Overview

Senior change and transformation leaders met to discuss innovative approaches for capturing and analyzing employee sentiment during large-scale transformations. The discussion centered on moving beyond traditional surveys to uncover insights from the "silent majority" and translating sentiment data into actionable change strategies, all while navigating the challenges of survey fatigue.

This roundtable was held on August 27th, 2025. 

Roundtable Participants

Led by Aric Wood, Chapter Lead of ECLC

• Sarah Merriman, JLL - Change Management Director, COE at JLL for Google

• Pooja Chandiramani, Coach - VP, Global Media Strategy and Planning, Transformation

• Brian Storts, Sutter Health - Director of Organizational Effectiveness and Change Management

• Stephanie Coleman, Sodexo - Program and Transformation Office, Senior Director

• Brian Halloran, Fragomen - Chief Transformation Officer

• Mandy Porcher, JP Morgan Chase - Vice President, Process Improvement and Organizational Change Management

• Leslie Powell, Fulton Bank - Senior Change Management Partner

• Vanessa McDonald, WNS Global - SVP Change Management

• Manish Yadav, Tennant Company - Global VP, M&A Strategy and Enterprise PMO

• Curtis Hall, US Department of State - COO, Change Management Team, Passport Services

• David McVay, US Bank - SVP, Head of Strategic Program Management 

• Atsam Raja, MassMutual - Head of Customer Experience, Business Architecture, & Continuous Improvement

• Beverly Troxtell, Pacific Life - AVP (Sr Director), Enterprise Change Management

• Jacob Custer, KraftHeinz  - Manager, Global GBS Change Management

• Trina Chatterjee, CBRE - Senior Director - Strategy Execution 

• Dave Jachym, New York Life - Head of Experience Strategy

• Elizabeth Wright, Bayer - Digital Transformation Lead

Key Discussion Areas

Part I: Feedback Collection Methods

Informal Relationship Building and the Water Cooler

Leaders emphasized the significant value of casual interactions over formal feedback mechanisms. The traditional "water cooler" approach proves particularly effective in cultures where formal meetings create rigid communication barriers. Organizations are finding success through deliberate informal engagement strategies, including lunch meetings, coffee conversations, and campus walks. This approach requires methodical documentation afterward, with practitioners tracking who they've spoken with to identify gaps and strategically target specific individuals or groups in future social situations. In remote or hybrid settings, “water cooler” moments can be built into recurring team meetings where frontline managers are asked to do informal pulse checks with their team. 

Ambassador Networks as Strategic Intelligence Hubs

Several organizations have established frontline-heavy ambassador networks that gather sentiment from peers while providing senior executives with direct access to ground-level perspectives. The ambassador model creates a protective buffer where workers can share collective feedback without attributing comments to specific individuals, maintaining psychological safety while ensuring leadership receives the unfiltered insights they need to course-correct an initiative along the way.

“Ambassadors give you the right visibility into your transformations as they evolve. Ask them to collect feedback for you from the right people. Ask them what they’ve been hearing instead of how they feel about a transformation; give them that psychological safety to be blunt and honest. Tell them ‘here’s where we are heading as a company, poke holes in it’ and get their feedback before you launch your next initiative.”

Sarah Merriman, JLL - Change Management Director, COE at JLL for Google

Real-Time Polling Within Existing Workflows

Multiple organizations have successfully moved away from standalone, yearly employee surveys toward embedded polling within existing business processes. This approach leverages natural moments where feedback is given rather than waiting several months before getting that retroactive feedback. The strategy proves particularly effective for dispersed workforces where traditional water cooler conversations aren't possible. With change activation platforms like Tigerhall, workers can give feedback as soon as they hear of a change and throughout the change curve, giving senior transformation leaders more input into the questions, concerns, and roadblocks that occur during an organization-wide transformation. Organizations report significantly higher response rates when polls are integrated into the flow of work with the added benefit of being able to correlate sentiment data with higher-level organizational surveys and engagement metrics.

