Change Signal: Modern Change Management that Works
Change management is harder than ever. Organizations face more complexity, more uncertainty, and more pressure to deliver successful change than at any point in recent memory. Most leaders respond by pushing harder, but successful change happens when people are ready, stakeholders are engaged, leaders show up effectively, and change approaches fit the reality of the work. Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit, talks with leading thinkers and practitioners to uncover what works in modern change management. Each episode explores challenges behind leading successful change, building readiness, and measuring effectiveness.
Episodes
Clarity>Certainty. Context>Content | Peter Schein | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
This Change Signal conversation with Peter Schein asks three questions:
• What doesn’t your change plan know?
• Where is context quietly defeating content?
• Are we building systems so perfect that people no longer need to be good?
Peter, co-author with Ed Schein of Humble Inquiry, Humble Consulting, and Humble Leadership, brings a wonderfully useful challenge to change management and transfor
Two Types of Change Harm | Kate O'Neill | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Three questions sit at the heart of this conversation:
• Are you starting with the technology, or the purpose?• What harm are you creating by moving too fast — or too slowly?• Have you designed the change people actually experience?
Kate O’Neill is a tech humanist, strategist, and author of What Matters Next. In this Change Signal episode, we talk about AI, digital transformation, and the choice
How to Make Change Real | Roger Martin | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Three questions sit at the heart of this conversation:
Are you asking people to make real choices, or just comply?
What past are you accidentally disrespecting?
Is your change work actually part of the work?
Roger Martin is one of the clearest thinkers I know on strategy, leadership, and transformation. In this Change Signal episode, we get into why so many change efforts sta
Designing Behavior Change That Sticks | BJ Fogg | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
This Change Signal conversation with BJ Fogg raises three interesting questions:
Are you designing change, or just hoping for it?
Where’s the overlap that actually works?
What is your environment quietly shaping?
Behaviour ch
Change sits at the heart of every transformation effort, yet most leaders still rely on willpower, communication, and good intentions. BJ Fogg offers
Power Mapping for Change Practitioners & Leaders | Tiziana Casciaro | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Tiziana Casciaro:
Where does power really sit in your system?
Why don’t people use your “open door”?
When is resistance a skill gap — and when is it a coalition fight?
Most change efforts in big organizations fail for a quiet reason: we pretend change is a plan, when it’s actually a power-and-relat
Conversations: The Atomic Unit of Change | Daniel Stillman | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three tensions that emerge from this Change Signal conversation with Daniel Stillman:
Who actually owns the change?
What conversations are you avoiding?
Are you inviting people — or forcing them?
If you lead change in a large organization, you already know this: great strategy and clear comms aren’t enough. Daniel Stillman — author of Good Talk — makes the case tha
Map Your Culture’s Hidden System | Siobhán McHale | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions at the centre of this Change Signal conversation with Siobhán McHale:
Are you trying to change a machine, a network, or an ecosystem?
What patterns are quietly running your culture?
How do you intervene without getting “organ rejected”?
Siobhán has spent two decades as an “insider,” rolling up her sleeves inside organizations to make change
How Your Origin Story Runs Your Change Program | Ron Carucci | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Ron Carucci:
Are we still managing change as if it’s predictable?
What unseen stories are really shaping how our organizations behave?
And where might leaders themselves be quietly getting in the way?
Change management, as most of us were taught it, assumes a linear path: a clear “from,” a clear “to,
How to Start a Change Initiative | Bryan Walker | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions that sit at the heart of this Change Signal conversation with Bryan Walker:
What are you changing too early?
Where are you too far away?
And what real issue are you avoiding?
Bryan Walker, longtime IDEO partner, joins me to explore a different way of thinking about change and transformation in large organizations. We talk about why so many change ef
Just How Dead is Change Management? | Caroline Kealey | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Three questions this Change Signal conversation with Caroline Kealey invites you to sit with:
What old model are you still relying on?
What are you actually moving toward?
Are you creating clarity or just more noise?
I came across Caroline’s work through a sharp claim: change management is dead. And as we dig into it, you’ll see why that might be less dramatic than it sound
The OG of Scenario Planning for Change Management | Jeremy Bentham | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions that sit underneath this Change Signal conversation with Jeremy Bentham:
What future are you not exploring?
