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 Now, imagine if air traffic controllers had to work with outdated information, or if pilots had to rely on intuition rather than hard facts.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.
Do We Really Need a View of Changes Across the Organisation?
As the pace of change accelerates, senior leaders are increasingly asking for a comprehensive view of changes happening across the organisation. However, not everyone sees the need for this. Some change practitioners focus solely on project-level implementation, while others concentrate on developing change capability or leadership. So, is a broad organisational view of change necessary? The short answer is yes—and here’s why.
Why is a View of Changes Important?
1. Understanding Change is Key to Improving It
Managing change effectively requires a clear understanding of what is changing. Without visibility into the scope and nature of changes, how can we improve them? Imagine if Finance attempted to manage an organisation’s finances without access to financial data. The same principle applies to change management—without insights into ongoing changes, making informed improvements to how change is managed becomes impossible or at least ineffective.
A holistic view also helps identify patterns and systemic issues that may not be visible when looking at changes in isolation. For example, if multiple teams are experiencing resistance to similar types of change, it may indicate an underlying cultural or structural issue rather than a problem with individual initiatives.
2. Avoiding a Myopic View
Many change practitioners operate at the project level, focusing on the change they are driving without visibility into other initiatives. This narrow focus can lead to conflicting priorities, resource constraints, and stakeholder fatigue. A fragmented approach often results in duplication of effort, where multiple teams work on similar initiatives without coordination, wasting time and resources.
A lack of visibility can also cause bottlenecks. For instance, two major transformation projects requiring input from the same group of employees may create undue pressure, leading to burnout and decreased productivity. With an organisational view, leaders can identify these risks in advance and implement measures to mitigate them, such as staggering implementation timelines or providing additional support.
3. Taking a Human-Centred Approach
A human-centred approach to change means viewing change from the perspective of impacted stakeholders rather than just from a project lens. Employees and customers experience multiple changes together, not in isolated silos. To design change experiences that work, we must understand the overall change landscape and how it affects people’s daily work and interactions.
Without a consolidated view, employees may feel overwhelmed by frequent, disconnected changes. This often leads to change fatigue, disengagement, and resistance. By considering how multiple changes intersect, organisations can design more coherent and supportive transition experiences for their people, improving adoption rates and overall satisfaction.
There are some who would rather not use the term ‘change fatigue’. Sure. Other labels may be used instead. However, not acknowledging its existence does not mean that it does not exists. We can choose to not label and not address the impacts of multiple changes. By doing this it will not magically go away. This is not going to help the business perform better and reach its targets.
4. Supporting Leadership in Managing Business Performance
Leaders are concerned about how changes impact business performance. Without a consolidated view of what is changing, how those changes interact, and their organisational impact, it is difficult to provide meaningful insights. A structured view of change enables leaders to make informed decisions, mitigate risks, and optimise the overall change portfolio to support business objectives.
For example, if an organisation is rolling out a new customer relationship management (CRM) system while simultaneously restructuring its sales teams, leaders need to assess whether these initiatives will complement or hinder each other. Without this awareness, they may inadvertently introduce inefficiencies, such as duplicate training efforts or conflicting performance expectations.
5. Enhancing Organisational Readiness for Change
A key benefit of having a comprehensive view of change is improving organisational readiness. Readiness is not just about preparing individuals for a specific change but ensuring the organisation as a whole is capable of absorbing and adapting to continuous transformation.
An organisation that understands its change landscape can proactively assess its capacity for change at any given time. If several major initiatives are running concurrently, leaders can evaluate whether the organisation has the resources, cultural maturity, and leadership alignment to support them. Without this visibility, companies risk overloading employees and creating resistance due to excessive, poorly timed changes.
Furthermore, readiness assessments can identify gaps in capability, such as the need for additional training, clearer communication, or adjustments in leadership support. When organisations have a clear view of upcoming changes, they can put proactive measures in place, such as phased rollouts, targeted engagement efforts, or reinforcement mechanisms, to ensure smoother transitions and greater adoption success.
6. How an Integrated View of Change Supports Business Readiness
An integrated view of change enables organisations to move beyond reactive change management and embrace proactive change readiness. By mapping all significant transformations across the business, leaders can anticipate challenges, synchronise efforts, and prepare employees more effectively.
