In today’s dynamic business environment, managing multiple changes simultaneously is the norm, not the exception. As change transformation experts/leaders, we’re expected to provide clarity, reduce disruption, and drive successful adoption—often across a crowded portfolio of initiatives. In this high-stakes context, it’s tempting to lean on familiar tools and assumptions to simplify complexity. However, some of the most common beliefs about managing multiple changes are not just outdated—they can actively undermine your efforts.
Here we explore seven widespread assumptions that can lead change leaders astray. By challenging these myths, you can adopt more nuanced, effective approaches that truly support your people and your business.
Assumption 1: A Heatmap or Data Table is a Single View of Change
Heatmaps and data tables have become go-to tools for visualising change across an organisation. At a glance, they promise to show us where the “hotspots” are—those areas experiencing the most change. But is this single view really giving us the full picture?
Why This Assumption is Wrong
1. Not All Change is Disruptive—Some is Positive A heatmap typically highlights areas with high volumes of change, but it doesn’t distinguish between positive and negative impacts. For example, a new digital tool might be seen as a “hotspot” simply because it affects many employees, but if it makes their jobs easier and boosts productivity, the overall experience could be positive. Conversely, a smaller change that disrupts workflows or adds complexity may have a much larger negative impact on a specific group, even if it doesn’t light up the heatmap. Depth of understanding beyond the heatmap is key.
2. The Data May Not Show the Real ‘Heat’ The accuracy of a heatmap depends entirely on the data feeding it. If your ratings are based on high-level, generic ‘traffic-light’ impact assessments, you may miss the nuances of how change is actually experienced by employees. For instance, a heatmap might show a “red zone” in one department based on the number of initiatives, but if those initiatives are well-aligned and support the team’s goals, the actual disruption could be minimal.
3. The Illusion of Completeness A single view of change suggests that you’ve captured every initiative—strategic, operational, and BAU (Business As Usual)—in one neat package. In reality, most organisations struggle to maintain a comprehensive and up-to-date inventory of all changes. BAU initiatives, in particular, often slip under the radar, even though their cumulative impact can be significant. This is not to say that one always needs to aim for 100%. However, labelling this as ‘single view of change’ would then be an exaggeration.
The Takeaway
Heatmaps and data tables are useful starting points, but they’re not the whole story. They provide a high-level snapshot, not a diagnostic tool. Heatmaps should also not be the only visual you use. There are countless other ways to present similar data. To truly understand the impact of multiple changes, you need to go deeper—gathering qualitative insights, focusing on employee experience, and recognising that not all “hotspots” are created equal. Ultimately the data should tell you ‘why’ and ‘how’ to fix it.
Assumption 2: A Change Manager’s H/M/L Rating Equals Business Impact
It’s common practice to summarise the impact of change initiatives using simple High/Medium/Low (H/M/L) ratings. These ratings are easy to communicate and look great in dashboards. But do they really reflect the business impact?
Why This Assumption is Wrong
1. Oversimplification Masks Nuance H/M/L ratings often blend a variety of factors: the effort required from business leads, subject matter experts (SMEs), sponsors, project teams, and change champions. These ratings may not be based solely—or even primarily—on employee or customer impact. For example, a “High” impact rating might reflect the complexity of project delivery rather than the degree of disruption felt by frontline staff.
2. Limited Decision-Making Value A single, combined rating has limited utility for decision-making. If you need to focus specifically on employee impacts, customer experience, or partner relationships, a broad H/M/L assessment won’t help you target your interventions. It becomes a blunt instrument, unable to guide nuanced action.
3. Lack of Granularity for Business Units For business units, three categories (High, Medium, Low) are often too broad to provide meaningful insights. Important differences between types of change, levels of disruption, and readiness for adoption can be lost, resulting in a lack of actionable information.
The Takeaway
Don’t rely solely on H/M/L ratings to understand business impact. Instead, tailor your assessments to the audience and the decision at hand. Use more granular, context-specific measures that reflect the true nature of the change and its impact on different stakeholder groups, where it makes sense.
Assumption 3: Number of Go-Lives Shows Us the Volume of Change
It’s easy to fall into the trap of using Go-Live dates as a proxy for change volume. After all, Go-Live is a clear, measurable milestone, and counting them up seems like a straightforward way to gauge how much change is happening. But this approach is fundamentally flawed.
Why This Assumption is Wrong
1. Not All Go-Lives Are Created Equal Some Go-Lives are highly technical, involving backend system upgrades or infrastructure changes that have little to no visible impact on most employees. Others, even if small in scope, might significantly alter how people work day-to-day. Simply tallying Go-Lives ignores the nature, scale, and felt impact of each change.
2. The Employee Experience Is Not Tied to Go-Live Timing The work required to prepare for and adopt a change often happens well before or after the official Go-Live date. In some projects, readiness activities—training, communications, process redesign—may occur months or even a year ahead of Go-Live. Conversely, true adoption and behaviour change may lag long after the system or process is live. Focusing solely on Go-Live dates misses these critical phases of the change journey.
3. Volume Does Not Equal Impact A month with multiple Go-Lives might be relatively easy for employees if the changes are minor or well-supported. In contrast, a single, complex Go-Live could create a massive disruption. The volume of Go-Lives is a poor indicator of the real workload and adaptation required from your people.
The Takeaway
Don’t equate the number of Go-Lives with the volume or impact of change. Instead, map the full journey of each initiative—readiness, Go-Live, and post-implementation adoption. Focus on the employee experience throughout the lifecycle, not just at the technical milestone.
Assumption 4: We Only Need to Track Strategic Projects
Strategic projects are naturally top of mind for senior leaders and transformation teams. They’re high-profile, resource-intensive, and often linked to key business objectives. But is tracking only these initiatives enough?
Why This Assumption is Wrong
1. Strategic Does Not Always Mean Disruptive While strategic projects are important, they don’t always have the biggest impact on employees’ day-to-day work. Sometimes, operational or BAU (Business As Usual) initiatives—such as process tweaks, compliance updates, or system enhancements—can create more disruption for specific teams.
2. Blind Spots in Change Impact Focusing exclusively on strategic projects creates blind spots. Employees may be grappling with a host of smaller, less visible changes that collectively have a significant impact on morale, productivity, and engagement. If these changes aren’t tracked, leaders may be caught off guard by resistance or fatigue.
3. Data Collection Bias Strategic projects are usually easier to track because they have formal governance, reporting structures, and visibility. BAU initiatives, on the other hand, are often managed locally and may not be captured in central change registers. Ignoring them can lead to an incomplete and misleading picture of overall change impact.