Where is your strategy getting lazy?
Are you helping people learn — or making them resist?
If you lead change in a large organization, you already know the future refuses to behave. Jeremy Bentham —who led Shell’s scenario planning team for si
Kübler-Ross was Wrong About Change! | Jacqueline Kappers | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions sparked by this Change Signal conversation with Jacqueline Kappers:
What loss are you ignoring in your latest transformation?
Where might you be grief-shaming your people?
What would change look like if you treated it as individual, not linear?
If you lead change projects inside a large organization, you already know that most transformation efforts
AI Won’t Fix Your Change Problem. (Sorry.) | Andrew Kilshaw | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
As I reflect on this conversation with Andrew Kilshaw, three questions stand out:
Who are you really trying to move?
What recipe are you missing?
Is AI saving you — or just augmenting you?
Andrew Kilshaw has led transformation inside organizations like Nike, Sanofi, BlackRock, and Shell, and now works at the intersection of change and AI. He brings both experience and perspec
Let’s Netflix and Change | Jessica Neal | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Jessica Neal:
Are you modeling the change you’re asking for?
What nostalgia is quietly slowing your organization down?
And are you chasing consensus when you should be making decisions?
If you lead change in a large organization, you already know the challenge isn’t just strategy. It’s
Stop Writing Boring Change Management Messaging | Donald Miller | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions to sharpen your thinking from this Change Signal conversation with Donald Miller:
What story are your people living inside?
Are you the hero of the change — or the guide?
Can your strategy fit on a napkin?
If you lead transformation inside a large organization, you already know this: change management fails less because of bad strategy and more beca
Where Should You Intervene for Change Impact? | Dr. Leyla Acaroglu | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions to sharpen your thinking from this Change Signal conversation with Dr. Leyla Acaroglu
What are you editing out of your understanding of the problem?
Where are you treating a living system like a tidy plan?
And what intervention would actually shift the dynamics?
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu is a sustainability strategist, systems thinker, and founder of Disrup
Does Caring Less Help You Lead Change Better? | Michael Bungay Stanier | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Michael Bungay Stanier:
What if your success has nothing to do with the outcome?
What if you’ve already won before the project is finished?
And what if caring less is what makes you more effective?
If you lead change inside a large organization, you already know this tension: you’re ac
How to Find the Next Wise Move for Leading Change | David Lancefield | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that David Lancefield asks in the quest for modern change mastery:
Where are you stuck in one system?
What linkage are you overlooking between systems?
And what’s your next wise move?
David Lancefield, strategist and leadership advisor, argues that all leaders are systems leaders — whether they admit it or not. Real change doesn’t live in a plan or
Be A “Discovery-Driven” Change Leader | Rita McGrath | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Rita McGrath:
Are you still treating change as an interruption?
Do you know whether you’re facing disruption or just noise?
And are you leading with certainty when curiosity is what’s required?
In this episode, I talk with Rita McGrath about what senior leaders are getting wrong about change — and w
The Four (Change) Leadership Paradoxes | Michael Bungay Stanier | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions worth exploring from this Change Signal episode:
Are you leading change from technique or from who you are?
Where are you avoiding the tension that real leadership requires?
Can you care deeply about outcomes while letting go of control?
If you lead change or transformation inside a large organization, you already know that tools and frameworks only t
The Environment Is Running the Behaviour Change Show | Kristen Berman | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Kristen Berman:
What if your environment matters more than your intentions?
How specific are your behaviours — really?
And what structures in your system quietly cancel the autonomy you think you’re giving people?
Kristen Berman brings a behavioural scientist’s lens to change, and she ma
What Really Moves/Changes a System? | Helen Bevan | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Helen Bevan:
Is your belonging actually just assimilation?
Are your relationships stronger than your strategy?
And what fear is your system quietly running on?
Helen Bevan has spent decades leading large-scale transformation inside the NHS, and she brings that rare blend of deep experie
Hard Questions About Change (With Answers) | Michael Bungay Stanier | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions that shaped this special Change Signal episode:
Where are you pushing on walls instead of leverage points?
