Work has changed and our people are fatigued and emotionally overloaded, but why? Josh Cardoz and Olivia Haywood met with Forbes to speak to the findings from their Generation Numb report.
Bristol, UK – 16th January 2026 – In a recent conversation with Forbes, Sponge’s Chief Creative and Learning Officer, Josh Cardoz, and Chief Marketing Officer, Olivia Haywood, explored a growing shift in how people are experiencing work and how leadership can adapt in response.
The discussion centred on Sponge’s Generation Numb whitepaper, which points not to a generational label, but to a capability challenge emerging across the workforce. After years of sustained volatility, from economic disruption to digital saturation, many employees are operating with diminished cognitive bandwidth. The issue is less about resistance to change, and more about reduced capacity to absorb it.
For Cardoz, this represents a fundamental leadership challenge.
“Generation Numb describes a real, lived experience,” he explains. “It reflects what leaders and employees are telling us every day. People are navigating constant change, but without the time or space to process it. That cumulative effect is starting to surface in ways organisations can’t ignore.”
Generation Numb describes a real, lived experience. It reflects what leaders and employees are telling us every day. People are navigating constant change, but without the time or space to process it. That cumulative effect is starting to surface in ways organisations can’t ignore.
In the Forbes conversation, this experience was explored against a backdrop of rising executive optimism. Findings from the International Workplace Group’s 2026 State of the U.S. C-Suite Report suggest many CEOs are confident about the future, even as organisations continue to tighten budgets, adopt AI at pace, and rethink flexible work strategies. This divergence creates a leadership credibility gap, where ambition accelerates faster than belief.
Haywood sees this as a defining feature of the current moment.
“There are signals everywhere that people’s experience of work is fundamentally changing,” she notes. “These signals indicate a workforce in ‘survival mode,’ with employees numb to the constant stream of change and demands coming at them. Of course, one of the biggest challenges is that leaders are feeling this just as much as everyone else – charged with galvanising the workforce whilst feeling worn out and numb themselves.”
Throughout the conversation, Cardoz and Haywood emphasised that traditional, process-driven leadership models are no longer sufficient. In environments where plans evolve quickly and certainty is limited, the ability to lead humans, not just manage systems, is becoming an essential capability.
“In today’s world, any plan you’re investing in is likely to be outdated before you even hit the green button.” Haywood adds. “By contrast, investment in equipping your people to handle change - even thrive in it - will yield dividends for years to come.”
In today’s world, any plan you’re investing in is likely to be outdated before you even hit the green button. By contrast, investment in equipping your people to handle change - even thrive in it - will yield dividends for years to come.
The conversation also explored the practical conditions required to unlock human performance, from psychological safety to creative experimentation and meaningful dialogue.
As organisations continue to navigate an increasingly complex workplace frontier, the conversation with Forbes reinforces a simple but powerful idea: sustainable performance starts with understanding human experience and designing leadership and learning around it.
Read the full Forbes article: The New Workplace Frontier: Rekindling Purpose For Generation Numb
How is our Generation Numb whitepaper resonating with leaders around the world?
In this roundtable session, senior leaders from Deloitte, The Coca-Cola Company, Atlassian, The Fosway Group, 8Levers, and Sponge, discuss the findings from the whitepaper, 'Mobilising Generation Numb'.
The real emotional constraints behind transformation.
Our whitepaper, Mobilising Generation Numb, with insights featured in Fortune, Business Insider, Forbes, and Quartz, explores how the state of the workforce today is undermining transformation - and what the world's leading organisations are doing about it.
