context, and slow the pace of change long enough for people to regain their footing.
Change helps organizations progress. A fast, repeated pace of change creates erosion that teams can’t absorb. Stability is a leadership responsibility, not an optional luxury.
Practical Personas (with a tinge of hyperbole)
The Whiplash Responder: They rally the team after every change, no matter how sudden. They normalize chaos because they want to keep morale steady. Eventually, they run out of air.
The Silent Adaptor: They do what is asked without reaction. No questions. No pushback. No engagement. They conserve their energy because the next shift is always around the corner.
The Stability Builder: They translate changes into steady direction. They shield their teams from unnecessary churn. They work with leaders to pace decisions instead of reacting to every new idea.
Ask Yourself:
How often are priorities shifting, and what creates those shifts?
Do employees understand the purpose behind new directions?
Where can you reduce unnecessary pivots to protect execution?
How do you signal when a change is temporary and when it is structural?
People adapt when change is purposeful and they disconnect when change is constant.
Did You See This?
Washtenaw County Pulls HR Out of the Sheriff’s Office
Washtenaw County commissioners voted to remove the county’s HR department from the sheriff’s office after months of concern about how the department was being managed. The move reflects a fundamental truth about HR, when credibility breaks, authority shifts.
According to reporting from MLive, Sheriff Jerry Clayton said the decision was reached without discussion and called it disappointing. Commission Chair Justin Hodge said the choice was necessary, citing a need to stabilize HR operations. Commissioners said the change followed issues with how the department was being run and noted that HR had been placed under the sheriff’s office nearly a decade earlier as part of a restructuring that is now considered outdated.
Coverage from WEMU reported that the commission voted unanimously to move HR back under the county administrator. County leaders said the change will improve consistency, accountability, and long-term oversight. The sheriff said he was not included in the conversation and that the decision was presented to him as a surprise. The board emphasized that the move was about structure and governance, not discipline.
Leaders can use this example to assess the stability of their own people operations:
Clarify ownership. Ensure HR reports into the structure that best supports transparency, accountability, and alignment with organizational goals.
Review governance fit. Examine whether legacy reporting arrangements still serve the needs of a growing or evolving institution.
Create open dialogue channels. Establish processes for raising concerns before misalignment forces structural intervention.
Stabilize before scaling. When HR is under strain, address oversight and capacity before major changes compound risk.
HR cannot function as a trusted system without a trusted home. When the structure no longer supports that trust, leaders will redraw the map.
Washtenaw County Pulls HR Out of the Sheriff’s Office
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Talent Management 101 (TM101)
Compliance by Fatigue
Compliance by fatigue occurs when employees comply with decisions because they are emotionally depleted, not because they understand or support the direction. It erodes engagement, decision quality, and execution capacity.
What Drives It:
Frequent priority changes without rationale
Repeated reorganizations or leadership turnover
Policy or process shifts with unclear purpose
Decision bottlenecks that create reactive swings
What It Looks Like:
Reduced questions during meetings
Low participation in planning or problem-solving
Decline in discretionary effort
Increased reliance on instructions instead of initiative
Sustained performance requires steadiness. Teams cannot execute when the ground moves faster than they can stand on it.
The Plug
This newsletter is brought to you by AstutEdge, a performance consultancy that helps organizations execute strategy by fixing misalignment in people, systems, and structure.
We work with leadership teams that want to turn strategic intent into measurable execution, by aligning operating rhythms, decision accountability, and leadership capacity with the metrics that matter most.
How We Help:
Expose Friction: Surface the hidden work, duplicate effort, and slow decision paths that quietly stall execution.
Realign Operating Rhythms: Redesign meeting and decision cadences so priorities move faster and accountability sticks.
Build Leadership Capacity: Strengthen how leaders make, communicate, and cascade decisions across teams.
Clarify Ownership: Define decision accountability to reduce noise, sharpen focus, and eliminate rework.
Engineer Performance Systems: Connect performance metrics to real outcomes, not paperwork.
Reinforce Organizational Health: Align people, systems, and structure so performance scales without burnout.
If your organization, or a partner organization, needs to move strategy from “planned” to “proven,” let’s talk.
Share this newsletter with leaders who feel the drag of misalignment, or visit astutedge.com to see how we help organizations execute faster, cleaner, and with greater impact!
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