The Takeaway
To truly understand and manage the cumulative impact of change, track both strategic and BAU initiatives. This broader view helps you identify where support is needed most and prevents change overload in pockets of the organisation that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Assumption 5: We Can Just Use One Adoption Survey for All Initiatives
Surveys are a popular tool for measuring change adoption. The idea of using a single, standardised survey across all initiatives is appealing—it saves time, simplifies reporting, and allows for easy comparison. But this approach rarely delivers meaningful insights.
Why This Assumption is Wrong
1. Every Initiative Is Unique Each change initiative has its own objectives, adoption targets, and success metrics. A generic survey cannot capture the specific behaviours, attitudes, or outcomes that matter for each project. If you try to make one survey fit all, you end up with questions so broad that the data becomes meaningless and unhelpful.
2. Timing Matters The right moment to measure adoption varies by initiative. Some changes require immediate feedback post-Go-Live, while others need follow-up months later to assess true behavioural change. Relying on a single survey at a fixed time can miss critical insights about the adoption curve.
3. Depth and Relevance Are Lost A one-size-fits-all survey lacks the depth needed to diagnose issues, reinforce learning, or support targeted interventions. It may also fail to engage employees, who can quickly spot when questions are irrelevant to their experience.
The Takeaway
Customise your adoption measurement for each initiative. Tailor questions to the specific outcomes you want to achieve, and time your surveys to capture meaningful feedback. Consider multiple touchpoints to track adoption over time and reinforce desired behaviours.
Assumption 6: ‘Change Impost’ Understanding Helps the Business
The term “change impost” has crept into the vocabulary of many organisations, often used to describe the perceived burden that change initiatives place on the business. On the surface, it might seem helpful to quantify this “impost” so that leaders can manage or minimise it. However, this framing is fraught with problems.
Why This Assumption is Wrong
1. Negative Framing Fuels Resistance Describing change as an “impost” positions it as something external, unwelcome, and separate from “real” business work. This language reinforces the idea that change is a distraction or a burden, rather than a necessary part of growth and improvement. Stakeholders who hear change discussed in these terms may lead to the reinforcement of negativity towards change versus incorporating change as part of normal business work.
2. It Artificially Separates ‘Change’ from ‘Business’ In reality, change is not an add-on—it is intrinsic to business evolution. By treating change as something apart from normal operations, organisations create a false dichotomy that hinders integration and adoption. This separation can also lead to confusion about responsibilities and priorities, making it harder for teams to see the value in new ways of working.
3. There Are Better Alternatives Instead of “change impost,” consider using terms like “implementation activities,” “engagement activities,” or “business transformation efforts.” These phrases acknowledge the work involved in change but frame it positively, as part of the ongoing journey of business improvement.
The Takeaway
Language matters. Choose terminology that normalises change as part of everyday business, not as an external burden. This shift in mindset can help foster a culture where change is embraced, not endured.
Assumption 7: We Just Need to Avoid High Change Volumes to Manage Capacity
It’s a common belief that the best way to manage organisational capacity is to avoid periods of high change volume—flattening the curve, so to speak. While this sounds logical, the reality is more nuanced.
Why This Assumption is Wrong
1. Sometimes High Volume Is Strategic Depending on your organisation’s transformation goals, there may be times when a surge in change activity is necessary. For example, reaching a critical mass of changes within a short period can create momentum, signal a new direction, or help the organisation pivot quickly. In these cases, temporarily increasing the volume of change is not only acceptable—it’s desirable to reach significant momentum and outcomes.
2. Not All Change Is Equal The type of change matters as much as the quantity. Some changes are minor and easily absorbed, while others are complex and disruptive. Simply counting the number of initiatives or activities does not account for their true impact on capacity.
3. Planned Peaks and ‘Breathers’ Are Essential Rather than striving for a perfectly flat change curve, it’s often more effective to plan for peaks and valleys. After a period of intense change, deliberately building in “breathers” allows the organisation to recover, consolidate gains, and prepare for the next wave. This approach helps maintain organisational energy and reduces the risk of burnout.
The Takeaway
Managing capacity is about more than just avoiding high volumes of change. It requires a strategic approach to pacing, sequencing, and supporting people through both busy and quieter periods.
Practical Recommendations for Change Leaders
Having debunked these common assumptions, what should change management and transformation leaders do instead? Here are some actionable strategies:
1. Use Multiple Lenses to Assess Change
Combine quantitative tools (like heatmaps and data tables) with qualitative insights from employee feedback, focus groups, and direct observation.
Distinguish between positive and negative impacts, and tailor your analysis to specific stakeholder groups.
2. Get Granular with Impact Assessments
Move beyond generic H/M/L ratings. Develop more nuanced scales or categories that reflect the true nature and distribution of impacts.
Segment your analysis by business unit, role, or customer group to uncover hidden hotspots.
3. Map the Full Change Journey
Track readiness activities, Go-Live events, and post-implementation adoption separately.
Recognise that the most significant work—both for employees and leaders—often happens outside the Go-Live window.
4. Track All Relevant Initiatives
Include both strategic and BAU changes in your change portfolio.
Regularly update your inventory to reflect new, ongoing, and completed initiatives.
5. Customise Adoption Measurement
Design adoption surveys and feedback mechanisms for each initiative, aligned to its specific objectives and timing.
Use multiple touchpoints to monitor progress and reinforce desired behaviours.
6. Use Positive, Inclusive Business Language
Frame change as part of business evolution and operations, not an “impost.”
Encourage leaders and teams to see change work as integral to ongoing success.
7. Plan for Peaks and Recovery
Strategically sequence changes to align with business priorities and capacity.
Build in recovery periods after major waves of change to maintain energy and engagement.
Managing multiple changes in a complex organisation is never easy—but it’s made harder by clinging to outdated assumptions. By challenging these myths and adopting a more nuanced, evidence-based approach, change management and transformation leaders can better support their people, deliver real value, and drive sustainable success.
Remember: Effective change management is not about ticking boxes or flattening curves. It’s about understanding the lived experience of change, making informed decisions, and leading with empathy and clarity in a world that never stands still.
At The Change Compass, we’ve incorporated various best practices into our tool to capture change data across the organisation. Chat to us to find out more.
Section 1: What Change Maturity Looks Like – And How Data Made It Real
Shifting from Capability Sessions to Data-Driven Change
For years, the default approach to improving organisational change maturity has been through capability sessions: workshops, training programs, and methodology deep dives. These sessions often focus on the mechanics of change management-how to assess impacts, create stakeholder maps, or run engagement activities. While valuable, they rarely move the needle on actual change maturity, because they don’t address the systemic challenge: embedding change into the rhythm of business.
