A Change Question - What Can I Control When Change Is Already On Its Way?

Welcome to A Change Question — a special mini-series from The Inner Game of Change.
In each short, solo episode, I bring you one question worth sitting with — the kind that can spark both personal and professional shifts. 

In this episode, I explore a question many of us face when change arrives uninvited: What can I control when change is already on its way?

From restructures to new technology, change often shows up before we’re ready. The 3 P’s — Place, Proximity, and Posture — offer a way to regain agency, even when the storm is already here.

Drawing on neuroscience and lessons from history, I unpack how small, deliberate choices shift the brain from threat to action — and why missing those choices, like Kodak or the Maginot Line, can cost us dearly.

👉 When change comes, where will you find your control — in your place, your proximity, or your posture?

Ali Juma
@The Inner Game of Change podcast

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Chapters

• 0:00 Change Arrives Whether You Ask or Not
• 1:15 The Paradox of Control
• 2:46 The Three Ps Framework
• 3:57 Historical Lessons in Change Management
• 5:36 Applying the Three Ps in Workplace
• 6:43 Finding Your Ground in Change

Transcript

Ali: 0:06

A new manager starts in your team and suddenly the way you've always worked isn't the way things are done anymore. Ai tools get announced at work and you're not sure if they'll make your job easier or quietly replace parts of it. Or maybe you've carefully planned your week only for a restructure or a new policy to land on your desk, changing everything overnight. Different settings, same pattern. Change arrives whether you ask for it or not, and in those moments the question is what can you control? I am Ali Juma and I have a change question. This is a mini-series from the Inner Gamer Change podcast. In each short solo episode, I bring you one question. We're sitting with a kind that can spark both personal and professional shifts, because statement tends to close things down, it tells you what is, but a question opens things up. It makes you pause, reflect and sometimes can see yourself or your work differently. And it is often in that pause between knowing and wondering that change begins. What can I control when change is already on its way? When change arrives uninvited, our instinct is to scramble for control over everything. We want certainty, we want guarantees, we want to press pause until we catch up. But the paradox is this the more we try to control everything, the less control we actually feel. The key is to find the few places where agency lives and plant your feet firmly there.

Ali: 1:50

Neuroscience has something useful to say here. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel laureate, often reminded us that when we face uncertainty, our brains crave predictability, and when we don't have it, we default to fear or freeze. That's the amygdala doing its job, scanning for danger. But here's the good news Small, deliberate actions switch the brain back into problem-solving mode. Dopamine is released and with it comes energy and momentum. As Lisa Feldman Barrett, a leading neuroscientist, puts it, your brain is a prediction machine. When we take even a small step, ask questions, do a bit of research, test and move forward, you give your brain new data to work with. Suddenly, you feel less at the mercy of the storm.

Ali: 2:46

So when change comes at you, think of the three Ps Place when do you stand, position yourself where you will have the clearest view, the best information or the most stability, proximity who do you stand with? Choose allies and relationships that steady you, not those that fuel panic. Posture how do you show up? With openness, curiosity, calm or defiance? Your posture shapes how others respond to you and how you feel about yourself. And here's the thing the three Ps are not linear. In practice, you loop between them. The three Ps are not linear In practice. You loop between them. You test your place, adjust your proximity, reset your posture and then circle back again no-transcript.

Ali: 3:37

Take Ernest Shackleton in 1915, stranded in Antarctic ice. He couldn't control the weather, the ice or the sea, but he could control his place, moving his men to the strongest flow. He could control his proximity, keeping them together, and his posture calm, steady, refusing despair. Every man survived. Or Johnson and Johnson in 1982. After Tylenol was sabotaged with cyanide. They couldn't control the crime, but they controlled their place, pulling every product from the shelves. Their proximity, transparent with regulators and customers, and their posture responsibility before profit. The result trust in the brand actually grows stronger.

Ali: 4:27

But history also shows what happens when the three Ps are missed. The French military built the Maginot Line in 1930s, the wrong place. They prepared for yesterday's war and Germany simply went around. Enron chose the wrong proximity, keeping close only to loyal insiders and avoiding external scrutiny. When the collapse came, no one outside their bubble was surprised. Marie Antoinette as the French Revolution grew, she was seen as distant. She allegedly said let them eat cake. Historians doubt that she ever spoke those words, but the posture stuck and it fueled the fire that consumed her and Kodak in the 1990s. They had digital photography in their labs, but clung to the wrong place Film, the wrong proximity. Distributors, not innovators. The wrong posture, protecting the past instead of embracing the future, and they lost their market.

Ali: 5:34

Now let's bring it closer to home. Imagine your workplace announces a sudden restructure, a new leadership, new roles, uncertainty everywhere. You can't control the timing, you can't control the decisions already made, but you can control your place, choosing to be in the conversations where information is shared. You can control your proximity, staying close to colleagues who are constructive, not cynical. Staying close to colleagues who are constructive, not cynical. And you can control your posture, showing up as someone ready to adapt, not paralyzed by fear. Those choices don't erase the change. They give you a stance, a sense of agency, when everything else feels uncertain.

Ali: 6:19

So here's my question for you this week when change is already on its way, where will you find your control? In your place, your proximity or your posture? And, just as importantly, what might your second step look like once the first one is made? Because control isn't about steering the whole storm. It is about finding the ground you can stand on, the people you can stand with and the stance you choose as the winds blow. And here's the bigger truth Change is constant. It won't stop coming your way. The real skill is becoming better at managing it, not fighting it, because if we can do that, then change doesn't just disrupt life, it makes life more interesting. So let me leave you with this when change arrives, will you meet it, standing or waiting for someone else to choose your ground for you? I will leave you with this question Until next time. Thank you.