Research on aversion to loss can explain why people don’t want to change. I spoke with Senior Fellow, anthropologist and ex-Inteller Tony Salvador.
It sounds completely illogical but true ….
This plays out in various facets of how people make decisions about choices … including in a change transformations context.
This is just one of the many things I spoke with Tony Salvador about.
Change aversion is a powerful psychological concept rooted in loss aversion, where individuals tend to fear losing what they have more than they value gaining something of equal magnitude. This phenomenon plays a significant role in why many people resist new changes, whether in their personal lives or within organizations, and particularly affects how product managers, leaders, and customer-facing teams approach change initiatives. It impacts their decision-making processes heavily, especially when they perceive potential losses that could overshadow a gain of equal magnitude.
At the individual level, the degree of change aversion varies depending on personal circumstances and perceptions. Original research grounded in Prospect Theory explains that people evaluate potential changes not just by the prospective benefits but by the risks of losing familiar routines, status, or comfort. For example, individuals are often more concerned about losing $2 than they are motivated by the prospect of gaining $5, because the psychological impact of loss outweighs that of an equivalent gain. This loss aversion creates an emotional barrier that can prevent even well-intentioned changes from being embraced.
The effects of change aversion can be observed in many contexts, including business transformations and customer satisfaction. For product managers, understanding this aversion is crucial when introducing new features or product updates. Despite best intentions customers might resist changes that disrupt their habitual usage or create uncertainty – even when these changes offer clear improvements or potential benefits. This reluctance can negatively impact customer feedback and satisfaction because the change is perceived as a threat rather than an opportunity, despite significant change efforts.
One helpful point of reference for managing change aversion is recognizing that the degree of aversion is not uniform. Organizational change studies show that people feel more averse to changes imposed upon them (such as being assigned new tasks) than to changes they self-initiate (like managing their own time differently). This highlights the importance of agency in the change process. When employees or customers feel involved or have some control, their resistance diminishes.
The potential benefits of understanding and addressing change aversion are profound. Company leaders who communicate transparently about what changes mean, acknowledge possible losses, and provide support and resources can create an environment where people feel safer to engage with change. This approach can be extended to personal lives, for example, in maintaining new year’s resolutions where individuals face their own internal resistance rooted in loss aversion to giving up old habits or comforts.
Moreover, energetic speeches or inspirational messaging via emails can sometimes fail to overcome change aversion if they neglect the underlying psychological resistance. Instead, effective change management embraces empathy and addresses the emotional loss individuals perceive. This understanding is particularly vital for product managers relying on customer feedback to refine changes, as they must balance the introduction of innovation with the human tendency to resist disruption.
In summary, loss aversion explains why change feels threatening and why resistance often arises despite good intentions and clear advantages of the new change. By acknowledging the psychological concept of change aversion and its individual variability, organizations and individuals can better design, communicate, and implement changes that minimize resistance and maximize acceptance and satisfaction.
This nuanced understanding provides a valuable toolkit for navigating change in both organizational settings and personal lives, helping transform resistance into openness and enabling progress despite the natural human tendency toward aversion to loss.
Lots of golden nuggets of wisdom takeaways for change practitioners from the man who spent 30+ years working for Intel researching about people behaviour and how they operate in social and technological environments.
Stay tuned for the full recording.
Why do people oppose change?
People often oppose change due to change aversion, a psychological tendency where individuals fear losing what they already possess. This resistance is rooted in the discomfort of uncertainty and potential negative outcomes. Understanding this can help leaders implement strategies to ease transitions and foster acceptance within teams.
Traditionally in change management, there are key ‘events’ that we pin our change strategy on when it comes to getting users to use a new system. These include town halls, leader-led team sessions, and training sessions. We anticipate that after these events that users will come onboard and that all is well. After this we can leave the user and our job is completed.
Unfortunately this is not the case.
User communication and training are only a few steps along a process where many other steps need to occur to achieve the ultimate outcome of full user adoption. We need to look holistically at the whole system and the various players that contribute to the users’ full adoption.
These include:
User capability
User motivation
User capacity
Senior manager buy-in
Manager buy-in
Communication and awareness
Measurement and reinforcement
Strategic alignment
So you can see that all of these are examples of potential levers that need to be pulled to get the outcome.
Here is an example of the initial onboarding journey for The Change Compass. What onboarding journey do you use?
As a first step in understand the change, change management practitioners usually classify different change impacts into people, process, technology, and customer. There is a great effort and focus placed on describing exactly what the impact of change is from a project or program perspective as a part of the change management plan. The impact analysis can include the processes changes, critical behaviours, as well as how different the new technology and new process is going to be compared to the current process.