For example, if a company is implementing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system while also shifting to a hybrid work model, an integrated change view allows decision-makers to assess whether these changes will create conflicting demands on employees. Instead of overwhelming teams with simultaneous process and technology shifts, adjustments can be made to stagger rollouts, align training programs, and provide tailored support.
Additionally, when businesses have a comprehensive perspective on change, they can implement readiness initiatives such as leadership coaching, employee engagement strategies, and resilience-building programs well in advance. This ensures that by the time changes take effect, the organisation is not just aware of them but fully prepared to embrace and sustain them. An integrated approach fosters a culture of adaptability, making the business more resilient in the face of continuous transformation.
Addressing Common Concerns: “It’s Too Complicated”
A frequent argument against establishing an organisation-wide change view is that it is too complex and resource-intensive. However, this does not need to be the case.
1. Start Small and Scale Gradually
Instead of attempting a whole-organisation approach from the outset, begin with a stakeholder lens. Understand how changes impact specific stakeholder groups, then expand to teams, departments, and eventually the entire organisation. This phased approach ensures manageable progress without overwhelming stakeholders.
One way to do this is by focusing on a single high-impact function, such as IT or HR, and mapping their change landscape before expanding outward. By demonstrating value in a contained environment, it becomes easier to gain buy-in for broader adoption.
2. Begin with Basic Data
There is no need to start with an elaborate data set. A simple list of initiatives is enough to begin forming a picture. Over time, additional data points—such as timelines, affected stakeholders, and interdependencies—can be added to enhance visibility and analysis.
Many organisations already have elements of this data scattered across different departments. Consolidating this information in a central repository can be a quick win that provides immediate value without requiring extensive new processes.
3. Take an Agile, Iterative Approach
Building a change view incrementally allows for continuous refinement and adaptation. By adopting an agile mindset, practitioners can deliver immediate value while progressively enhancing the data set. This approach ensures that the effort remains practical and sustainable while demonstrating benefits to stakeholders at each stage.
Using lightweight collaboration tools, such as shared spreadsheets or simple dashboard software, can help kickstart the process without significant investment in complex change management platforms.
Once you progress to a more sophisticated level where you need AI support and advanced dashboarding, check out Change Compass.
The Benefits of an Organisational View of Change
1. Improved Stakeholder Experience
By understanding the cumulative impact of multiple changes, organisations can better manage stakeholder experiences. Employees are often subject to change saturation when faced with numerous uncoordinated initiatives. A holistic view enables better sequencing and pacing of change to ensure smoother transitions.
2. Enhanced Risk Management
Without an overarching view, risks associated with overlapping initiatives may go unnoticed until issues arise. Identifying potential bottlenecks and conflicts early helps in designing mitigating strategies before problems escalate. Risks may include program delivery risk, operational risk, benefit realisation risk and various people risks.
3. Better Resource Allocation
Organisations often face resource constraints, whether in terms of budget, personnel, or time. A consolidated view helps leaders prioritise initiatives effectively, ensuring that resources are allocated to high-impact changes while minimising inefficiencies.
4. Strengthened Leadership Decision-Making
Leaders require data-driven insights to make informed strategic decisions. A comprehensive change landscape provides clarity on what is happening across the organisation, empowering leaders to align transformation efforts with business objectives.
Practical Steps to Establish an Organisation-Wide Change View
Step 1: Identify Key Stakeholders
Begin by engaging stakeholders across the organisation to understand their concerns and expectations. These may include senior executives, department heads, project managers, and frontline employees.
Step 2: Map Current and Upcoming Changes
Compile a list of all ongoing and planned initiatives. Categorise them by business function, timeline, impacted teams, and strategic priority. This will create an initial snapshot of the change landscape.
Step 3: Identify Interdependencies
Assess how different initiatives interact with each other. Are there overlapping resource requirements? Do changes in one area impact another? Recognising these dependencies enables better coordination and minimises disruption.
Step 4: Develop a Change Portfolio View
Use visualisation tools to represent the collected data in a meaningful way. Heatmaps, Gantt charts, and stakeholder impact matrices can help illustrate the overall change picture.
