The Power of the Pivot: Turning Change into Forward Momentum
Updated: Nov 5
Change rarely arrives at a convenient time.
A strategy shifts. A priority disappears. A role changes. A project that once seemed essential is suddenly paused. Leaders and teams can spend significant energy trying to restore what was, when the more powerful question may be:
“Given what has changed, how can we use what is strongest in us to move forward?”
That is the power of the pivot.
A pivot is not simply reacting to change. It is the ability to acknowledge that the environment has shifted, learn from what is happening, and intentionally redirect toward a new path.
In this sense, pivoting is an important part of change agility: the capacity to adjust how we think and act when familiar assumptions, plans, or circumstances no longer fit.
Research on adaptive performance provides a useful lens for understanding the power of the pivot. Pulakos et al. (2000) identified adaptability as a multidimensional workplace capability that includes responding effectively to uncertainty, learning new approaches, and creatively solving unfamiliar problems. A pivot, therefore, is not simply changing direction. It is an adaptive response: recognizing that circumstances have shifted and adjusting how we think and act accordingly.
Pivoting Is Not Starting Over
One of the hardest parts of change is our tendency to focus on what has been lost.
The original plan did not work. The familiar structure is disappearing. Resources have changed. A role or responsibility looks different. A strengths-based approach invites us to look at the same situation through a different lens:
What do we still have that can help us succeed?
That might include expertise, relationships, creativity, persistence, collaboration, courage, or lessons gained from previous challenges.
Research on positive psychological capital offers a useful foundation for this perspective. Psychological capital brings together hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism, resources associated with positive workplace outcomes. Fred Luthans and colleagues describe these psychological capacities as developable rather than simply fixed traits (Luthans et al., 2007).
This matters during change.
A pivot becomes more possible when people can see that although the path has changed, they are not beginning from zero. They bring strengths, experience, relationships, and learning with them.
From “Why Is This Happening?” to “What Is Possible Now?”
Change agility does not mean ignoring disappointment or immediately putting a positive spin on difficult circumstances. Resilience is not pretending that disruption does not affect us.
Instead, agility involves recognizing reality while remaining capable of adapting our response.
Research into adaptive performance has examined the importance of adaptability in workplace performance, reinforcing the value of being able to modify behavior as situations and demands change (Pulakos et al., 2002).
The leader’s role can therefore involve helping the team shift from questions that keep attention anchored in the past to questions that create possibilities for the future.
Instead of: Why can't we continue doing this the way we have always done it?
Try: What has changed, and what does that require from us now?
Instead of: What are we losing?
Try: What strengths and capabilities can we carry forward?
Instead of: How do we make the old plan work?
Try: What would success look like under these new conditions?
These questions do not eliminate uncertainty. They help teams work with uncertainty rather than waiting for it to disappear.
Resilience Is a Team Capability
We often speak about resilience as an individual characteristic: someone “bounces back.”
But resilience also lives within teams.
Alliger, Cerasoli, Tannenbaum, and Vessey’s work on team resilience focuses specifically on how teams can flourish under pressure, highlighting resilience as something relevant at the collective level, not only the individual one (Alliger et al., 2015).
That distinction is important for leaders.
During change, the question is not simply,“How do I make my people more resilient?”
A more powerful question is:
“What can we do together that strengthens our ability to adapt?”
One answer is to make the pivot visible and collective.
Team Activity: Strengths → Shift → Step
At your next team meeting, set aside 10–15 minutes and create three columns, then invite the team to discuss and explore together.
1. Strengths: What can we build on?
What has this team done well during previous changes?
What strengths do we see in one another?
What relationships, knowledge, or capabilities can we leverage now?
Capture specific examples.
2. Shift: What needs to change?
What assumption, behavior, or priority may no longer serve us?
Where are we continuing to invest energy in something we cannot control?
What might we need to learn, rethink, or approach differently?
The goal is not to solve everything. It is to identify where a pivot would create movement.
3. Step: What will we try next?
“What is one action within our control that we can take now?”
Keep the action small, specific, and observable. Then revisit it during the next team conversation:
What happened?
What did we learn?
What should we adjust?
This reflection-and-learning cycle is also consistent with evidence supporting team debriefs. A meta-analysis by Tannenbaum and Cerasoli found that team and individual debriefs can enhance performance, supporting the value of structured reflection rather than simply moving immediately to the next task (Tannenbaum & Cerasoli, 2013).
The Leadership Opportunity
The most agile leaders are not necessarily those who always know where change will lead.
They are leaders who help people recognize what remains possible.
They create enough pause to acknowledge what has changed, enough curiosity to reconsider the path, and enough confidence to take the next step.
Sometimes resilience is not about holding on longer.
Sometimes resilience is knowing when to pivot.
The most powerful message a leader can give a team during uncertainty is: We may not be able to control what changed, but we can decide what we build from here.
References
Pulakos, E. D., Arad, S., Donovan, M. A., & Plamondon, K. E. (2000). Adaptability in the workplace: Development of a taxonomy of adaptive performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(4), 612–624.
Alliger, G. M., Cerasoli, C. P., Tannenbaum, S. I., & Vessey, W. B. (2015). Team resilience: How teams flourish under pressure. Organizational Dynamics, 44(3), 176–184.
Luthans, F., Avolio, B. J., Avey, J. B., & Norman, S. M. (2007). Positive psychological capital: Measurement and relationship with performance and satisfaction. Personnel Psychology, 60(3), 541–572.
Pulakos, E. D., Schmitt, N., Dorsey, D. W., Arad, S., Borman, W. C., & Hedge, J. W. (2002). Predicting adaptive performance: Further tests of a model of adaptability. Human Performance, 15(4), 299–323.
Tannenbaum, S. I., & Cerasoli, C. P. (2013). Do team and individual debriefs enhance performance? A meta-analysis. Human Factors, 55(1), 231–245.
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