Pushing for progress—trying to expand into new markets and capture more customers—requires your team to meet changing demands while AI-enhanced products/services and delivery mechanisms are updated. There's inevitable strain on operations and talent. Your business can be put at risk if you omit key moments to regroup, reset, and redesign to scale - the fourth blind spot.

“A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation." Andrew Grove, former CEO, Intel.

Economic conditions have historically NOT been the key cause of unsustainable growth. Organisational complexity has - with emphasis on process and people issues as the business and workforce expands. In 2014, during slower, more predictable conditions, 85% of problems related to sustaining profitable growth for 10 years+ cited were internal.

You are navigating more external and internal complexity now from uncertain economic conditions, customer hesitancy and changing demands, regulatory changes, flexible operating and work models, and evolving tools [​Deloitte​ '24].

CEOs globally see macroeconomic volatility (29%), inflation (27%), cyber risks (24%) and lower availability of workers with key skills (23%) as the biggest threats in the year ahead. Business models also need reinventing or reworking - 42% of CEOs say their company will 'remain viable for LESS than 10 years if continuing on its current path' [​PwC 28th Annual Global CEO Survey​, 2025].

You have pressure to find the talent you need, upskill in the flow of work, and digitalise operations in the flow of business. Deliberately plan organisational 'pit stops' during business upswings and downturns. Check your framework, workflows and capacity to scale (later) at speed and take advantage of slower economic moments to recalibrate and reconfigure before gearing up again.

“As technology and cultural shifts reshape work and the workplace, it's our human capabilities and outcomes that remain at the heart of growth and innovation." — ​Dan Helfrich​ CEO, Deloitte Consulting.

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Capacity Challenge

Continuing Future-of-Work evolutions are significantly changing operational capacity and challenging human capacity. Increasing non-routine issues and business complexities, combined with piecemeal, tactical AI augmentations and agentic integrations are overloading human capacity to unsustainable levels:

• Employees are disturbed every 2 minutes by meetings, emails, or pings.
• 60% of meetings are ad hoc versus scheduled.
• 15% year-over-year increase in before/after hours chats.
• 16% year-over-year increase in meetings after 8pm.
• 6% of employees say their firm is making great progress in establishing human sustainability [Deloitte, ​Global Human Capital Trends 2025​]

There's a “capacity gap: 53% of leaders say productivity must increase, but 80% of the global workforce—both employees and leaders—say they’re lacking enough time or energy to do their work" — Microsoft, ​Work Trend Index 2025​.

Leaders are focused on increasing capacity over the next 12-18 months:

• 82% are confident digital labour will expand their workforce capacity.
• 47% say upskilling their existing workforce is their top priority.
• 45% cite expanding team capacity with digital labor as a top priority.
• 82% say this is a pivotal year to rethink key aspects of strategy and operations [Microsoft, ​Work Trend Index 2025​]

Humans, digital labour, and AI together can expand your capacity:

As for the human component? Organisations that improve employees' capacity to 'grow personally, use their imagination, and think deeply' are:

• 1.4x more likely to say they are creating broad value for customers, community, and society.
• 1.6x more likely to say they provide workers with meaningful work.
• 1.8x more likely to report better financial results [​Deloitte HCT 2025​]

Balance flexibility and adaptability, with enough stability to release greater capacity, as a key objective. Support each employee adapting at their own pace, since already 71% are doing work outside their job description scope.

55+% of leaders said the changing nature of work in their company is "frequent changes in how work is done depending on the need," while less than 45% of employees said this is an ideal way of working for them [Deloitte].

Capacity is in focus, being reconfigured and recomposed. What makes sense for your business, your workforce? Pause to allocate human and AI resources strategically and increase capacity sustainably to improve long-term results.

