Overview

This executive brief synthesizes insights from a cross-industry roundtable discussion focused on building and scaling change capacity within large enterprises. The conversation explored three critical dimensions of organizational transformation: 

• Assessing current change resiliency and identifying areas for improvement

• Implementing proven best practices for building sustainable change capacity

• Addressing the persistent challenge of change fatigue in an era of continuous transformation.

Participants shared practical strategies ranging from executive coaching to intentional deprioritization, offering a comprehensive view of how leading organizations are managing the increasing tempo and complexity of enterprise-wide change.

This roundtable was held on October 9th, 2025.

Roundtable Participants

Led by Monica Leal, ECLC Chapter Lead

• Alessandro Prieto, Analog Devices - Managing Director, HR - Global Technology & Operations and North America

• Amisha Kapoor, Biogen - Global Finance Transformation Leader - Payroll Strategy

• Ana Coronel, IGT - VP Organization, Transformation & Global Services

• Bill Munley, Customers Bank - SVP, People Experience Team (PXT), Shared Services 

• Christie Subirats, BP - Business Agily and Strategic Change Lead

• Cristina Herrera, JLL - Senior Director

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

• Eliza Fendell, Ryder System - Director of Technology Change Enablement

• Elizabeth Setterfield, Johnson Controls - Communications Director, Global Product

• Emeline Forbes, AstraZeneca - Change Management Lead

• Emily Allinder, BayCare Health System - SVP, Transformation

• Gary Dunbar, ENGIE North American Inc - Director of Digital Engineering and IT

• John Radman, Element U.S. Space and Defense - VP, Strategic Planning and Processes

• John Williams, Meta - Change Manager

• Jonathan Scofield, Global Vice President of Transformation

• Justin Marchi, City National Bank - Head of Enterprise Change Management

• Kelly Haan, Cisco - Director Change & PMO

• Michael Wiersma, Carrier - Lean Transformation Leader

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

• Paul Heard, Mimecast - Chief Information Officer

• Paul Ruggier, Helios Towers - Group Head of Business Excellence

• Rajan Gupta, Synopsys - Executive Director, Global Legal Technology, Strategy and Operations

• Rosangela Martinez, Morgan Stanley - Executive Director

• Sam Low, Syngenta - Global Transformation Leader - Capex Efficiency

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

• Sundeep Thusoo, REDE Consulting  - Vice President - AI & Business Reinvention 

• Trina Chatterjee, CBRE - Senior Director - Strategy Execution 

• Tusar Dash, Synnergie - VP - Strategy & Transformation 

• Vanessa McDonald, WNS Global - SVP Change Management

• Wendy Wheeler-Drew, Organizational Change and Learning

Part I: The Current State of Organizational Change Resiliency

With no two organizations being alike, the drivers behind the need for organization-wide change resiliency vary significantly from company to company. Discussion participants talked of the differences that come with: 

Tech-Driven Change

Organizations in rapidly evolving industries face a "change or die" scenario, particularly with AI and machine learning transforming how their organizations make a profit. With rapidly evolving technology, managing the velocity and overlap of multiple simultaneous transformations becomes key. The name of the game: continuing to be relevant and competitive when compared to competitors.

Regulatory-Driven Change

Transformation in highly regulated industries like financial services tends to be reactive and compliance-focused rather than proactive and strategic. Change is often mandated by regulatory requirements, creating an environment where compliance comes first, innovation second. The name of the game: remaining compliant in different markets. 

Common Success Factors

Across all industries, successful change resiliency boils down to:

• Executive alignment and visible sponsorship from the C-suite

• Targeted stakeholder engagement 

• Cross-functional collaboration through dedicated transformation teams

• Strategic prioritization 

Part II: Best Practices for Building Change Capacity

Coaching the C-Suite

Despite being at the top, CxOs often prefer explicit guidance on their role in transformation. Done right, senior transformation leaders can create win-win scenarios: you tell them what you need to make the initiative successful, they get to see their strategic vision come to life, and you get the right level of involvement from them.

"C-suite executives count on the people who structure their days and those are the people who essentially tell them what they're doing. Help them structure their day too by being clear about what is needed from them: 'You want this change to happen and you want it to happen fairly soon, so this is what the roadmap looks like and this is your role in the transformation."

Ana Coronel, IGT - VP Organization, Transformation & Global Services

Successful transformation leaders act as executive coaches, providing clear roadmaps that outline speaking engagements, content creation, and specific actions required from leadership. This approach recognizes that CxOs want to support change without assuming they know how to contribute effectively. By outlining what is needed, transformation leaders can work more hand in hand with the C-Suite and create desirable outcomes. 