What is resistance trying to teach you about the system you’re changing?
And how small could your next experiment actually be?
In this episode, I join Dave Stachowiak and the Coaching for Leaders community for an open Q&A on the messy, human reali
How to Be Unafraid of Data When Leading Change | Neil Hoyne | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Neil Hoyne:
How is data really used in your organization?
How much uncertainty can your culture comfortably handle?
And what ideas are your people quietly shelving because they don’t think anyone will listen?
If you lead change in a large organization, you already know the promise of being “data-dr
How an Engineer Would Map Your Org | Emily Moore | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Emily Moore:
Who’s missing from your system map?
What are you rushing to solve?
And what is resistance actually trying to protect?
If you lead change in a big organization, you already know the neat diagrams rarely survive contact with reality. Emily Moore — engineer, educator, and longt
The OARS of Real Change Engagement | John Anthony | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with John Anthony:
Are you engaging people before you try to influence them?
What resistance are you avoiding that you should be exploring?
And how do you know whether you’re dancing with someone… or wrestling?
John Anthony joins me to unpack why so many change conversations in large organiza
My Three Most Powerful Insights about Modern Change Mastery | Michael Bungay Stanier | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Three questions sit at the heart of this Change Signal episode:
How much responsibility for change is owned throughout your organization?
How much room is there for more change?
How good are your mechanics at change?
In this solo anniversary episode of Change Signal, I reflect on a year of conversations, experiments, and learning — and make the case that change management is a
Change Lessons from Jugaad Innovation | Simone Ahuja | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Simone Ahuja:
Are you solving the real problem or just the first one?
What constraint might actually spark creativity?
And who’s missing from the table when you design change?
In this episode, Simone Ahuja — innovation strategist, intrapreneurship champion, and longtime student of jugaad
How to Clear Your "Head Trash" and Lead Change | Charlie Gilkey | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Charlie Gilkey:
What if success scares you more than failure?
Where is your “head trash” quietly derailing your best ideas?
And who belongs in your corner so your ambitious projects don’t stall?
In this episode, I’m joined by Charlie Gilkey — author, coach, and champion of helping people
Friction. Good or Bad in Change? | Robert Sutton | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big ideas that stand out in Bob Sutton’s conversation:
leadership is about being a trustee of people’s time
friction isn’t the enemy—it’s the signal
and power makes you blind to the mess you’ve created.
Bob—Stanford professor, author, and organizational psychologist—joins me to explore why good intentions in big organizations often create bureaucratic nightm
No to Change Strategy & Yes to Small Bets | Charles Conn | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Charles Conn:
What’s the smallest experiment you can start today?
Where can you loosen control without losing direction?
And could your team learn faster if you planned less?
Charles Conn — investor, conservationist, and author of The Imperfect Leader — joins me to talk about how great
What “Trust State” Are You In? | Rachel Botsman | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Rachel Botsman:
What kind of trust are you actually building?
How much uncertainty can you hold before you grab for control?
And when was the last time you slowed down enough to build real trust instead of just speed?
Rachel Botsman—Oxford University lecturer, author of How to Trust an
Are You Measuring What Matters in Change? | Dr. Ryan Brown | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Dr. Ryan Brown:
What are you measuring that doesn’t matter?
Where might your data be lying to you?
And what if the “immeasurable” parts of change are exactly what count?
Ryan’s a behavioral scientist who studies how organizations measure what actually works—especially in complex, human
The Obvious/Elusive Idea That Transforms Change Stakeholder Engagement | Misha Glouberman | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that Misha Glouberman asks in the quest for better change gatherings:
What if the way you’re structuring your events is stopping the very change you want to create?
How might things shift if you assumed everyone involved was a competent adult?
And are your “best practices” actually working against your goals?
Misha Glouberman is a master of human d
What Project Management Must Be Today in Modern Change Management | Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez:
Are your projects actually shaping your future?
Is your team a true team — or just a group of people in meetings?
And what if success isn’t about deadlines at all?
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, author of Powered by Projects and one of the world’s leading voices in project mana
Change Influencing IS Change Leadership | Vanessa Bohns | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Vanessa Bohns:
Are you overlooking the influence you already have?