However, adopting a user-centric view of change impact (versus a project team’s view) is critical in driving successful change.
Often what is seen as impact as felt by various job roles can be very very different from what is experienced by the end-user as a part of the current state. In order to drive towards the benefits of the change, we need to take into consideration any negative thoughts, support system, employee morale, mindset, and performance review processes for those stakeholders impacted by the change. Let’s take a few examples.
When a project is ‘rolled out’. There are can be a lot of different impacted audience factors to consider. These can include:
Location
Role
Gender
Digital fluency
Age
Length of service
Team size
Availability of support staff
Availability of effective 2-way communication platforms
Effective learning and development processes in place
Functional skill sets
So depending on how these organizational change factors determine the impact of the change initiative on groups of individuals, identified specific impacts can be different. In the change impact assessment process, these should be carefully teased out and identified explicitly. Even how we express the names of the impacts should consider how the changes are perceived.
For example, is an impact ‘Team Leader briefing team members about the new process’ or ‘Weekly team meeting to discuss new process changes’? The initial wording is more focused on the new process, whereas the latter one illustrates that there can be various changes discussed in the meeting. So as a result, practitioners need to be open to the environment in which their messages will be delivered and through this better position and clarify the meaning of the change from the team’s perspective. E.g. can this change be delivered as a bundle with other process changes?
In a recent example, a person is understood by the organisation to be undergoing 6 separate initiatives each with their various impacts. Each initiative has fleshed out the various project impacts and these are listed and planned explicitly. However, this is from the organisation’s perspective. In fact, what the individual is undergoing is quite different.
There are changes that the team or division is undergoing that are not always taken into consideration such as people or team changes. On top of this there are also seasonal workload impacts from the likes of end of financial year, audits or pre-holiday season workload. On top of this, there are also various Covid considerations to take into account – the mother of all changes at the moment. Lockdown and social distancing have profound impacts on individuals leading to physical and psychological health impacts.
How a Major Global Financial Services Firm Boosted Business Performance Through The Change Compass
When organisations embark on a change program, the conversation typically starts with data — data to help understand change, inform decisions, and track progress. But as illustrated by the journey of a major global financial services firm, real business value is achieved when that data becomes the catalyst for a fundamental shift in how change is managed, governed, and embedded into daily business.
Within just one year of using The Change Compass, this firm elevated its change management practice to become a critical driver of strategic decision-making, operational excellence, and business performance improvement.
Let’s explore the four areas where the greatest value was realised — and how your organisation can benefit from a similarly holistic approach.
1. Optimising performance through change portfolio management
Many organisations struggle with visibility: too often, change initiatives happen in silos, leading to undetected risks, duplicative efforts, and suboptimal resource usage. The Change Compass changed that paradigm by allowing leaders to visualise the full spectrum and complexity of ongoing and upcoming changes across the business.
Key outcomes included:
Clear visibility of change complexity: Leaders understood not just the number of initiatives but also their interactions, overlaps, capacity required, and cumulative impacts.
Real-time risk identification: Delivery risks became evident early, enabling proactive mitigation and adjustments.
Strategic prioritisation and sequencing: With improved transparency, change teams could optimise the order of initiatives, manage dependencies, and ensure critical projects were staffed and resourced.
Informed resource planning: Accurate data replaced gut feel, driving more precise allocations of people and budget.
Insight: For many organisations, these benefits translate into fewer unexpected disruptions, smoother implementations, less “change fatigue” for staff, and higher project success rates.
2. Powering change governance with actionable insights
Historically, change teams often struggled to earn a “seat at the table” when major business decisions were made. With The Change Compass, this financial services firm embedded change management as a strategic partner, not an afterthought.
Tangible improvements included:
Change team at decision-making forums: The change team now contributed concrete, data-driven insights alongside the PMO and executive/business leadership.
Integrated insights across functions: Data from The Change Compass connected the dots between initiatives, allowing different teams to align efforts and avoid costly missteps.
Value delivered: This meant better-aligned priorities, more robust business cases for investment, and consistent progress reporting to executives, instilling greater confidence at all levels of the business.
3. Pivoting the Change Practice
True change maturity is not just about delivering projects; it’s about growing the organisation’s ability to manage change as an ongoing capability. Using The Change Compass, the firm shifted from a reactive, project-by-project approach to building a strong, influential change culture.
Results included:
Strategic partnering skills: Change leaders became trusted advisors to the business, not just project facilitators.