Step 5: Implement Governance Structures
Establish governance mechanisms to continuously update and refine the change portfolio. This may involve periodic reviews, a centralised change coordination team, or designated change champions within each department.
Step 6: Communicate Insights Effectively
Share findings with stakeholders in a digestible format. Providing clarity on how changes align with organisational priorities fosters engagement and encourages proactive collaboration.
Future Trends in Organisational Change Visibility
1. Increased Use of Digital Tools
Advanced analytics, AI-driven insights, and dashboard visualisation tools are making it easier to track and analyse change across an organisation in real-time.
2. Integration with Business Strategy
Change management is increasingly being embedded within broader business strategy execution and performance metrics tracking, ensuring alignment with long-term goals.
3. Greater Focus on Employee Experience
Organisations are recognising the importance of measuring change from an employee perspective. This includes sentiment analysis, real-time feedback loops, and adaptive communication strategies.
A comprehensive view of change across an organisation is not just a ‘nice-to-have’—it is essential for effective change management. It enables better decision-making, reduces unintended consequences, and enhances the overall employee experience. While establishing such a view may seem complex, taking a pragmatic, step-by-step approach makes it achievable and valuable.
For experienced change and transformation professionals, this shift in perspective is not just about managing change—it’s about leading it effectively in an increasingly dynamic world.
As the new year begins, it’s a natural time to reflect, refocus, and set the stage for success. For senior change and transformation professionals, this is an opportune moment to assess the upcoming portfolio of initiatives. Taking inspiration from Marie Kondo’s principles of decluttering and creating joy, we can apply these ideas to optimise our change portfolios and ensure they are designed for impact, sustainability, and value.
1. Start the Year by Decluttering
Just as Marie Kondo advises starting with a clean slate by letting go of unnecessary items, the new year offers the perfect chance to reassess the change portfolio. Decluttering is not just about removing excess; it’s about making deliberate, strategic decisions to create space for what truly matters. Many organisations find themselves burdened by legacy projects, overlapping initiatives, and unnecessary complexity. These elements consume valuable resources and dilute focus, ultimately jeopardising the success of the portfolio as a whole.
To start the decluttering process, take time to systematically review all initiatives. Begin by cataloging everything currently in progress or planned for the upcoming year. This exercise will reveal the true scope of commitments and help identify initiatives that may no longer align with the organisation’s strategic priorities. From there, engage with key stakeholders to challenge assumptions and uncover opportunities to streamline. By proactively identifying what can be paused, combined, or retired, you free up capacity for the initiatives that deliver the greatest value.
Your next PI (Program Increment) Planning will be a great opportunity to do this. As you work with other teams to assess scheduling and alignment, use this opportunity to align with stakeholder to cull and re-prioritise as required. It may be a good idea to do this prior to the PI Planning session to ensure the session is tight and focused.
Decluttering is not just about removing initiatives; it’s about creating space for the initiatives that truly matter. This exercise can involve:
Conducting a Portfolio Audit: List all current and planned initiatives. Categorize them by strategic importance, urgency, and expected impact.
Engaging Stakeholders: Facilitate discussions with leaders and project owners to challenge the status quo. Ask critical questions: Does this initiative serve a pressing need? Can its objectives be achieved through another project?
Identifying Redundancies: Often, multiple initiatives address overlapping goals. Combining efforts can streamline resources and improve focus.
2. Clarify Priorities, Focus, and Value
One of the key principles of joyful organisation is clarity. In the context of change management, clarity means ensuring that every initiative in the portfolio has a clearly defined purpose, aligns with organizational priorities, and delivers measurable value. Without this clarity, portfolios risk becoming overcrowded and unfocused, leading to wasted resources and frustrated teams.
Take a step back to evaluate each initiative against the organisation’s strategic goals. This process should involve critical questions such as: Does this initiative support our long-term vision? What specific problems does it solve? How does it fit into the broader transformation journey? Answering these questions will help identify initiatives that lack focus or fail to deliver meaningful value.