What if social proof beats every logical argument?
Could your smallest comments be shaping culture the most?
Vanessa Bohns, professor of organizational behavior at Cornell and author of You Have More Influence Than You Think, has
Why You Build Belonging Before Belief | Hahrie Han | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big insights that emerge from this Change Signal conversation with Hahrie Han:
Are you creating value or just convenience?;
Does belonging come before belief in your organization?; and
Are you building agency or just compliance?
Hahrie Han, political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and author of How Organizations Develop Activists and Undivided, has spent
Campfires Not Stadiums ... Building Belonging in Change | Charles Vogl | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big insights that emerge from this Change Signal conversation with Charles Vogl:
Leadership maturity means rejecting the “Superman” myth of doing it all alone;
Real change requires creating spaces where the rules are rewritten; and
Belonging — and transformation — scale through small, steady “campfire” gatherings, not grand events.
Charles Vogl, author of The A
Common Mistakes in Leading Transformational Change | Linda Ackerman | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Dr. Linda Ackerman Anderson:
What if change were treated like finance?
Are your leaders modelling the change — or just managing it?
And what hidden costs are you paying for “too much change, too fast”?
For forty-plus years, Linda has studied what actually derails transformational change.
Are You in Denial About the Cost of Change Management? | Paulo Pisano | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Paulo Pisano:
Is complexity masking your real priorities?;
What sacrifices are you pretending aren’t happening?; and
How are you building protagonist mindsets?
Paulo Pisano, CHRO at Booking.com, has spent his career leading transformation in large, global organizations where change is never simpl
A Fresh Take on Courage for Change | Dave Ulrich | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that emerge from this Change Signal conversation with Dave Ulrich:
Why do so many leaders know what to do in change but fail to actually do it?
If change is always messy and iterative, how can leaders set expectations without killing momentum?
What does it really take to lead through paradox instead of choosing sides?
Most change leaders tr
Are You Your Own Saboteur When Leading Change? | Kirstin Ferguson | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that emerge from this Change Signal conversation with Kirstin Ferguson:
Why does character matter more than competence when it comes to inspiring transformation?
Do everyday leadership moments shape culture more than big, staged gestures?
What happens when leaders ask better questions instead of always giving answers?
Kirstin Ferguson, lead
The Hidden Politics of Change Leadership | Dan Pontefract | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Dan Pontefract’s three big insights on modern change mastery and leading meaningful organizational transformation:
Managing up is a critical part of change leadership, and there are smarter ways to do it;
Culture isn’t “soft” — it’s the real work of change and can’t be delegated away; and
Purpose, balance, and generational shifts are forces shaping how transformation actually succ
Is Your Exec Team BORED of change? Probably | Kate Lye | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that emerge from this Change Signal conversation with Kate Lye:
Why do executive teams excel at functional expertise but falter at systems thinking?
Can CEOs transform their organizations without first transforming themselves?
What happens if change leaders never secure permission to call out executive sabotage?
For decades, Kate Lye has wa
Does Insubordination Help or Hinder Change? | Todd Kashdan | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Todd Kashdan:
Are you cooperating too much for change to succeed?
What personal costs are you willing to pay for principled rebellion?
Why do people hide their real beliefs just to fit in?
My friend Todd Kashdan, psychology professor and author of The Art of Insubordination, brings som
The Hidden Rituals of Change | Michael Norton | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three provocative questions that emerge from this Change Signal conversation with Michael Norton:
Can we ever escape ritual?
Why is ambiguous loss harder to process than clear grief?
How can we honour the past while creating a new identity?
Most change leaders assume ritual is all incense and corporate retreats. Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton sees it
The Four Change Friction Traps | Loran Nordgren | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that Loran Nordgren asks in the question for modern change mastery:
Are you accidentally creating resistance by making your ideas sound too revolutionary?
What if the anxieties you're avoiding are exactly what you need to address?
Why does pushing harder on change often make things worse?
Loran Nordgren, a behavioural theory professor at Northweste
Power Literacy for Change Practitioners & Leaders | Larissa Conte | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here’s what Larissa Conte asks us about modern change mastery:
Is “power” something that’s learned and usable?