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Pit Lane Checklist

If your company, unit or team is change-fatigued, starting to stagnate or economics are worsening - such as rising costs per customer, increasing churn, or mounting complexity costs - focus on strengthening your business platform:

1. Human Capacity - Measure change load by team: concurrent projects, after-hours spillover, vacancy rates, time-to-productivity for new hires. Commit to pace bands: with defined “race weeks” and “recovery weeks” quarterly to create operational cadence, reducing burn out.
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2. Operating Capacity - Configure work into modules with clear interfaces for handoffs. Identify the top three friction loops and consider an updated combination of automation, simplification, and headcount.
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3. Cultural Cadence - Re-anchor with a familiar dynamic framework such as a seasonal cycle (seed, grow, harvest, fallow), sports teams (practice, game, review) following a natural, sustainable rhythm.
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4. AI Discipline - Connect each AI use case to a relevant unit metric such as cost per ticket, cycle time, error rate. Profits result when AI is linked to real processes, not pilots [PwC ​28th Annual Global CEO Survey​].
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5. Local Specifics - Check for location-based characteristics such as sector signals, SaaS softness, manufacturers cutting capex, to adjust for capacity needs over next quarters.

“Sometimes slowing down is the only way to speed up" — Satya Nadella, Microsoft, ​Work Trend Index 2025​.

30-day Pit Stop Review & Reset

Week 1 – Diagnostics: Capacity scan - by function (people and process) to map change load, wait times, rework, and top three bottlenecks. AI inventory - list current experiments, link each to a measurable unit outcome.

Week 2 – Design: Set up one module, e.g. onboarding to activation, with clear interfaces; define the human–agent ratio [a new metric in ​MS WTI 25​]. Highlight a naturally dynamic flexible framework for a quarterly seasonal cadence - pre-season build, in-season execution, post-season review and recovery.

Week 3 – Enable: Train managers on load and capacity management and pacing to be able to throttle demand, conserve energy, and reassign attention while sustaining output [​Deloitte​]. Deploy one or two AI applications into a trial module tied to cycle-time/cost metrics.

Week 4 – Re-engage: Publish a 'Capacity & Quality Growth' dashboard with ramp time, cycle time, error rate, engagement pulse, and sustainability signals (absences/overload). Share the story: Pausing to reset, reconfigure, scale safer.

“The real skill now of leadership is pacing - knowing when to push and when to pause" — Deloitte ​HCT 2025​.

Pit Stop Stats

• Time-to-productivity for a new hire - has it gone down? By how much? Where was there most process improvement?
• Cycle time for top processes - are they shorter, more effective or both? Has AI been well-integrated? Could it be better applied?
• Rework / error rate for key workflows - are they lower? Who was asked for inputs for improving processes? What rate is reasonably achievable?
• After-hours work and context-switching as proxies for sustainability - are they better? What changes can relieve top causes of extra hours?
• Employee pulse of workers' energy and trust levels which give them greater capacity to navigate change - have they increased?
• Unit economics tied to AI tracking relevant task improvements such as cost per ticket, cost per lead - are they moving in the right direction?
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Time to plan for a pit stop in January? Or a mini regroup/review next week?

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The objective is to prioritise load and capacity management with modular design, and paced reinvention to reach reasonable velocity without burnout.

📘 ​The Pause Principle​, Kevin Cashman - act quickly, pause deeply.

🗞️ ​When an Active Pause is the Best Strategic Choice​, HBR '24 - it's time.

📹 ​F1 Movie​, Behind the Scenes 'Heart' - ups, downs, teamwork, pit stops.

🎶 ​Time Out​, Jason Mraz feat. Sister Carol - take a strategic pause.

Economic conditions are uneven - UK sentiment in particular has fluctuated greatly this year. That’s why now can be a good time for a strategic pit stop— to regroup, de-stress the system, and re-align for durable growth. The lesson for this year's unprecedented changes: speed without sustainability stalls; speed with strategic pit stops allows scalability.

With my targeted executive insights and strategy background, I coach leaders to use a First Principles approach to identify needs, expand capacity, and oversee paced growth with greater clarity. I strengthen your C-suite impact and assure the sustainable scaling of your organisation. ​Click here to book a 30-minute session.​

Until next time!

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Sophie