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The majority of the problems being dealt with today are no longer simple or technical, writes Thomas Jepson-Lay of Thomas Jepson-Lay Coaching & Leadership Consultancy.
They are wicked, complex, and often intersecting. Many of the approaches, techniques, and strategies we’ve relied on are no longer fit for purpose. As leaders, there is a disproportionate and unrealistic expectation that you will immediately know what to do, remain calm and maintain balance and the grounded mental health required to navigate this terrain.
Reflecting on your behaviour can be a helpful way to understand how you deal with this pressure. Quite often, it’s experienced as a heavy responsibility causing a lot of leaders to retreat into the safety of patterned behaviour and the comfort of a known space, despite knowing the results are unlikely to be beneficial.
The Curious Change is about our ability as leaders and teams to engage with complex change and hold a comfort with discomfort that enables a positive curiosity and creativity. 
Allow me to start with a statement:
“The traditional ways have been discredited, but the new ways are yet to be written.”
Before you read any further, I’d like to invite you to take a moment to tune into your body (or just keep reading if that’s not possible). Close your eyes for 60 seconds and notice your body. What sensation are you experiencing when you think about this statement? Tightness? Warmth? Heaviness? Lightness? Where in your body is this being felt?
Your physiological response to this statement is an invitation to be curious about how you engage with change, as well as the subject of this blog … predominantly. There is also an introduction of me to the Somerset business community, and an offer to help you and your business navigate turbulent periods of change.
My name is Thomas Jepson-Lay. I’ve been a senior global leader in the humanitarian aid sector for the last 18 years, responding on the ground with direct assistance to some of the largest war zones and disasters around the world (South Sudan, Somalia, Haiti, DR Congo, China, Mozambique, Japan, Zimbabwe, and Brazil, to name a few), overseeing budgets in excess of $200m and helping millions of people survive crisis. The last six years have been spent as the Humanitarian Director in East and Southern Africa for a large international organisation. This meant providing leadership to 20–25 active humanitarian responses across 14 countries at any given time.
Whilst this may conjure up some sensationalist visual imagery, the very core of my work has been quite different. I was leading and coaching people through periods of change. Whether that was CEOs of partner organisations, managing directors of country programs, or entire senior leadership teams, my role was anchored in the provision of support and guidance to leaders at a time when everything they thought they knew was turned on its head – often including personal trauma and implications that stretched beyond the day-to-day business.
These changes may have followed an earthquake, the outbreak of a conflict, or the threat of famine, but the response to such events at scale is as much a leadership and organisational development challenge as it is a humanitarian one. It is about balancing business continuity with simultaneous contraction and expansion; HR turnover and duty of care; and strategic uncertainty with interpersonal dynamics.
To operationalise the need for agility and adaptability, we adopted the phrase, “when the music changes, so does the dance.” I helped leaders to dance with the music of acute change rather than burying their heads, hoping they could return to ‘normal’ soon. Given the trends, this meant reimagining what humanitarianism meant to the organisation in that region and for those leaders.
We looked at the problem: the humanitarian market was too crowded with competition, despite demand outstripping supply at a rate of 2:1, with the divide set to grow exponentially over the next 25 years. The current product wasn’t fit for purpose, and the system was breaking under the pressure. We had a moral obligation – as well as a business continuity imperative – to change and adapt. So, we did. I led a shift away from a linear and hierarchical operational model that had trapped us in patterned behaviour and an unsustainable, siloed attitude of “we must be every link in the value chain” toward a model of ecosystemic awareness that embraced interdependency and empowered country-level leadership to determine the organisation’s role in the response. 
This began with the internal acceptance that the humanitarian agenda was no longer the sole responsibility of the humanitarian team – a provocative statement that challenged decades of entrenched identity. Saving lives and sustaining lives were two different responsibilities, yet we had confused them as one and the same. In addition, we were dealing with dozens of localised marketplace ecosystems – not one global, homogenous system. The organisation’s role and product offering required adaptation to address gaps in these local markets, where competition had become increasingly diverse and numerous, with new entrants introducing innovative ideas and unique approaches.
We needed to shift our measures of success from the exclusive lens of globally aggregated response outputs (# of individuals reached with assistance), to looking at the holistic outcomes within affected populations’ ecosystems of support and what value add could we bring offer? We looked outside the window. We navel-gazed (and stayed with the trouble when it got uncomfortable), analysed what we needed to let go of, what needed to be retained, and what fringe initiatives deserved investment. Then, we charted a journey from 2020 to 2030 that ensured a risk-managed transition from what we’d always done to what we needed to be doing.