What might happen if we focused on possibilities rather than problems?
How can you expand your ability to handle more success “wattage”?
My guest Larissa Conte calls herself a "power alchemist" — which will either intrigue you or make you roll your eyes. Either way, s
How to 3x Training Results | Chris Taylor | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Chris Taylor:
Are your high-stakes moments sabotaging skill development?
Why practice once when you could daily?
What if home practice beats workplace training?
My friend Chris Taylor, founder of Actionable, has spent eighteen years obsessing over what Bob Sutton calls the "knowing-doing gap." W
Why Curiosity Drives Change Capacity | Scott D. Anthony | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Scott D. Anthony:
What's systematically killing curiosity in your organization?
Can you hold your team in that sweet spot between comfort and chaos? And
Are your excuses actually avoiding the real work of transformation?
Scott D. Anthony, Clinical Professor of Business Administration at Tuck and
How to Plan for Resistance to Change | Lisa Reynolds | | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Lisa Reynolds:
Are you actually enabling resistance?
When did you last grieve something?
How many individual changes are you actually managing?
Lisa Reynolds leads change management at Christus Health, where her small team punches way above their weight across a massive healthcare system. She's l
Training's Biggest Blind Spot Revealed | Julie Dirksen | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Julie Dirksen’s three key insights about modern change mastery:
most training fails because it ignores immediate relevance;
organizational change temporarily destroys people's competence and professional identity;
corporate learning only addresses logic while ignoring the emotional brain that actually drives decisions.
Julie Dirksen joins me to dissect why most corporate train
Your Brain on Change | Prof Dan Cable | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Dan Cable:
Are you leading with fear-based management?;
How much "freedom within the frame" are you offering? and
How do you use dopamine to best fuel your change efforts?
Dan Cable, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at London Business School, argues that as the world moves faster, leaders c
Three Paths Through Change Failure | A CEO, a Counsellor & a Consultant | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
A CEO, a counsellor, and a consultant share a key question each about change:
How do you really make things safe for people?
Could powerlessness actually, ironically, be a superpower?
What’s the difference between guardrails and control layers?
What if everything you know about leading change is backwards? Garry Ridge turned WD-40 into a global phenomenon by doing something
Should You Lie About Change? | Michael Bungay Stanier | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
The three key insights from this episode: change is orienteering through unknown territory, not following a GPS route; organizations are addicted to efficiency when they desperately need experimentation; and the best experiments are designed to fail safely, not succeed predictably.
I'm diving solo into why small experiments might be the only sane approach to change in these chaotic times. After 3
Are Your Meetings Killing Change Readiness & Stakeholder Engagement? | Keith McCandless | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Keith McCandless’s three key insights: meetings fail because we use five invisible patterns that systematically exclude people; anyone can facilitate breakthrough conversations using simple rules, no charisma required; and boosting both autonomy and responsibility simultaneously creates wildly productive teams.
Most change leaders know meetings suck, but Keith McCandless, co-author of The Surpris
Why Stories Matter More for Change Readiness | Jennifer Garvey Berger | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Jennifer Garvey Berger’s three key insights: connectivity matters more than individual talent in complex systems; small experiments beat both over-planning and paralysis; and stories are legitimate measures of change before numbers shift.
If you've ever had a change plan that hasn't quite gone according to plan (and honestly, who hasn't?), this conversation with Jennifer Garvey Berger will shift
Can You (Should You?) Change Yesterday's People? | Mark Surman, Mozilla | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Mark Surman’s three key insights: spending years wrestling with whether your foundational values still make sense; accepting that legacy teams can't build the future, so you need separate structures; and mastering the ability to think across different timescales simultaneously.
Mark Surman, Mozilla's president, shares the messy reality of transforming a 25-year-old organization for the AI era. He
Is Your Organization Change Allergic? | Anne Gotte | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Three key insights from Anne Gotte: change management is as outdated as "personnel" organizations must diagnose their change allergies before attempting transformation; and leaders need to embrace clumsy imperfection while providing clear direction.
