The Action-Response Principle

It’s about too little impact
By Deano Gomes-Luis

Most organisations believe they suffer from change fatigue because they ask too much of people.
Too many initiatives.
Too many priorities.
Too much disruption.
The assumption is simple: if we slowed down, people would cope better.
In practice, slowing down rarely fixes the problem.

I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly in organisations genuinely trying to be considerate. Leaders reduce the number of programmes. Timelines are extended. Expectations are softened.
And yet, fatigue persists.
What’s wearing people down isn’t the volume of change.
It’s the lack of payoff.

Change becomes exhausting when effort isn’t matched by visible impact.
People invest energy.
They adapt behaviour.
They learn new ways of working.
But nothing meaningfully improves.
When actions don’t produce outcomes people can feel, belief erodes. Each new initiative is met with quieter compliance and lower conviction – not because people are resistant, but because experience has taught them to be cautious.

This is why “change fatigue” is often a response problem, not a workload problem.
It’s not that people can’t handle change.
It’s that they stop trusting it.
They’ve learned that delivery doesn’t reliably lead to value.

The organisations that break this cycle don’t reduce ambition.
They increase credibility.
They design fewer actions to land clearly, rather than many actions to be delivered competently. They focus on moments where impact will be visible at the point of delivery – not just reported months later.
When people can see and feel progress, energy returns surprisingly quickly.

You can see the difference when change starts to land.
Scepticism softens.
Participation improves.
Momentum rebuilds.
Not because people were convinced – but because experience changed.

Before launching the next initiative, it’s worth asking:
What will be different, in a way people can actually experience, when this change is delivered?
If that answer isn’t clear, fatigue is almost guaranteed.

People don’t burn out from change.
They burn out from effort without impact.
Design for the second, and the first largely takes care of itself.

This article reflects ideas explored more fully in Beyond Execution, where I introduce the Action–Response Principle – a way of seeing how value is formed at the point of delivery, and why strong execution alone rarely creates the impact leaders expect.