This is not to say that capability sessions are inherently not valuable nor make an impact. The point is if this is the core approach to lift change maturity, you may want to re-think this approach.
In contrast, the financial services organisation we’re profiling achieved a step-change in maturity not by running more workshops, but by making change a measurable, managed discipline-driven by data. This is the essence of “what gets measured gets managed.” When change is tracked, analysed, and reported with the same rigour as financial or operational metrics, it becomes a core business focus and therefore evolving into a capability, not a project add-on.
The Hallmarks of Data-Driven Change Maturity
So, what does this maturity look like in practice?
Senior Leaders Are Personally Accountable Change metrics are embedded in the general management scorecard. Senior managers are not just sponsors; they are accountable for change outcomes, not just at a project level but within their business function. Their performance includes the outcome and the impact of change on business results. This accountability cascades throughout the organisation, with other managers following suit, creating a culture where change performance is a core management concern.
Demand for Change Expertise Is Pulled, Not Pushed Instead of the central change team “pushing” support onto the business, managers proactively seek out change expertise. They do this because the data shows them where key risks and concerns are, making change support a value-added service rather than a compliance exercise.
Operations Teams Have Line of Sight Operations teams can see all upcoming changes affecting their areas, thanks to integrated change visuals and dashboards. This transparency allows for coordinated engagement and implementation, ensuring that people capacity and readiness are managed proactively, not reactively.
Project Teams Adapt Based on People Data Project teams don’t just track milestones and budgets; they monitor leading indicators like readiness, sentiment, and adoption. Governance forums provide visibility and decision-making authority on key people risks across all change initiatives, enabling real-time adjustments to project approaches.
The Data Infrastructure That Enabled This Shift
To achieve this level of maturity, the organisation should utilise a centralised change data platform, integrating inputs from project management and operational dashboards. Data governance was established at the management level, with clear ownership and enterprise definitions. Automation and AI were used to collect, cleanse, and analyse data at scale, removing manual bottlenecks and enabling real-time insights.
Contrasting Traditional and Data-Driven Approaches
Aspect
Traditional Approach
Data-Driven Change Maturity
Senior Manager Involvement
Sponsorship, not accountability
Direct accountability, metrics-driven
Change Capability Uplift
Capability sessions, workshops
Focus on metrics improvement drove ongoing holistic capability improvement
Change Data Usage
Limited, ad hoc surveys or hearsay opinions
Integrated, real-time, enterprise-wide
Operations Visibility
Siloed, reactive
Proactive, coordinated, data-informed
Project Team Adaptation
Based on lagging indicators
Based on leading, predictive analytics
Value Realisation
Incremental, project-based
Enterprise-wide, transformative with alignment across different management levels
The Real Work Behind the Results
Some might argue that this level of data infrastructure and governance is too complex or resource-intensive. However, with modern automation and AI, much of the data collection, cleansing, and analysis can be streamlined. The initial investment is quickly offset by the value unlocked-both in risk mitigation and in the ability to deliver change at scale, with greater precision and impact.
This is what change maturity looks like when it’s powered by data. It’s not about more workshops; it’s about making change visible, accountable, and actionable at every level of the organisation. The next section will explore how this approach transforms decision-making-from focusing on cost and timelines to prioritising people and value.
Section 2: From Cost and Timelines to People and Value – How Data Transforms Change Implementation
The Persistent Focus on Cost and Timelines
For decades, change and transformation decisions in large organisations have been anchored in two primary considerations: cost and project timelines. Budgets are scrutinised, schedules are tracked, and success is often measured by whether a project was delivered on time and within budget. While these are important, they are insufficient for delivering sustainable, people-centric change. By focusing narrowly on these factors, organisations risk overlooking the most critical element: the people who must adopt and sustain the change.
Injecting the People Element-Through Data
A growing number of organisations are recognising that change cannot be managed by these numbers alone. The financial services organisation in this case study made a deliberate shift: they began injecting people data into every change decision. This meant that, alongside cost and timeline metrics, leaders and project teams had access to real-time insights on people impacts and capacity/readiness risks.
These people metrics were not afterthoughts-they were integrated into the same dashboards and governance forums as financial and operational data. This integration enabled a more holistic view of change, allowing leaders to make informed decisions that balanced the needs of the business with the realities of its workforce.
How People Data Drives Better Decisions
Proactive Risk Management By monitoring leading indicators such as readiness and sentiment, project teams could identify potential risks before they became issues. For example, a drop in readiness scores could trigger targeted engagement activities, preventing delays and increasing the likelihood of successful adoption.
Dynamic Resource Allocation Data on people capacity allowed operations teams to anticipate and manage the impact of multiple concurrent changes. This meant that resources could be allocated more effectively, reducing the risk of change fatigue and ensuring that teams were not overwhelmed.
Evidence-Based Adjustments Project approaches were no longer set in stone. Teams could tweak their strategies based on real-time feedback, ensuring that change initiatives remained aligned with the needs and capabilities of the workforce. Often this is done in advance of any governance decision making as teams could already see potential risks and opportunities through data.
Governance That Delivers Value Governance forums used people data to prioritise initiatives, allocate resources, and escalate risks. This meant that decisions were made with a clear understanding of both the financial and human implications of change.
The Role of AI and Automation
The integration of people data into change management was made possible by advances in AI and automation. These technologies enabled the organisation to collect, analyse, and visualise data at scale, removing the manual burden and providing actionable insights in real time. The value of AI and automation was not just in saving a few hours on impact assessments-it was in providing the analytical horsepower to identify patterns, predict risks, and optimise change delivery across the enterprise.
Moving Beyond Incremental Value
By embedding people data into the heart of change decision-making, the organisation was able to move beyond incremental improvements. Instead of talking about saving a few thousand dollars on a single project, they unlocked tens of millions in enterprise value by delivering change that was adopted, sustained, and embedded across the business.
The New Decision-Making Framework
Decision Factor
Traditional Approach
Data-Driven Approach
Cost
Primary focus
Balanced with people and value
Timelines
Primary focus
Balanced with people and value
People Readiness
Secondary, ad hoc
Primary, real-time, data-driven
Sentiment/Adoption
Rarely measured
Continuously monitored
Resource Allocation
Based on project needs
Based on overall people capacity and readiness, so balancing not just project resources but impacted business resources
Governance
Focused on milestones
Focused on both financial and people goals
The Result: Change That Delivers Value
The shift to data-driven, people-centric change management transformed the organisation’s ability to deliver value. Change was no longer a series of isolated projects, but a core business capability-managed, measured, and continuously improved. The next section will explore how this approach can be scaled and sustained, and what it means for the future of change and transformation in large organisations.
