The technique I use most—both in my own transitions and in coaching the teams I work with—is what I call Seeing Signals: training yourself and your team to name the change before it forces you to react.
That sounds simple. It is also one of the hardest disciplines to practice consistently, because naming a shift means admitting that the old map may no longer work.
When I left a 16-year professional basketball career to become a new hire at Nike, I could have waited until I felt completely lost to admit something had changed. I knew how to perform at the highest level on the court. I knew how to read a game, prepare for pressure, and earn trust inside a team. But Nike was a new environment with new language, new rhythms, and rules I had not learned yet.
Instead of protecting the identity of the expert, I built a habit of naming the shift early: This is a new environment. I do not know the rules yet. Here is what I need to relearn.
That honesty did not make me less capable. It made me more adaptable.
Seeing Signals before disruption
I now teach that same discipline to the teams I coach. Instead of waiting for a reorganization, leadership change, new technology, or process rollout to land—and then scrambling—we create a regular practice of naming what is shifting before it has already disrupted the work.
A signal may be obvious: a new executive, a changed customer expectation, or an AI tool entering the workflow. It may also be quieter: decisions taking longer, old processes creating more friction, customers asking different questions, or strong people disengaging from work that used to energize them.
The point is not to predict every outcome. The point is to notice that the conditions have changed while there is still room to choose a response.
Pretense slows adaptation
What makes Seeing Signals effective is that it removes the shame from not knowing.
Most people resist change quietly because admitting, “I do not have this figured out yet,” feels like weakness. So they fake competence instead of adapting. They keep using familiar language, defend the old process, and act as though the pivot has not happened. That pretense consumes energy the team needs for learning.
Leaders often misread this behavior as stubbornness. Sometimes it is fear wearing professional clothes.
When naming the signal becomes a normal, expected step—not a confession—people can tell the truth sooner. They can ask better questions. They can identify which assumptions no longer fit. They can learn without feeling as though every gap is a verdict on their ability.
That is psychological safety with a practical purpose: not comfort for its own sake, but enough honesty to move.
Make naming the shift a team habit
Seeing Signals works best when it is built into the rhythm of the team rather than saved for a crisis. Ask three questions regularly:
- What is changing around us? Name the evidence, not the rumor.
- What does this change make newly important? Identify the capability, behavior, or decision that now matters more.
- What do we need to relearn? Give people permission to become beginners before the work demands expertise.
The leader should answer first. When you name what you are learning, you remove the performance of certainty from the room. You show that awareness is not weakness and that adaptation is part of the job.
The mindset comes first
A plan matters. Action matters. But both move faster once people stop pretending they are not in a pivot.
The mindset comes first because it determines whether the team treats change as useful information or as a threat to identity. When people can say, “The environment shifted, and we need a new move,” they stop wasting time defending a version of the work that no longer matches reality.
You do not need every answer to lead through change. You need the courage to name the signal early enough that your team still has choices.
What has already shifted around your team that no one has said out loud yet? Start there.
Michelle Snow is a 16-year professional athlete, Lead PLM at Nike, change and leadership speaker, and AI founder of Built 4 The Moment.
Michelle Snow
Former WNBA All-Star, Nike product leader, Florida Sports Hall of Fame inductee, and keynote speaker. Michelle teaches teams and leaders how to make change the move, not the loss.