Anne Gotte is SVP Global Talent & Organization Effectiveness at Mondelēz and she brings refreshing honesty to the messy reality of organizational tra
Forget Change. Just Start with the Gnarliest Problem | Rodney Evans | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Three key insights: Change work isn't transformative anymore—it's operational; your organization does everything the same dysfunctional way; and everyone secretly benefits from broken patterns.
My guest, Rodney Evans from TheReady, has abandoned talking about "adaptability" because people's eyes glaze over. Instead, she starts every conversation with leaders by asking about their gnarliest cross-
The Imperfection Advantage in Change Leadership | Charles Conn | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Could it be that your strategic planning is actually paralyzing you, your biggest critics hold the keys to breakthrough innovation, and the military metaphors you're using to lead change are fundamentally broken?
Charles Conn, former McKinsey partner, former Head of Rhodes House, and current chair of Patagonia's board, brings a provocative challenge to how we think about transformation. He argues
Change Readiness is Hard When You're Melting Down | Molly Graham | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Discover why emotional "monsters" sabotage change projects, learn the "fight it three times" rule for managing upwards, and understand why grief is the most overlooked emotion in transformation work.
Molly Graham has scaled teams at Google and Meta, and now runs Glue Club for startup operators. She brings hard-won wisdom about the messy human side of change that most leaders pretend doesn't exist
Find The Real Constraint to Drive Change Adoption | Dan Heath | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Why does nobody care about your billion-dollar vision, what can Chick-fil-A teach you about bottlenecks, and how does fixing one problem always create another?
Dan Heath drops some astute and provocative truths about change leadership that'll make you rethink and reset your approach to change. First up: your carefully crafted corporate vision probably sucks because it's all about hitting numbers
The Easiest Change Strategy | Roy Baumeister | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Most change programs get the sequence backwards; uncertainty secretly sabotages willpower; and using your non-dominant hand might triple your success rate.
My guest, Roy Baumeister, is one of psychology's rock stars, and he's spent decades studying what actually works when it comes to willpower and behaviour change. Turns out, we've (mostly) been doing it wrong.
Here's the thing: everyone assume
Shatterproof - Building Change Resilience | Dr. Tasha Eurich | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
What if the pain you're pushing through is actually the data you need; resilience programs are burning billions on the wrong problem; and there's a psychological theory that could transform your change work, but almost no one in business knows about it?
Here's the uncomfortable truth: we're living in a "chaos era" of chronic, compounding stress that our bodies weren't designed for. Traditional re
The Three Voices Sabotaging Change Leadership & Change Adoption | Otto Scharmer | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Could it be that the biggest barrier to change isn't resistance from others, but three voices in your own head? And what if taking action too quickly is actually making everything worse?
Otto Scharmer, creator of Theory U and MIT lecturer, reveals why most transformation efforts fail at the deepest level. The problem isn't strategy or resources—it's that we're fighting internal enemies we don't e
Trust: Your Change Leader Superpower? | Rachel Botsman | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Learn why trust is contextual, resistance signals engagement, and successfully navigating change requires embracing uncertainty.
In this episode of Change Signal, I dive deep with Rachel Botsman, the world's expert on trust and Oxford University fellow, to explore how trust enables change — and how change can damage trust.
Rachel challenges us to identify our organization's "trust states" and se
Are You a Change Drama Queen? | Michael Bungay Stanier | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Discover how a simple three-role model can reveal dysfunctional patterns, what your least-played role says about your biggest triggers, and which powerful questions can transform strained relationships during change.
In this LinkedIn Live, I dive into the Karpman Drama Triangle—a model I've used for 30+ years as both a self-management and change management tool.
We all play Victim, Persecutor, a
You Have to Work with the Resistance | Adam Kahane | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Collaborating across differences, embracing unpredictability, and balancing power with love: these are the keys to transforming your organization's most challenging dilemmas.
Adam Kahane teaches us that meaningful change often demands working with people we don't agree with, like, or trust. He calls it "radical collaboration."
Think you need alignment before taking action? Think again.
Kahane's
Can Feelings Fast-Track Change Adoption? | Cassandra Worthy | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Emotion in business, slowing down to speed up, and regular check-ins that boost engagement—these are the game-changers for leading transformation.