Section 3: Scaling and Sustaining Change Maturity – The Future of Transformation
The Myth of Overwhelm: Practical Steps to Sustainable Change Maturity
For many organisations, the prospect of building and maintaining a data-driven change maturity model can seem daunting. The common perception is that it requires an overwhelming investment in new tools, processes, and training-one that may not be justified by the returns. However, the experience of this financial services company demonstrates that, while focused effort is required, the process does not have to be overwhelming-especially with the right use of experimentation, ongoing tweaks, automation and AI.
Automation: The Great Enabler Much of the heavy lifting in data collection, cleansing, and reporting can now be automated. Change impact assessments, sentiment tracking, and readiness surveys can be scheduled, administered, and analysed with minimal manual intervention. This frees up change professionals to focus on interpretation, action, and continuous improvement rather than data wrangling.
AI: Unlocking Predictive Power AI tools can analyse patterns across multiple change initiatives, predict adoption risks, and recommend interventions before issues arise. This predictive capability allows organisations to be proactive rather than reactive, reducing the risk of failed change and increasing the speed of value realisation.
Scalable Governance By embedding change metrics into existing governance structures-such as business reviews, risk committees, and leadership forums-the organisation ensures that change maturity is not a one-off project but an ongoing discipline. This integration makes it easier to scale across divisions, regions, and business units.
Continuous Experimentation and Adaptation
A critical aspect of scaling and sustaining change maturity is the willingness to experiment, learn, and iterate. Early adoption of data-driven change management should be approached with a mindset of ongoing refinement. For example, executive alignment is often achieved not in a single meeting, but through a series of tailored discussions where dashboards and metrics are gradually refined to match leadership priorities and language. Testing different dashboard designs-such as visualisations, drill-down capabilities, or alert mechanisms-allows teams to identify what best supports decision-making at each level of the organisation.
Similarly, designing change decision-making forums as iterative, rather than static, processes ensures that the right data is surfaced at the right time, and that governance structures evolve as the organisation’s change maturity grows. By embracing a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement, organisations can ensure their change management practices remain relevant, effective, and aligned with both business and people objectives.
From Thousands to Millions: The Real Value of Data-Driven Change
The ultimate value of this approach is not measured in hours saved or individual project successes. It is measured in the ability to deliver change at scale, with precision, and with confidence that people will adopt and sustain the new ways of working. This is what ultimately drives benefit realisation. In this financial services organisation, the shift from ad hoc, project-based change to an enterprise-wide, data-driven discipline unlocked tens of millions in value-far beyond the incremental savings of traditional approaches.
Risk Mitigation By identifying and addressing people risks early, the organisation avoided costly delays, rework, and failed implementations.
Faster Value Realisation Real-time data enabled faster, more informed decision-making, accelerating the time to value for major initiatives.
Sustainable Adoption Continuous monitoring and adjustment ensured that changes were not just implemented, but embedded and sustained over time.
Are You Ready to 10-100X the Value of Change?
For experienced change and transformation practitioners, the question is no longer whether data-driven change maturity is possible-it is whether you are ready to embrace it. The tools, technologies, and methodologies are available. The competitive advantage lies in how you use them-making change visible, accountable, and actionable at every level of the organisation.
Lift the Game Move beyond incremental improvements and unlock the full potential of change as a lever for enterprise performance.
Lead the Shift Champion the integration of people data into every change decision, and demonstrate the value of a disciplined, data-driven approach.
Scale and Sustain Use automation and AI to make change maturity a scalable, sustainable capability-not just a project or initiative.
The Future Is Now
The future of change and transformation is here. It is data-driven, people-centric, and value-focused. It is about making change a core business discipline-managed, measured, and continuously improved. Are you ready to take the leap and 10-100X the value that change delivers in your organisation?
Air traffic control is one of the most sophisticated and high-stakes management systems in the world. Ensuring the safety of thousands of flights daily requires rigorous coordination, precise timing, and a structured yet adaptable approach. When failures occur, they often result in catastrophic consequences, as seen in the tragic January 2025 midair collision between an army helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington, D.C. airspace.
Think about the last time you took a flight. You probably didn’t worry about how the pilot knew where to go, how to land safely, or how to avoid other planes in the sky. That’s because air traffic control is a well-oiled machine, built on a foundation of real-time data, clear protocols, and experienced professionals making split-second decisions. Now, imagine if air traffic controllers had to work with outdated information, or if pilots had to rely on intuition rather than hard facts. Chaos, right?
The same principles that apply to managing air traffic also hold valuable lessons for change and transformation management within organisations. Large-scale transformations involve multiple initiatives running in parallel, conflicting priorities, and significant risks. Without a structured, centralised approach, organisations risk failure, reduced value realisation, and employee fatigue.
The same logic applies to organisational change and transformation. Leaders are often trying to land multiple initiatives at once, each with its own trajectory, speed, and impact. Without real-time, accurate data, it’s all too easy for change initiatives to collide, stall, or overwhelm employees. Just as the aviation industry depends on continuous data updates to prevent disasters, businesses must embrace data-driven decision-making to ensure their transformation efforts succeed.
Here we’ll explore what air traffic control can teach us about using data effectively in change management. If you’ve ever felt like your organisation’s transformation efforts are flying blind, chaotic and uncoordinated, this one’s for you.
Lesson 1: The Danger of Overloading Critical Roles
The D.C. Midair Collision: A Case of Role Overload
In January 2025, a tragic midair collision occurred in Washington, D.C. airspace between an army helicopter and a passenger jet, claiming 67 lives. Investigations revealed multiple contributing factors, including inadequate pilot training, fatigue, insufficient maintenance, and ignored safety protocols. This incident underscored the dangers of overstretched resources, outdated processes, and poor data visibility—lessons that extend beyond aviation and into how organisations manage complex, high-stakes operations like change and transformation.
Additionally, the air traffic controller on duty was handling both helicopter and airplane traffic simultaneously, leading to a critical lapse in coordination. This split focus contributed to poor coordination and a lack of real-time situational awareness, ultimately leading to disaster. This is aligned with findings from various research that providing adequate resources is important in driving change and transformation.
Parallels in Change and Transformation Management
Organisations often suffer from similar overload issues when managing change. Many initiatives—ranging from business-as-usual (BAU) efforts to large-scale transformations—compete for attention, resources, and stakeholder engagement. Without a structured approach, teams end up working in silos, unaware of competing priorities or overlapping impacts.