Clarity also requires a shared understanding across the organisation. Leaders, teams, and stakeholders must be aligned on what matters most. Misaligned priorities can lead to confusion, duplication of efforts, and competing demands on resources. By fostering open communication and establishing clear criteria for decision-making, you can ensure that everyone is working toward the same goals.
Creating clarity requires tools and structured processes:
Use Priority Matrices: Tools like the Eisenhower Matrix or impact-effort grids can help categorise initiatives based on their urgency and value. To read more about the Eisenhower Matrix visit this Forbes article
Define Metrics of Success: For each initiative, identify clear KPIs that demonstrate its contribution to the organisation’s goals. This helps maintain focus and provides a benchmark for future evaluations.
Communicate Priorities Clearly: Ensure that leadership and teams are aligned on what matters most. A shared understanding of priorities reduces the risk of misaligned efforts.
3. Recognise the Constraints of the Business Environment
Unlike a personal decluttering exercise, most organisations cannot afford to focus on just a few initiatives due to the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of the business world. New market demands, technological advancements, and regulatory changes often force organisations to pivot or expand their priorities mid-year. This makes it critical to design a change landscape that can accommodate both planned and emergent needs.
A well-structured portfolio balances transformational initiatives with business-as-usual (BAU) activities, ensuring that both long-term and short-term goals are addressed. However, achieving this balance requires careful planning and the ability to adapt. Organisations must be prepared to reassess priorities and make adjustments without derailing progress.
Designing the change landscape involves creating a comprehensive view of all initiatives, their interdependencies, and their impact on resources. This view should be regularly updated to reflect changes in the business environment. Scenario planning can also be invaluable, allowing organisations to explore potential outcomes and identify strategies for adapting to new challenges.
The optimal change landscape for your impacted stakeholders is one that is not cluttered, but one that is tight, focused and considered. It is not just about avoiding change saturation. It is about designing the right energy, focus, momentum and capacity.
Designing the change landscape involves:
Mapping the Portfolio: Visualise all initiatives, their timelines, and dependencies. Tools like Gantt charts or Kanban boards can help create a comprehensive view
Scenario Planning: Consider different scenarios based on potential changes in the business environment. How will the portfolio adapt if priorities shift mid-year?
Building Flexibility: Design the portfolio to accommodate adjustments without derailing progress. This might mean reserving resources for unforeseen priorities or having contingency plans for high-risk initiatives.
To do all these can be taxing. Check out The Change Compass for a view of your initiative impacts on people in terms of capacity and involvement. It also allows you to design and visualise different scenarios of different initiative sequences. You can easily see the forecasted capacity of various teams and be able to leverage AI insights on key risks.
4. De-clutter and De-prioritise Strategically
It’s common for certain initiatives to linger in the portfolio simply because they are pet projects of influential leaders. While these may have merit, it’s essential to make deliberate choices about what stays and what goes. Without these hard decisions, portfolios can become bloated, stretching resources too thin and compromising the success of high-priority initiatives.
Facilitating open conversations with stakeholders is key to successful de-prioritisation. This requires a combination of diplomacy and data-driven insights. By presenting clear evidence of an initiative’s impact (or lack thereof), you can shift the conversation from emotion to evidence. It’s also important to address the organisational culture around failure and closure. Retiring an initiative should be seen as a strategic decision rather than a failure.
Strategies for effective de-prioritization include:
Data-Driven Decision Making: Use data to demonstrate the potential ROI of each initiative. This helps shift conversations from emotion to evidence.
Transparent Communication: Be honest about why certain initiatives are being deprioritised. Transparency builds trust and reduces resistance.
Celebrate Closure: For initiatives that are retired, acknowledge the effort invested and celebrate the learnings. This reinforces a culture of continuous improvement.
5. Anticipate Trade-offs and Clashes Early
One of the most common pitfalls in change management is waiting until conflicts arise before addressing them. Portfolio clashes, resource shortages, and stakeholder fatigue can often be predicted well in advance. However, many organisations fail to have the necessary conversations early enough, leading to last-minute crises that disrupt progress. Having conversations too late means your initiative stakeholders are already invested given the significant effort and resources put in. This means it makes it even harder to change committed timelines, even when there are significant risks.