In this short but powerful episode, Cassandra Worthy challenges the outdated notion that feelings have no place in organizational change.
Why do we still pretend emotions don't exist in the workplace? It's absurd—and counterproductive.
Cassandra argu
Change Leadership - What Are Your Top Three Decisions? | David Lancefield | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Create to inspire forward motion, link your work to winning, and clarify who makes what decisions—these are the power moves that can elevate change work from frustrating to focused.
David Lancefield brilliantly reframes "change" and "transformation" as words that trigger apathy or fear, suggesting we talk instead about creation.
When you lead change initiatives, David insists you trace a clear l
Your Change Team Needs More Conflict, Not Less | Liane Davey | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Tension drives innovation, productive conflict is essential for change, and effective listening helps you understand what truly matters to people.
Dr. Liane Davey reveals how to use conflict as a catalyst for positive change in organizations where most teams have too little productive tension, not too much.
As a change leader, it turns out that your job isn't to avoid conflict but to create the
Stop Planning & Start Prototyping Change | John Zeratsky | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here's prototype testing, hypothesis-driven change leadership, and the power of radical differentiation all rolled into one fascinating conversation.
I'm SO over slow, overplanned, change management disconnected from reality. That's why I brought in John Zeratsky, former design leader at YouTube and Google, who pioneered a process for testing new ideas in just five days.
John reminds us that every
Are You Blinded by the “Change Obvious”? | Dr Jason Fox | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
In this episode: Navigating uncertainty versus ambiguity, treating strategy as a living conversation, and looking beyond the obvious for weak signals.
Dr. Jason Fox challenges conventional notions of change management by urging us to develop sensibilities rather than just skills. He argues that traditional scenario planning creates an illusion of control that fails when contexts shift radically.
W
You’re Over-Flexing This Change Muscle | Dan Heath | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Find leverage points that yield disproportionate returns, study bright spots instead of just solving problems, and tap into existing motivation rather than forcing buy-in.
Dan Heath is one of the smartest writers I know about change and transformation, and his new book "Reset: How to Change What's Not Working" explores systems-level change that complements the behavior change approach from his ear
Ignore The Change Cynics, Win The Change Skeptics | Cassandra Worthy | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Emotions at work, agency in change, and turning bitter into better: these are the deep insights for what it takes to maintain enthusiasm for successful transformation. In my conversation with Cassandra Worthy, she shares how painful corporate acquisitions led to her developing the "Change Enthusiasm" mindset and framework she now champions.
She challenges the consulting doomsayers who claim 70-95%
An MBS change tool: Audit what works (and what doesn’t) | Michael Bungay Stanier | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Audit your change tools, map them on a 2×2 matrix, and discover your untapped breakthrough approaches. In my first solo episode, I share a practical framework for evaluating your change management toolkit — perfect for transformation leaders who want to boost their success rate. Inspired by my conversation with Carolyn Webb, I suggest creating a consultant's classic tool: a 2×2 matrix plotting usa
The Very First Thing to Do When You're Leading Change | Caroline Webb | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here's why auditing current commitments is essential before launching any new initiative, how to overcome our powerful bias toward maintaining the status quo, and what a 19th-century philosopher's fence teaches us about intelligent transformation.
When leading organizational change, it pays to first understand what's already in motion. In this bonus episode, Caroline Webb, leadership coach, former
Your Brain's Dangerous Change Blind Spot | Leidy Klotz | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
When everyone else is adding, it pays to subtract.
Seems simple enough, but it’s a strategy that’s overlooked and misunderstood, and change projects suffer because of it.
Leidy Klotz reveals this blind spot we all share when looking to make improvements: we instinctively think about what to add rather than what to take away.
Leidy offers practical approaches to overcome this bias, like incorporati
Why Leaders Keep Making Change Harder | Margaret Heffernan | Modern Change Management & Leading Change
Here's how to rebuild agency in change-resistant organizations, why euphemistic language kills transformation, and what we can learn from artists about embracing the unknown.
When you're trying to lead organizational change, it's easy to fall into the trap of infantilizing your people - treating them like children who can't handle the truth. Margaret Heffernan, author of "Uncharted" and mentor to
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