There are some who argue that change is the new norm, so employees just need to get on the program and learn to adapt. It may be easy to say this, but successful organisations have learnt how to do this, versus ignoring the issue. After all, managing capacity and resources is a normal part of any effective operations management and strategy execution. Within a change context, the effects are just more pronounced given the timelines and the need to balance both business-as-usual and changes.
Key Takeaways:
Centralised Oversight: Organisations need a structured governance model—whether through a Transformation Office, PMO, or Change Centre of Excellence—to track all initiatives and prevent “collisions.”
Clear Role Definition: Initiative owners and sponsors should have a clear understanding of their responsibilities, engagement processes, and decision-making frameworks.
Avoiding Initiative Overload: Employees experience “change fatigue” when multiple transformations run concurrently without proper coordination. Leaders must balance initiative rollout to ensure sustainable adoption.
Lesson 2: Providing Initiative Owners with Data-Driven Decision Autonomy
The UPS ‘Continuous Descent Arrivals’ System
UPS has been testing a data-driven approach to landings called ‘Continuous Descent Arrivals’ (source: Wall Street Journal article: Managing Air Traffic Control). Instead of relying solely on air traffic controllers to direct landing schedules, pilots have access to a full dashboard of real-time data, allowing them to determine their optimal landing times while still following a structured governance protocol. While CDA is effective during light traffic conditions, implementing it during heavy traffic poses technical challenges. Air traffic controllers must ensure safe separation between aircraft while optimising descent paths.
Applying This to Agile Change Management
In agile organisations, multiple initiatives are constantly iterating, requiring a balance between flexibility and coordination. Rather than centralised bottleneck approvals, initiative owners should be empowered to make informed, autonomous decisions—provided they follow structured governance (and when there is less risk of multiple releases and impacts on the business).
Key Takeaways:
Real-Time Data Sharing: Just as pilots rely on up-to-date flight data, organisations must have a transparent system where initiative owners can see enterprise-wide transformation impacts and adjust accordingly.
Governance Without Bureaucracy: Pre-set governance protocols should allow for self-service decision-making without stifling agility.
Last-Minute Adjustments with Predictability: Agile initiatives should have the flexibility to adjust their release schedules as long as they adhere to predefined impact management processes.
Lesson 3: Resourcing Air Traffic Control for Organisational Change
Lack of Air Traffic Controllers: A Root Cause of the D.C. Accident
The D.C. accident highlighted that understaffing was a critical factor. Insufficient air traffic controllers led to delayed decision-making and unsafe airspace conditions.
The Importance of Resource Allocation in Change and Transformation
Many organisations lack a dedicated team overseeing enterprise-wide change. Instead, initiatives operate independently, often leading to inefficiencies, redundancies, and conflicts. According to McKinsey, companies that effectively prioritise and allocate resources to transformation initiatives can generate 40% more value compared to their peers.
Key Takeaways:
Dedicated Transformation Governance Teams: Whether in the form of a PMO, Transformation Office, or Change Centre of Excellence, a central function should be responsible for initiative alignment.
Prioritisation Frameworks: Not all initiatives should receive equal attention. Organisations must establish structured prioritisation mechanisms based on value, risk, and strategic alignment.
Investment in Change Capacity: Just as air traffic controllers are indispensable to aviation safety, organisations must invest in skilled change professionals to ensure seamless initiative execution.
Lesson 4: Proactive Risk Management to Prevent Initiative Collisions
The Risk of Unchecked Initiative Timelines
Just as midair collisions can occur due to inadequate tracking of aircraft positions, organisational change initiatives can “crash” when timelines and impacts are not actively managed. Without a real-time view of concurrent changes, organisations risk:
Conflicting Business Priorities: Competing transformations may pull resources in different directions, leading to delays and reduced impact.
Change Saturation: Employees struggle to absorb too many changes at once, leading to disengagement and lower adoption.
Operational Disruptions: Poorly sequenced initiatives can create unintended consequences, disrupting critical business functions.
Establishing a Proactive “Air Traffic Control” for Change
Enterprise Change Heatmaps: Organisations should maintain a real-time dashboard of ongoing and upcoming changes to anticipate and mitigate risks.
Stakeholder Impact Assessments: Before launching initiatives, leaders must assess cumulative impacts on employees and customers.
Strategic Sequencing: Similar to how air traffic controllers ensure safe landing schedules, organisations must deliberately pace their change initiatives.
The Role of Data in Change and Transformation: Lessons from Air Traffic Control
You Need a Single Source of Truth—No More Guesswork
Aviation Example: The Power of Integrated Data Systems
In aviation, pilots and controllers don’t work off scattered spreadsheets or conflicting reports. They use a unified system that integrates radar, satellite tracking, and aircraft GPS, providing a single, comprehensive view of air traffic. With this system, pilots and controllers can see exactly where each aircraft is and make informed decisions to keep everyone safe.
Application in Change Management: Why Fragmented Data is a Recipe for Disaster
Now, compare this to how many organisations manage change. Different business units track initiatives in separate spreadsheets, using inconsistent reporting standards. Transformation offices, HR, finance, and IT often operate in silos, each with their own version of the truth. When leaders don’t have a clear, real-time picture of what’s happening across the organisation, it’s like trying to land a plane in thick fog—without instruments.
Key Takeaways:
Create a Centralised Change Management Platform: Just like air traffic control relies on a single system, organisations need a centralised platform where all change initiatives are tracked in real time.
Standardise Data Collection and Reporting: Everyone involved in change initiatives should follow the same data standards to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Increase Visibility Across Business Units: Leaders need an enterprise-wide view of all change efforts to avoid conflicts and align priorities.
Real-Time Data Enables Agile, Confident Decision-Making
UPS has a fascinating system for managing landings, known as ‘Continuous Descent Arrivals.’ Instead of waiting for air traffic controllers to dictate their landing time, pilots receive real-time data about their approach, runway conditions, and surrounding traffic. This allows them to determine the best landing time themselves—within a structured framework. The result? More efficient landings, less fuel waste, and greater overall safety.
Application in Change Management: The Danger of Outdated Reports
Too often, business leaders make transformation decisions based on data that’s weeks—or even months—old. By the time they realise a problem, the initiative has already veered off course. When leaders lack real-time data, they either act too late or overcorrect, causing further disruptions.
Key Takeaways:
Use Live Dashboards for Initiative Management: Just as pilots rely on real-time flight data, change leaders should have constantly updated dashboards showing initiative progress, risks, and dependencies.