Intentional Deprioritization and Resource Management

There is such a thing as too much change and there does come a time when certain initiatives should be discontinued. Cristina Herrera ( Senior Director at JLL)  spoke of deprioritization as an active strategy in her organization, using scoring matrices that evaluate initiatives across multiple dimensions:

• Strategic alignment to corporate goals

• Financial impact and ROI potential

• Resource requirements and availability

• Implementation complexity

• Stakeholder impact assessment

• Dependencies and interconnections

• Time sensitivity and urgency

  
  

Treating transformation as a portfolio enables clearer conversations about capacity. When executives propose new priorities, portfolio management frameworks force discussions about what gets deprioritized and the organizational impact of those trade-offs, bringing transparency to the reality that "you can't do everything."

Continuous Improvement Champions

Rather than traditional "change agents," some organizations deploy "continuous improvement champions" distributed across functions and locations. These champions ensure proper information cascade, communicate successes and failures in real-time, provide tangible metrics, and maintain engagement throughout the transformation journey—not just at the beginning. Sharing small wins and major successes along the way—particularly stories demonstrating how transformation increases profitability or improves daily work—shifts perception from "change as burden" to "change as opportunity."

Behavioral Focus

Progressive organizations are moving away from "change fatigue" language toward behavioral frameworks tied to organizational values. By outlining how values manifest through specific behaviors, they help employees see changes not as "something entirely new" but as "adjusting behavior within a familiar framework." This reframing reduces mental burden and builds agility.

Also, it’s important to acknowledge that not all changes require the same level of behavioral adjustment. Assessing how many workplace behaviors and routines a transformation actually touches helps organizations calibrate communication intensity and support requirements. Some changes are technically complex but behaviorally simple, while others require fundamental habit shifts.

Timing and Sequencing

Strategic Pause Points

For projects exceeding six months, leading organizations now budget for intentional pause moments where cross-functional teams can take pause, celebrate small wins, and reflect on lessons learned. These breaks—often requiring dedicated budget—significantly boost team energy and motivation for subsequent phases, particularly in multi-year transformations.

Phased Communication

Organizations avoid overwhelming employees by communicating transformations only when they truly impact specific stakeholder groups. This strategic approach recognizes that premature communication creates unnecessary noise and drains organizational capacity.

"You free up your organization's capacity if you only communicate with the right business groups when something is actually changing for them. The goal is: right message, right people, right time."

Emeline Forbes, AstraZeneca - Change Management Lead

This "just-in-time" communication approach prevents people who aren't yet affected from being bogged down with irrelevant information, allowing them to maintain business-as-usual focus until their engagement is genuinely needed.

Tigerhall's platform makes this phased approach operationally feasible by enabling targeted communication tied to actual user behavior and change milestones. For example, when a salesperson in Spain applies for leave in Workday for the first time, they automatically receive relevant guidance on next steps at that precise moment, not weeks earlier in a mass email they'll forget or days later when they're already frustrated.

This contextual delivery decreases confusion, makes information immediately relevant and actionable, and allows transformation leaders to meet employees exactly where they are at in their change journey. 

Part III: Addressing Change Fatigue

Reframing the Problem

Change fatigue isn't purely a capacity or communication problem: it’s also about mental burden. Organizations often focus on strategy and communication while ignoring the psychological impact of continuous change. The mental fatigue of adapting behaviors, learning new processes, breaking away from routine, and managing uncertainty can't be solved simply by adding more change champions or increasing communication frequency.

Since everyone experiences change fatigue, the question becomes whether it's truly a "problem" or simply a reality to be managed. Adequately preparing for this reality should therefore be duly considered as new transformations are rolled out. 

Communication Strategies

Change fatigue presents an opportunity to improve prioritization and positioning. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority—leaving employees confused about where to focus their attention. Creating connective threads between seemingly disparate changes helps people understand the totality of transformation and how initiatives fit together, even when they span different divisions or timeframes.

The Impetus Factor

Timing also plays a crucial role in overcoming change resistance. Initiatives that face years of rejection due to stakeholder concerns can suddenly become urgent priorities when external circumstances shift (regulatory changes, market disruptions, competitive threats). While organizations can't manufacture crisis, they can create compelling impetus through clear articulation of strategic necessity and competitive risk.

Key Takeaways

1. Change resiliency requires executive alignment first. Without C-suite buy-in and visible sponsorship, transformation initiatives face uphill battles regardless of ‘how good the plan looked on paper’.

2. Intentional deprioritization is as important as prioritization. Organizations must actively decide what NOT to do and what they will NO LONGER do, using structured frameworks to evaluate strategic alignment, resource requirements, and stakeholder impact.

3. Storytelling drives adoption more effectively than structure alone. Sharing success stories—particularly those demonstrating profitability impact and daily work improvement—shifts perception from burden to opportunity.

4. Mental burden is the hidden cost of transformation. Organizations must assess how many behaviors and routines each change touches, recognizing that communication volume alone won't solve for fatigue and overwhelm.

5. Timing and sequencing matter enormously. Just-in-time communication, strategic pause points, and clear transformation agendas help manage capacity and reduce overwhelm.

6. Reframe from change fatigue to change agility. Tying changes to behavioral frameworks within existing value systems helps employees see transformation as evolution rather than disruption.

   
   

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.