Program area 3 of 3
The Change Cycle
Major change programs seldom founder on the quality of the plan. They lose momentum at the point where people privately decide whether they are coming along, and that point is usually addressed with an announcement and a slide deck. The modules deal with precisely that part. They build on one another, and you can start wherever your situation sits.
What leaders take away
Managers stop reading silence as agreement. They learn to recognize where each person actually stands in a change, and to hold the conversation that moves someone rather than the one that announces a decision already taken.
Commitment is built before the announcement rather than defended afterwards, which removes the delay that transformations usually absorb in their second half.
The work is done on the change each participant is running at the time, so the plan produced in the room is the one carried back into the business. For a senior group, the result is a shared and explicit reading of where the organization stands, frequently stated aloud for the first time.
The thinking draws on William Bridges, Rick Maurer, Amy Edmondson, and Kegan and Lahey. The exercises and the simulation are my own.
The practical part
The program helped me see change not as something to manage but to lead with clarity and empathy.
Participant, Change Management Program
Questions people ask
We already use a change methodology. Does this conflict with it?
No. A methodology governs how the project is run. This addresses the people on whom the project depends, and the two sit on top of one another without friction.
How many modules are needed?
Most organizations begin with two and decide on the rest afterwards.
Can the effect be measured?
Yes. A short check asks everyone involved where they actually stand, run once before and once after, so that the movement is visible.
Where is the change losing momentum?
Where the plan reports green and something nevertheless feels unresolved, the constraint is usually the human response rather than the plan. Half an hour is usually enough to establish which module would help.