Empower Initiative Owners with Data-Driven Autonomy: When given up-to-date information, initiative owners can make faster, smarter adjustments—without waiting for top-down approvals.
Leverage Predictive Analytics to Anticipate Challenges: AI-driven insights can flag potential risks, such as change saturation or conflicting priorities, before they become full-blown issues.
Modern aircraft are equipped with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) systems, which allow them to communicate real-time flight data with each other. If two planes are on a collision course, these systems warn pilots, giving them time to adjust. It’s a proactive approach to risk management—problems are detected and resolved before they escalate.
Application in Change Management: Avoiding Crashes Between Initiatives
In organisations, multiple change initiatives often roll out simultaneously, each demanding employee attention, resources, and operational bandwidth. Without real-time risk monitoring, it’s easy to overwhelm employees or create operational bottlenecks. Many organisations don’t realise there’s an issue until productivity starts dropping or employees push back against the sheer volume of change.
Key Takeaways:
Invest in Impact Assessment Tools: Before launching an initiative, leaders should evaluate its potential impact on employees and the business.
Run Scenario Planning Exercises: Like pilots in flight simulators, organisations should model different change scenarios to prepare for potential challenges.
Set Up Early Warning Systems: AI-driven analytics can detect overlapping initiatives, allowing leaders to intervene before issues arise.
The High Cost of Inaccurate or Delayed Data
Aviation Example: The D.C. Midair Collision
The tragic January 2025 midair collision in Washington, D.C. was, in part, the result of outdated and incomplete data. A single air traffic controller was responsible for both helicopter and airplane traffic, leading to a dangerous lapse in coordination. Miscommunication about airspace restrictions only made matters worse, resulting in an avoidable catastrophe.
Poor Data Leads to Costly Mistakes
The corporate equivalent of this is when transformation teams work with old or incomplete data. Decisions based on last quarter’s reports can lead to wasted resources, poorly sequenced initiatives, and employee burnout. The consequences might not be as immediately tragic as an aviation disaster, but the financial, momentum and cultural costs can be devastating.
Key Takeaways:
Prioritise Frequent Data Updates: Change leaders must ensure initiative data is refreshed regularly to reflect real-time realities.
Collaborate Across Functions to Maintain Accuracy: Transformation leaders, HR, finance, and IT should work together to ensure all change impact data is reliable.
Automate Reporting Where Possible: AI and automation can reduce human error and provide real-time insights without manual effort.
Balancing Automation with Human Judgment
Aviation Example: Autopilot vs. Pilot Oversight
While modern planes rely heavily on autopilot, pilots are still in control. They use automation as a support system, but ultimately, human judgment is the final safeguard. It’s the perfect balance—automation enhances efficiency, while human oversight ensures safety.
Some leaders may find the process of collecting and analyzing data cumbersome, time-consuming, and even unnecessary—especially when they’re focused on quick execution. Gathering accurate, real-time data requires investment in tools, training, and disciplined processes, which can feel like an administrative burden rather than a value driver.
However, the benefits far outweigh the effort. A well-structured data system provides clarity on initiative progress, prevents conflicting priorities, enhances decision-making, and ensures resources are allocated effectively. Without it, organisations risk initiative overload, employee burnout, wasted budgets, and ultimately, failed transformations. Just like in aviation, where poor data can lead to fatal accidents, a lack of real-time insights in change management can result in costly missteps that derail business success.
Moreover, having an integrated process whereby data regularly feeds into decision making, as a normal business-as-usual process, builds the overall capability of the organisation to be a lot more agile and be able to change with confidence.
Navigating Change with Data-Driven Precision
Aviation has shown us what happens when decision-makers lack real-time, accurate data—mistakes happen, and consequences can be severe. In organisational change, the same principles apply. By embracing real-time data, predictive analytics, and structured governance, companies can navigate change more effectively, preventing initiative overload, reducing resistance, and maximising impact.
Ultimately, the goal is simple: Ensure your change initiatives don’t crash and burn. And just like in aviation, data is the key to a smooth landing.
If you would like to chat more about how to utilise a digital/AI solution that will equip you will insightful data to make critical business decisions in your air traffic control of your changes, reach out to us here.
Successful transformation is not just about having a clear strategy, the right technology, or a strong leadership team—it is about managing organisational energy effectively. Like a marathon, transformation requires a well-paced approach, allowing for the right breathing space at key milestones. Without careful attention to energy levels, organisations risk burnout, disengagement, and failure to sustain long-term change.
Understanding Organisational Energy
Organisational energy is the collective capacity of employees to take action, drive change, and sustain momentum. It encompasses physical, emotional, and cognitive dimensions, each playing a critical role in how teams navigate transformation. Unlike resources such as time and budget, energy is dynamic—it can be depleted through excessive demands or replenished through strategic interventions.
The Marathon Mindset: Pacing and Breathing Spaces
Transformation is a long journey, not a sprint. Like seasoned marathon runners, organisations must be intentional about pacing and ensuring adequate recovery points along the way. Leaders often push for rapid results, but sustained transformation requires:
Phased Implementation: Breaking down transformation into manageable phases with defined milestones.
Strategic Pauses: Allowing teams to absorb changes, reflect on progress, and recalibrate before moving to the next stage.
Energy Checks: Regularly assessing engagement levels, stress indicators, and feedback to adjust the pace accordingly.
Neglecting these aspects leads to fatigue, resistance, and disengagement—ultimately derailing transformation efforts.
Awareness of Existing Capabilities and Change History
Before embarking on a transformation journey, organisations must understand their baseline. Awareness of existing capabilities, ways of working, and historical transformation experiences provides predictive indicators of how change should be approached.
Key Considerations:
Past Change Successes and Failures: What has worked and what hasn’t? Understanding past patterns helps anticipate potential resistance or enablers.
Current Workload and Fatigue Levels: Are employees already stretched with existing initiatives? Overloading teams will compromise focus and execution quality.
Organisational Culture: Some cultures thrive on rapid change, while others require gradual adoption. Aligning transformation efforts with cultural realities is critical.
By assessing these factors, leaders can tailor transformation strategies to fit the organisation’s energy levels and capacity.
Building Organisational Stamina: Start Small, Scale Up
Just as athletes build endurance through progressive training, organisations must strengthen their transformation muscle over time. This means introducing smaller changes first to test resilience and capability before scaling up to more complex shifts.
How to Build Organisational Stamina:
Start with Pilot Initiatives: Test new ways of working in controlled environments before expanding.
Gradually Increase Complexity: Move from small process improvements to larger-scale changes, ensuring teams adapt successfully at each stage.
Celebrate Early Wins: Recognising progress builds confidence and motivation to tackle bigger challenges.