However, this process alone didn’t lead to socialisation, a sense of collective endeavour, individual ownership, and ultimately: the creative curiosity that turned the changes into a positive blueprint for the wider sector. That was achieved through relationships—through human connection and an appreciation that people are people, each with different pressures and responses to change. We made time for everyone, listened to them all, and asked searching questions instead of making assumptions. 
Which brings us back to how you felt when you read the opening statement. Your physiological response is an indication of your deep emotional reaction, which in turn influences your cognitive processes. We were aware of our own emotions as individuals, and as a senior leadership team we created a space to share and check in with each other regularly. We then encouraged this awareness and behaviour across all departments.
As leaders navigating turbulent change, it is increasingly crucial to become attuned to your own bodily and cognitive responses – to create the space and capability for your teams to do the same – and to collectively appreciate the richness of a diverse group of people approaching the same problem from different stances. Essentially, we followed Jacques Lacan’s Three Logical Moments. When problems become wicked and complex, Lacan offers a thought process to walk through – one which requires comfort with deep individual and group reflection.
The first is the Moment of the Glance: the initial encounter with the problem. For simple, routine or technical problems, your first thoughts are usually sufficient. However, as the problem moves along a spectrum toward complexity, that initial reaction is often inadequate. So, we must enter the second moment – Understanding. This doesn’t mean a deeper dive into data. Indicators can help, but the answer is not often found in numbers. It is found in curious exploration of the whole ecosystem, in honest reflection on who we are, why we’re responding a certain way, how we can bring creative ideas forward, and where in the organisation they are received or resisted.
This moment can be exciting and beautiful, but it also brings discomfort. That discomfort can trigger fear, prompting a retreat to the Glance, resulting in the repetition of patterned behaviours and an “othering” of the problem – “The government has increased taxes,” “Gen Z’s work ethic is different,” “There are too many global supply chain blockages.” These are genuine business challenges – but the problem isn’t the government’s, or Gen Z’s, or the shipping company’s.
The way we navigate the changes demanded by these challenges – and the more complex ones you’re likely facing – is down to our own curiosity and our ability to turn discomfort into opportunity. If we stay in that moment of reflection, we move into the third moment: Action… in faith. It’s “in faith” because, by definition, there is no clear precedent for the solution. However, confidence can be drawn from the rigour of the deliberations and the curiosity experienced in the second moment.
For the last six months, I’ve been listening to business leaders across Somerset, the UK, and internationally in sectors as wide-ranging as automotive, legal, charitable, wellbeing & HR, and AI. While the subject matter and terminology may vary, the leadership challenges remain the same. What I’ve heard is that the majority of the problems being dealt with are no longer simple or technical.
They are wicked, complex, and often intersecting. Many of the approaches, techniques and strategies we’ve relied on are no longer fit for purpose and yet many leaders still retreat into the safety of patterned behaviour and the comfort of a known space, despite knowing the results are unlikely to be beneficial. Instead, there is an invitation to move forward into that exciting moment of understanding – and to embrace what I call The Curious Change.
The Curious Change is about our ability as individuals and teams to engage with complex change and hold a comfort with discomfort that enables a positive curiosity and creativity. We are living through the epitome of a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) or BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear and Incomprehensible) world. As leaders, there is a disproportionate and unrealistic expectation that you will immediately know what to do, remain calm, and maintain balance and the grounded mental health required to navigate this terrain. Reflecting on your reaction to the opening statement can be a helpful way to understand how you deal with this pressure. Quite often, it’s experienced as a heavy responsibility, and you may not have many spaces to share this with… I can be one such space.
The process of change in the aid sector I described is not one I wish to impose on purpose-led businesses in Somerset. The circumstances and variables are too different, and I’ve never subscribed to templated solutions. However, the principles we followed – of listening not just to respond but to truly understand, of listening to yourself and your personal responses, of critically reflecting on your place in the wider ecosystem, and of sharing that with your team to invite a culture of curiosity – that is something we can explore together.
As you embrace the journey of a Curious Change, I can offer you: 
Through these offerings, we can understand and get excited about The Curious Change. Thank you for reading to the end – I hope it was thought-provoking. If you’d like to explore more, no pressure, no hard sell – just a conversation to see what emerges, please do get in touch: hello@thomasjepsonlay.com
Note to readers: Physiological responses aren’t fixed or universal—they’re invitations to get curious, not diagnoses. Your body may speak a different language, and that’s okay. If you’re triggered by your response or have a wider mental health concern, please contact me, or seek support from an appropriate professional.
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