Community building: A sense of shared mission and ownership emerged among those involved in change, breaking down silos and fostering peer support.
Influence and credibility: The change function established itself as a go-to resource for insight, guidance, and innovation.
Broader benefit: Over time, this led to more consistent adoption of new ways of working, higher engagement, and accelerated pace of transformation.
4. Developing strategic change capability
Finally, the journey was not just about fixing today’s pain points – it was about future-proofing the organisation. By centring decisions on solid data, The Change Compass helped this firm systematically level up its change maturity.
Major advances included:
Data-driven prioritisation: Clarity on what matters most, reducing wasteful activity and focusing on business-critical shifts.
Partnership between business and PMO: Rather than working in isolation, both functions now collaborated with a common understanding of priorities, impacts, and trade-offs.
Foundation for continuous improvement: Ongoing education, supported by real-world analytics, equipped leaders at every level to steer change strategically.
Enduring value: Through this approach, change management became an integral part of the business’s DNA, enabling smarter, faster responses to both market opportunities and challenges.
Why The Change Compass Delivers Real Results
The experience of this global financial services firm illustrates why The Change Compass is not just a tool – it’s a transformational enabler. Organisations using The Change Compass typically report:
Reduced business performance disruptions
Greater alignment between change, operations, and strategy
Improved staff engagement and reduced change fatigue
Faster realisation of business value from new initiatives
By illuminating the complex web of change, reducing uncertainty, and embedding data-driven insights into everyday business, The Change Compass doesn’t just help organisations “manage change” – it helps them excel through change.
Are you ready to turn change from a headache into a competitive advantage? Discover how The Change Compass can help your business unlock its full potential.
If you’d like to explore these outcomes in detail or get a tailored consultation, contact us today. Let’s accelerate your change journey together.
On Google,, the 2nd most searched term in change management is ‘change management process’. Users are keen to understand a standard formula that they can apply to manage any change. Most users are looking for something simple, and clear, and lay out a step-by-step process that describes what they need to do to manage change.
Managing change is no longer the arena for change practitioners. The field of change management has grown in such leaps and bounds in the past 20 years that most leadership concepts now have a section on change management. Nearly all large 1st and 2nd tier consulting firms have a change management practice, even the likes of McKinsey, BCG,, and Bain.
Around us, we frequently see change management being mentioned. Change is even a visible tagline for the marketing campaign for lots of organizations. Accenture’s marketing tagline in 2021 is “Let there be change”. The Motto for The University of Technology Sydney is “Think. Change. Do”.
What are the common change management processes?
Prosci is one of the most known change processes, especially for those located in the United States. Change First has a ‘PCI’ (People-Centered Implementation) model. Then there is John Kotter’s 8 steps for leading change. What all the models have in common is the initial engagement and planning, followed by change implementation, ending with a transition and sustaining phase.
Companies like having one change process to follow.
Most organizations with a change management practice will have, as part of their offering, one change management process for all practitioners/managers to follow.
Why is that?
A common language to talk about managing change so that different stakeholders can refer to the same language, especially those who are not changing practitioners. Creating terms that are easily understood by stakeholders within the company makes sense.
Ensure new change contractors adhere to “the way of doing things” in managing change within the organization. This is often a big complaint, that a new contractor will bring with him/her new ways of doing things, many of which may not gel well within the particular organization.
Create a minimum level of expected quality in managing change so that at least the ‘minimum’ is carried out and that there isn’t anything obvious that is left out. This is especially important for project teams who may not know what change managers do and what outputs they should be working on.
Prosci’s ADKAR model, a framework focusing on five key elements—Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement—that individuals need to successfully navigate change.
John Kotter’s 8 steps model for leading change, providing a roadmap for organizations to effectively manage change, from creating a sense of urgency to anchoring changes in the company culture.
So what is wrong with using a change management process?
Not one change process may be relevant for all cases Change management processes and concepts are good as general references to guide the change practitioner in baselining and learning the key steps that are critical in establishing a good change outcome. No change management process can suit every company and every type of change. This is why it is a good idea to leverage a diverse range of change processes for change managers who are starting out in the industry. Different change processes may cover different areas, therefore provide a synergistic range of references.
For example, John Kotter’s 8 steps of leading change are great for all levels of leaders and team managers as the model is focused on managers leading groups of people through change. On the other hand, Prosci’s ADKAR model is more suitable for a project context where there are a series of activities over several project phases to lead impacted stakeholders through the change.
Also, some change processes may not be applicable for all change scenarios. For example, the famous ‘change curve’ or the Kubler-Ross model of grief and loss. For some reason, this model has been applied so much within a change context that a lot of business people expect that the ‘change curve’ will always occur.