Part II: Advanced Sentiment Tracking Approaches

Multi-Layered Anonymous and Semi-Anonymous Feedback

In his organization, Brian Storts has implemented a three-tier feedback system to get more of the vital feedback executives need when leading complex transformations:

1. Anonymous pulse checks

2. Semi-anonymous feedback gathered by frontline managers

3. Indirect sentiment mining from help desk tickets and internal communication platforms

The right amount of anonymity while giving feedback opens the door to employees voicing real concerns and roadblocks as they navigate through changes. 

“Having different data points from different data sources gives you the ability to see where there is a correlation and a trend appearing, where there are sticking points and a need for additional support.”

Leslie Powell, Fulton Bank - Senior Change Management Partner

Language and Positioning Strategies

Perhaps unsurprisingly but terminology does impact participation rates. Senior transformation executives reported substantially higher engagement when repositioning "surveys" as "polls," recognizing that employees have developed negative associations with surveys due to fatigue. Words and labels matter within an organization’s cultural landscape. 

Part III: Managing Complex Stakeholder Dynamics

Addressing Conflicting Sentiment Across Groups

When different stakeholder groups show opposing sentiment trends, successful transformation leaders focus on understanding the underlying factors driving each group's perspective rather than choosing sides or averaging responses. The key approach involves identifying specific cultural, geographic, leadership, or experiential factors that create these differences. Senior transformation executives are finding success in providing targeted support to specific frontline managers, offering additional talking points and resources for groups showing resistance, and personalizing communications to address nuanced concerns. The goal shifts from universal buy-in to ensuring each group feels heard and understood, even if they don't fully embrace the change.

Creating Psychological Safety in Hierarchical Environments

A persistent challenge across organizations is the tendency for employees to remain silent in formal settings due to hierarchical dynamics and fear of contradicting leadership decisions. Successful approaches include deliberately smaller group sessions (20 or fewer participants), segmenting audiences by organizational level or role type, and setting clear expectations that meetings are designed as two-way conversations rather than information broadcasts. Some transformation leaders have found success in directly calling on quiet participants to share their experiences, which often opens floodgates for more authentic feedback once initial barriers are broken.

Building Trust and Transparency

Organizations are investing significant time in building cultures of psychological safety, starting with extensive "why" communication to ensure shared understanding of transformation rationale. Leading with empathy and actively seeking to understand objections often reveals that resistance stems from capability gaps or resource constraints rather than opposition to change itself. This approach allows organizations to address root causes rather than symptoms of resistance.

Key Takeaways

• Relationship-Based Intelligence Gathering: The most valuable sentiment data comes from deliberate relationship building rather than formal processes. Practitioners who systematically document informal conversations and strategically target gaps in their coverage generate more actionable insights than traditional survey approaches.

• Timing and Context Drive Response Quality: Embedding sentiment collection within existing workflows (done via platforms like Tigerhall) and natural meeting moments yields significantly higher participation and more honest feedback than standalone requests, particularly for dispersed or remote workforces.

• Resistance Often Masks Capability Gaps: When sentiment data reveals opposition to change, successful transformation leaders dig deeper to uncover whether resistance stems from disagreement with the change itself or from lack of skills, resources, or support needed to implement it successfully.

• Data Triangulation Validates Insights: The most reliable sentiment intelligence comes from combining multiple data streams. Consider anonymous surveys, semi-anonymous feedback, informal conversations, and indirect data mining from existing systems like help desks and communication platforms.

The Executive Council for Leading Change

The Executive Council for Leading Change (ECLC) is a global organization that brings executives together to redefine the landscape of organizational change and transformation. Our council aims to advance strategic leadership expertise in the realm of corporate change by connecting visionary leaders. It's a place where leaders responsible for significant change initiatives can collaborate, plan, and create practical solutions for intricate challenges in leading large organizations through major shifts.

In a world where change is constant, we recognize its crucial role in driving business success. ECLC’s mission is to create a community where leaders can excel in guiding their organizations through these dynamic times.