Provide Learning Opportunities: Equip teams with skills and tools that enhance adaptability and readiness for change.
Leaders who adopt this progressive approach foster a resilient workforce that can sustain transformation efforts over time.
Teams with good change leaders or those teams with significant experience with change tend to be more able to work with greater volumes of change as well as greater complexity of change. With each change initiative, with the right structure, routines (including retro), the team’s capability can be built to be ready for larger, more complex transformations.
Balancing Focus and Intensity
Attention is a finite resource. When teams are bombarded with multiple initiatives, priorities become diluted, and execution suffers. Managing focus effectively is essential to maintaining high performance during transformation.
Strategies for Maintaining Focus:
Limit Concurrent Initiatives: Prioritise the most critical changes and sequence others to avoid overload.
Establish Clear Priorities: Ensure alignment across leadership to prevent conflicting demands on teams.
Monitor Workload and Stress Levels: Pay close attention to employee well-being and adjust intensity as needed.
Encourage Deep Work: Create space for teams to focus without constant distractions or shifting priorities.
When focus is scattered, transformation efforts lose momentum. By managing cognitive load, leaders enable employees to fully engage with and execute changes effectively.
The Importance of a Clear Plan
While agile methodologies emphasise adaptability, having a structured plan provides essential clarity for employees navigating complex change. Transformation without a roadmap leads to uncertainty, anxiety, and resistance. This does not necessarily mean that plans are locked in stone and cannot be changed. In contrast to this, having a plan provides a frame of reference, and expectations can be set that details including timeline may shift but that the high level approach remains the same.
Why a Clear Plan Matters:
Provides Direction: Employees need to know where the organisation is headed and how they fit into the journey.
Reduces Uncertainty: Even if adjustments are made, a baseline plan offers reassurance and stability.
Enhances Engagement: When people understand the “why” and “how” of transformation, they are more likely to commit.
Prepares for Change: Last-minute changes create confusion and stress—early planning allows for smoother transitions.
Balancing Planning with Agility
While plans must be flexible, abandoning structure altogether creates chaos. Leaders should:
Communicate a High-Level Roadmap: Outline key phases and milestones without overloading with unnecessary detail.
Adapt Plans Responsively: Incorporate feedback and lessons learned, adjusting course without losing sight of long-term goals.
Engage Employees in Planning: Co-creation fosters ownership and reduces resistance.
A well-structured transformation plan provides clarity and confidence, making it easier for teams to adapt and sustain change.
To ensure the optimal management of organisational energy, measurement is essential. Organisations need clear yardsticks to assess energy levels, performance, and transformation progress, allowing leaders to make informed adjustments when needed. Without measurement, it is impossible to determine whether teams are operating at an optimal pace or experiencing fatigue and disengagement.
Key Metrics to Track:
Change Impact Data: Understanding the magnitude of transformation on various teams helps adjust implementation approaches.
Balance Energy Demand and Supply: Leaders should prioritize work strategically, focusing on high-impact initiatives while minimizing unnecessary demands. Simultaneously, they should inspire teams by articulating a compelling vision that connects the various dots across changes
Change Readiness Assessments: Gauging employees’ preparedness for change ensures the right support mechanisms are in place.
Sentiment Analysis: Regular pulse surveys and feedback loops help identify resistance, concerns, and engagement levels.
Performance Metrics: Tracking productivity, efficiency, and key deliverables helps align transformation with business outcomes.
Adoption Rates: Measuring how well new processes, tools, or ways of working are being integrated ensures long-term sustainability.
By continuously monitoring these indicators, leaders can fine-tune transformation efforts, ensuring that momentum is sustained while preventing burnout and resistance.
Leading with Energy Management
The success of any transformation effort hinges on how well organisational energy is managed. Leaders must act as stewards of energy—pacing initiatives appropriately, building stamina, maintaining focus, and providing clear direction.
By treating transformation like a marathon—strategically balancing intensity with recovery, testing capabilities before scaling, and ensuring clarity—organisations can sustain momentum and achieve lasting success. Managing organisational energy is not just a leadership responsibility; it is the foundation for thriving in an ever-evolving business landscape.
Transformation and change professionals often find themselves in the position of defending the value of change management. Despite the critical role that change management plays in ensuring successful project outcomes, many stakeholders remain sceptical. Some view it as a discretionary cost rather than an essential function. Many change management centres of excellences have faced the axe or at least been downsized.
This scepticism can be exacerbated by comments that dismisses roles such as change managers as unnecessary. In Australia, there are even comments by a politician that positions such as change manager “do nothing to improve the lives of everyday Australians”. The context of this comment was targeting positions related cultural, diversity and inclusions advisors, along the same lines as that driven by Trump in the United States. This has upset a lot of change professionals as you can imagine.
To counter this, Change Management Centres of Excellence (CoEs) must move beyond advocacy and education to proactively demonstrate their tangible value. Let’s explore practical approaches to proving the value of change management, ensuring its sustained recognition and investment.
1. Leverage Empirical Research to Support Your Case
There is substantial research demonstrating that change management interventions lead to improved project outcomes. Change practitioners can use these studies as evidence to substantiate their value. For example:
Prosci Research has consistently shown that projects with excellent change management are significantly more likely to achieve their objectives compared to those with poor change management. According to the Best Practices in Change Management study, 88% of participants with excellent change management met or exceeded objectives, while only 13% of those with poor change management met or exceeded objectives. This means that projects with excellent change management were approximately seven times more likely to meet objectives than those with poor change management (Source).
Even implementing fair change management practices can lead to a threefold improvement in project outcomes (Source).
McKinsey found that transformation initiatives are 5.8 times more successful if CEOs communicate a compelling change story, and 6.3 times more successful when leaders share messages about change efforts with the rest of the organisation (Source).
By framing change management as an evidence-based discipline, Change CoEs can strengthen their credibility and influence senior stakeholders. Furthermore, sharing industry benchmarks and case studies showcasing successful change management implementations can add weight to the argument.
2. Calculate the Financial Value of Managing a Change Portfolio
Executives prioritize financial metrics, making it essential to quantify the financial impact of change management. This article How to calculate the financial value of managing a change portfolio provides a structured approach to calculating the financial value of managing a change portfolio. Some key financial considerations include:
Productivity Gains: Effective change management reduces employee resistance and increases adoption rates, leading to quicker realization of benefits. For instance, if a new system is introduced, strong change management ensures employees use it efficiently, eliminating productivity dips.