Proactively anticipating trade-offs requires a combination of foresight, tools, and collaborative discussions. Change impact assessments, capacity planning, and regular portfolio reviews are invaluable in identifying potential bottlenecks and saturation points. Additionally, creating forums for open dialogue allows stakeholders to surface concerns and explore solutions before issues escalate.
By anticipating challenges ahead of time, you create a smoother path for change initiatives to succeed. Key practices include:
Regular Portfolio Reviews: Establish a cadence for reviewing the portfolio. These reviews should assess progress, identify emerging risks, and recalibrate priorities as needed.
Engaging Cross-Functional Teams: Include representatives from impacted teams in decision-making. Their insights can help identify potential clashes that might be overlooked.
Scenario Analysis: Model different scenarios to understand how changes in one initiative might ripple across the portfolio. This foresight enables proactive adjustments.
6. Take a Holistic View of the Change Landscape
Change portfolios often focus on big-ticket initiatives, but employees experience all changes—big or small—as part of the same landscape. Every new tool, process, or initiative adds to the cognitive and emotional load of employees. Failing to account for this cumulative impact can lead to burnout, disengagement, and resistance to change.
Taking a holistic view means looking beyond the high-profile initiatives to include BAU initiatives, operational changes, and even cultural events like town halls or roadshows. All these elements compete for employees’ time and energy. By considering the full scope of activities, you can create a more realistic and empathetic plan that supports employee well-being.
Everything that takes time, focus, or mental energy should be part of the portfolio view. This holistic approach ensures realistic planning and reduces the risk of burnout. Practical steps include:
Creating a Change Calendar: Map all change-related activities, including BAU tasks and cultural events, to understand their cumulative impact on employees.
Conducting Employee Impact Assessments: Gather feedback from employees to understand how various initiatives affect their workload and well-being.
Prioritizing Communication: Ensure employees have a clear understanding of what’s coming and how it fits into the broader organisational goals.
7. Optimise Capacity and Energy
While most portfolios focus on deliverables, the real enabler of success is the energy and capacity of those who drive and experience change. Key considerations include:
Assessing the available capacity in impacted teams.
Designing sequences of change that maximize energy levels (e.g., scheduling major initiatives after quieter periods).
Factoring in recovery time after high-stress periods or significant releases.
By aligning the portfolio to the energy rhythms of the organisation, you increase the likelihood of successful adoption and sustained change. Specific strategies include:
Workload Balancing: Ensure no team or individual is overburdened. Distribute responsibilities equitably and provide support where needed.
Energy Mapping: Identify periods of high energy and focus within the organisation. Schedule demanding initiatives during these times to maximise success.
Encouraging Breaks: Build in time for reflection and recovery. Whether it’s a pause after a major release or regular team check-ins, these moments are crucial for maintaining momentum.
8. Design an Environment that Supports Success
Finally, creating the right environment for change is essential. Just as Marie Kondo encourages designing spaces that spark joy, change professionals should design portfolios that:
Foster collaboration and open communication.
Provide the necessary tools, resources, and support for employees.
Build a culture of adaptability and resilience.
‘Joy’ for the organisation is one that is balanced with achieving business objects and optimal people experience during change and transformation
A well-designed change environment creates the conditions for initiatives to thrive and for employees to embrace new ways of working. Consider:
Investing in Change Capability: Provide training and resources to build change management skills across the organisation.
Creating Feedback Loops: Establish mechanisms for continuous feedback and improvement. This ensures the portfolio remains aligned with evolving needs.
Celebrating Successes: Recognise and reward achievements, both big and small. Celebrating progress reinforces a positive change culture.
Applying Marie Kondo’s principles to change portfolio management allows organisations to focus on what truly matters, let go of what doesn’t, and create a change landscape that sparks energy and engagement. By decluttering, prioritising, and designing for capacity, senior change professionals can position their organisations for success in the year ahead. Take this opportunity to curate a portfolio that not only drives transformation but also brings clarity, purpose, and joy to the journey.
Remember, a well-organised change portfolio is not just about achieving organisational goals—it’s about creating an environment where people thrive, adapt, and contribute their best. Let this be the year your change portfolio truly sparks joy.
