Allister Frost’s ‘Six Change Postures’
Over years of delivering keynotes and workshops, I have observed that busy people naturally adopt one of six universal postures when confronting workplace change. Recognising your default posture is the first step to reclaiming your energy and momentum.
The
Legacy Expert
“It isn’t broken, so don’t waste time fixing it! Our past methods have always worked well. Let’s stick to what we know.”
You have earned your stripes. Over years of hard work, you have built deep domain expertise, road-tested playbooks, and earned a healthy track record of success. But when new tools and ways of working arrive, it is tempting to defend your established expertise, rather than risk diluting the standards you worked so hard to create.
Recognising this posture is not self-criticism; it is a healthy reality check. Holding fast to proven methods is a natural protective instinct. When your environment shifts quickly, defending what you know is not stubbornness; it is an instinctive desire to preserve your hard-earned status, your professional identity, and the high craft you pride yourself on.
Around
of employees become Legacy Experts
Why You Feel This Way
- The competence trap: Your reputation and career were forged on mastering a specific way of working; setting that expertise aside feels like hitting the reset button on your value.
- Grieving the old playbook: It can be disorienting to watch long-standing processes you perfected being casually replaced by automated or alternative methods.
- Healthy scepticism of cosmetic trends: You’ve seen plenty of short-lived fads arrive with loud fanfare and vanish without delivering real substance.
The Shift You Need:
Rediscover the Beginner’s Advantage
Past success can become a trap if it stops you from exploring what comes next.
Try this instead: You don’t have to abandon your hard-earned wisdom to become future-ready. In fact, pairing your deep institutional experience with a beginner’s curiosity can make you truly indispensable. Reclaiming a beginner’s mind simply means being willing to question the way things are, ask intentionally naïve questions, and treat learning as an essential expansion of your craft rather than a threat to it.
One Micro-Action to Try Today
Ask one naïve “Why?”
In your next meeting or business review, deliberately silence your seasoned expertise for ten minutes.
Instead of explaining how things have always been done or why an alternative approach is destined to fail, approach the problem like an intrigued newcomer. Act as if it’s your first day at work and ask an open, curious question about an established routine: “Why do we always do it this way?” Notice how freeing it feels to be the curious learner rather than the defender of the past.
The bottom line: Your past achievements prove your capability; they don’t define your limits. Real experts don’t defend yesterday’s trophies, they apply their wisdom to re-shape tomorrow.