Cost Avoidance: Poorly managed change efforts can lead to rework, delays, and even project failures, incurring significant costs. For example, a failed system implementation due to lack of change management could require millions in additional investments to correct issues and retrain employees.
Revenue Acceleration: When changes are adopted swiftly and efficiently, organisations can capitalize on new opportunities faster. In industries such as retail, banking, and technology, time-to-market is critical. The faster employees and customers adapt to new changes, the sooner the organisation can generate revenue from those changes.
Risk Mitigation: Resistance and poor change adoption can lead to compliance risks, reputational damage, and disengagement, all of which have financial implications. A compliance failure due to lack of engagement in a new regulatory process could lead to fines and reputational loss.
To make this more tangible, Change CoEs should create financial models that quantify the cost of failed change initiatives versus successful ones. They can also track and report savings from avoided risks and improved efficiency, linking these directly to the organisation’s bottom line.
3. Demonstrate Value Through Behaviour Change
One of the most effective ways to prove the impact of change management is by tracking behaviour change. Change is not successful unless employees adopt new ways of working, and this can be measured using:
Adoption Metrics: Track usage rates of new systems, tools, or processes. For instance, if a company implements a new CRM system, measuring login frequency, data entry consistency, and feature utilization can indicate successful adoption.
Performance Data: Compare key performance indicators (KPIs) before and after change implementation. If a new customer service protocol is introduced, tracking customer satisfaction scores and response times will provide tangible insights into its effectiveness.
Employee Surveys: Gauge sentiment and readiness for change. Pulse surveys can reveal how confident employees feel about a transformation and whether they understand its purpose and benefits.
Stakeholder Feedback: Capture qualitative insights from leaders and frontline employees. Executives often rely on direct feedback from managers to gauge whether changes are being embraced or resisted.
By presenting a clear narrative that links change management efforts to observable behaviour shifts, Change CoEs can make their value more tangible. It is also beneficial to conduct longitudinal studies, tracking behaviour change over time to ensure sustained impact.
Imagine being able to present a set of behaviour metrics that are forward looking measures for benefit realisation. This can position favourably the tangible value of change management activities and approaches.
Customer Experience Improvements: Measure customer satisfaction before and after change initiatives. If a change initiative improves customer interactions, metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and retention rates will reflect its impact.
Employee Engagement and Retention: Effective change management reduces uncertainty and anxiety, leading to better engagement and lower attrition. Organisations that manage change well see lower absenteeism and stronger workforce commitment.
Organisational Agility: Organisations with strong change management capabilities adapt faster to market disruptions. Companies that successfully embed change management in their DNA are more resilient during economic downturns or competitive shifts.
Cultural Transformation: Change management plays a key role in shaping corporate culture, which influences long-term business success. For example, embedding a culture of continuous learning can make future change initiatives easier to implement.
By framing change management as a driver of strategic outcomes, rather than just an operational function, Change CoEs can enhance their perceived value.
5. Position change as a key part of risk management
Demonstrating the value of change management through risk management is a powerful approach for the Change CoE. By highlighting how effective change management mitigates various risks associated with organisational change, you can justify its importance and secure necessary support and resources.
This is particularly useful and important for the financial services sector where risk is now the front and centre of attention for most senior leaders, with the increasingly intense regulatory environment and scrutiny by regulators.
Risk in Change
Change initiatives inherently carry risks that can impact an organisation’s operations, culture, and bottom line. Effective change management helps identify and address these risks proactively. By implementing a robust change risk management framework, organisations can adapt their overall risk management strategies to cover change-related risks throughout the project lifecycle. This approach allows for early identification of potential obstacles, enabling timely interventions and increasing the likelihood of successful change implementation.
Delivery Risk
Change management plays a crucial role in mitigating delivery risks associated with project implementation. While project managers typically focus on schedule, cost, and quality risks, change managers can identify and manage risks that are delivered into the business as a result of the change. By working closely with project managers, change professionals can introduce processes to minimize the potential business impact of these delivered risks during project delivery. This collaboration ensures that the project not only delivers the required change but does so with minimal disruption to the organisation.
Quantifying Risk Mitigation
To further demonstrate the value of change management, it’s essential to quantify its contribution to risk mitigation. By adapting the organisation’s risk assessment matrix or tools, change managers can determine the probability and potential impact of each identified risk. This analysis allows for prioritization of risks and implementation of appropriate mitigation strategies.
By tracking how change management interventions reduce the likelihood or impact of these risks, you can provide tangible evidence of its value to senior leadership. By framing change management as a critical component of risk management, you can shift the conversation from justifying its existence to showcasing its indispensable role in ensuring successful organisational transformations. This not only demonstrates the value of change management but also aligns it with broader organisational goals of risk reduction and strategic success.
6. Proactively Measure and Track Value Delivery
Tracking and reporting the tangible value created by change management is essential. Organisations frequently undergo leadership transitions, and new decision-makers may question the need for a Change CoE. A well-documented history of impact ensures continuity and ongoing investment.
McKinsey research indicated that Transformations that provide both initiative-level and program-level views of progress through relevant metrics are 7.3 times more likely to succeed (Source).
To achieve this:
Develop a Change Management Dashboard: Use KPIs to track adoption rates, employee readiness, and impact on business metrics.
Create Case Studies: Document success stories with before-and-after comparisons. Case studies should include challenges, change management interventions, and final outcomes.
Conduct Quarterly Impact Reviews: Regularly present insights to senior leaders. Demonstrating trends and ongoing improvements ensures continued executive buy-in.
Link Change Efforts to Strategic Priorities: Show how change management enables key business goals, such as revenue growth, market expansion, or operational efficiency.
7. Shift from Education to Results-Driven Influence
While stakeholder education is important, it has limitations. Many executives have preconceived notions about change management. Rather than relying solely on relationship-building, focus on delivering results that speak for themselves. Key strategies include:
Pilot Programs: Run small-scale change initiatives with measurable impact. If an executive is sceptical, a successful pilot can turn them into an advocate. It is highly unlikely that executives will not want to see metrics that indicate how effective a change initiative is progressing.
Strategic Partnerships: Align with key business units to co-own change success. Partnering with Finance, HR, Risk, Operations and IT leaders can reinforce the business value of change management.
Agile Change Management: Deliver incremental wins to showcase immediate value. Iterative, feedback-driven approaches ensure continuous improvement and visibility.
Change management professionals must move beyond justification and actively prove their worth. By leveraging empirical research, financial calculations, behaviour tracking, alternative value measures, and proactive reporting, Change CoEs can secure their place as indispensable business functions. In a world where scepticism towards roles like change management persists, the best defence is a compelling, evidence-based demonstration of impact.