This is absolutely false. In the change curve, there is a prescribed process of shock, denial, frustration, and depression. There are not many change scenarios in which large groups of people go through these emotions. Examples include large-scale restructuring involving retrenchments. However, for standard process changes, technology upgrades, or new product launches, it is very rare that you will see this process being applicable at all.
Blindly following the process One of the biggest dangers and risks of following a change process is not to know when to deviate from the process. This may especially be the case for less experienced change practitioners. The outcome of blindly following the process can mean that the change actually does not happen and the change dial is not moved at the end.
What I often see from change managers who blindly follow the process is a change plan that contains a series of generic activities such as stakeholder engagement, communication, and then launch. Often in these cases, there isn’t a deep understanding of what the change involves from the perspectives of impacted employees. What it means to them may be more than just meeting informational needs. There could be subconscious attachments or preferences/habits that are hard to break.
An analysis of the perceptions and history of changes experienced by those impacted by change is critical. What you may uncover is potential anxieties, expectations, habits, and misunderstanding of what the change involves. This may be ignored by popular change processes.
Change processes may not be linear Experienced change practitioners have seen this. Often what is planned on paper does not actually pan out to be the case. Most change processes follow a scenario where everything goes well. But for complex changes, there are often mishaps or obstacles.
For example:
Key stakeholder groups were not identified upfront and the delay in engaging with them causes overall project delays and stakeholder complications.
Feedback from stakeholders is that the initial messaging was not clear enough and did not reach all groups. Another round of communications and engagement campaign is required to reset expectations.
Learning content was too long and did not sufficiently match employee expectations, thereby resulting in lower completion rates.
After the project rollout, as soon as resources were pulled out of the project team after go-live, adoption rates dived, resulting in little benefits achieved.
In many of these cases described above, the change practitioner needs to repeat certain processes, go back to previous steps, or even split stakeholders with some progressing further in the change process than others.
Following a process may inhibit experimentation One of the core aspects of agile ways of working in implementing change is experimentation. We see teams from development and marketing constantly experiment and learn to evolve into a solution that meets business objectives. In change management, there is little practice in experimentation, even though this is such a core part of agile.
Blindly following the process
One of the reasons could be that change practitioners are used to following a prescribed change process and not used to experimenting with their change approach. Instead, most rely on previous experience or what others have done in other change initiatives. Despite this, there are many good reasons for experimenting change approaches, especially for large/complex change initiatives.
Potential experiments can include:
Communication positioning
Leader storyline for the rationale of the change
Training content
Change measurement
Impact assessment design
Townhall design
Behavior reinforcement and incentives
Not sufficiently emphasizing the importance of measurement Measurement is one of the most important aspects of managing change. Without knowing exactly the outcome of each of the activities we are executing how do we know that we are in the right trajectory? Also, measuring our change intervention ensures that we have the exact gauge on how effective the interventions are, and also where the stakeholders are along the journey. If we’ve not had any complaints or ‘noise’ does not mean that all is well and that the change will take place.
How are you measuring your changes so that you understand where your stakeholders are transitioning to?
Future Trends: Discuss emerging trends and innovations in the field of change management, such as the integration of artificial intelligence, agile methodologies, or digital transformation initiatives. Providing insights into future directions can help readers stay ahead of the curve and adapt their change management strategies accordingly.
In addition to established methodologies, the future of change management is being shaped by cutting-edge technologies and innovative approaches that are revolutionizing how organizations navigate transitions. One of the most exciting developments is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into change management processes. AI-powered analytics can provide deep insights into organizational dynamics, predicting potential challenges and offering personalized interventions to drive successful change outcomes.
Furthermore, the rise of agile methodologies is transforming traditional change management practices. Agile principles emphasize adaptability, collaboration, and iterative progress, enabling organizations to respond rapidly to evolving market conditions and stakeholder needs. By embracing agile frameworks, change leaders can foster a culture of continuous improvement and empower teams to embrace change as a catalyst for innovation.
Moreover, digital transformation initiatives are reshaping the landscape of change management. As businesses undergo digital transformations to stay competitive in today’s rapidly evolving digital economy, change management becomes increasingly intertwined with technology adoption and organizational agility. Leaders must navigate complex ecosystems of interconnected systems, processes, and stakeholders, leveraging digital tools and platforms to drive seamless transitions and sustainable change.
Incorporating these emerging trends into their change management strategies, organizations can position themselves at the forefront of innovation, driving successful transformations that propel them toward future growth and success.
