Driving meaningful change across organizations is one of the most complex challenges faced by today’s leaders. How do we enforce robust communication, capability building, and a culture that embraces transformations? This executive brief discusses the hardest parts of activating change, the best practices for overcoming those challenges, and innovative approaches to reimagine change activation with a ‘magic wand’ perspective.
This roundtable was held on October 8th, 2024.
Common Challenges in Activating Change Across Enterprises
1. Volume, Pace & Competing Demands
Uncoordinated, simultaneous initiatives with competing factors or unexpected demands such as geopolitical and environmental disruptions often make it harder to focus on one initiative at a time. This is often topped with zero appetite from senior leadership to slow down or stop.
“It’s not easy to ensure alignment among key stakeholders, too many conflicting opinions result in prioritization dilemmas. It would be easier if there is one concerted front where everyone is aligned on how to move forward.”
Adam Schreiber - Global Director, Change Management, Enterprise Transformation Office | Johnson & Johnson
2. Noise, Misalignment & Miscommunications
It can be challenging to find the balance between top-down and middle-out communications since each direction tends to have its own vision, feedback, and reactions.
“True alignment between stakeholders is key but not always easy to achieve. Miscommunications may derail your change process especially if the situation requires you to revise your strategy again, impacting the initial timeline.”
Alessandro Prieto - Senior Director, HR North America Lead | Analog Devices
“Failure to align will also make it harder to cut through noise due to the overwhelming amount of messages. Try to localize your initiatives as much as possible so that the value and the benefits of the change become accurately contextualized.”
Jeffrey Barth - Head of Digital Transformation Office and Strategic Program Management Office | Gap
3. Historical Failures Undermining Trust
Having a corporate history of failed change initiatives may breed skepticism and could undermine future transformation projects. Emphasis on the WIIFM framework with tangible benefits of change will help create a way forward and get people more engaged.
4. Fragmented Organizational Structures
It can be much harder to deploy change across the organization based on your operating mode and structure. When your business is run as independent units it may create barriers to cohesive execution.
“You may have control over general strategies and vision but the deployment processes are often under each business unit’s or market’s jurisdiction. It’s crucial to create strong partnerships and sponsorship across the business when the embedding of the changes falls outside your control.”
Vanessa Hammett - Change Communication Lead | Mars
5. Budget & Resources Constraints
Resources and budget determine the capacity to plan, execute, and sustain transformation initiatives effectively.
“Working on a new, well-thought-out initiative with adequate planning time versus driving an externally imposed, time-sensitive change often becomes the benchmark of difficulty in activating a successful change. It will impact the planning process, executive time, and overall feedback cycles.”
Sundeep Thusoo - Director Business Transformation | Philips
6. Middle-Manager Overload
People leaders are essential for driving change, particularly in translating and reinforcing messages from top leadership. While leadership alignment at the executive level is crucial, leadership cascades often fail to fully engage employees.
“Effective changes happen when middle managers who form the ‘belly of the organization’ clarify what directives mean for their teams and functions.”
Adam Schreiber - Global Director, Change Management, Enterprise Transformation Office | Johnson & Johnson
✔ Accountability in Execution
Enforce accountability measures and observe what functional managers are doing and how they are making the change happen at the local level. However, keep in mind that mid-level managers often face overwhelming self-service demands from all directions, all while balancing strategic execution at the same time. They will need a more structured support system to ease executions.
“Identify what’s on their plate and what are the things hampering them in helping with the initiatives. Review your strategic initiatives and high-impact items and look at the heat map or collision points across them to identify the best way to align with managers and ensure consistent messaging.”
Naomi Adams - Senior Officer, Change Management | The World Bank Group (IFC)
✔ Identifying the Buckets
Analyze the ecosystem around those impacted by the change. Focus not only on the person impacted but also on the people who might stand in the way and cause roadblocks for them to fully embrace the change.
“I sat down with a senior business leader in a recent Tigerhall podcast episode who has a PhD on mid-level managers and how to work with them through changes. We discussed four different buckets; champions, soldiers, saboteurs, and rebels along with how to identify who is in which bucket and how to shift them between those buckets. The takeaways will be great to help you identify who falls where.”
Nellie Wartoft - CEO, Chair of the ECLC | Tigerhall
Experts Insights: Best Practices for Transformational Change
1. Change Communication
✔ Build Transparent Communication Frameworks
Create a solid framework for your change communication to drive overall progress and ensure clarity in objectives. A well-defined framework ensures all employees understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ behind the change. This is an important move to encourage open dialogue and ensure a constant feedback loop for employees to voice concerns and reduce resistance.
✔ Simplify Complex Messages
With change initiatives, you want to amplify genuine adoption and excitement where people share spontaneously with other coworkers. Sometimes less is more, and the simplest solution can win over any amount of assets created. It’s good to try and make people feel like changes are small and not a huge deal in your communications, to avoid overwhelm.
“Determine how to make things less of a change and more part of the organization’s existing meetings and regular operations.”
Nicholas Mudd - Global Service Transformation Director | Cummins
“It’s hard to make something cool that just isn’t. An overly gimmicky approach may have an opposite result than intended and end up creating more resistance. Sometimes you have to face the music and understand that, if people aren’t behind your change initiative, maybe it’s just a bad idea. Maybe it’s worth revisiting to reassess the need for it or if it can be reframed in a way that propels adoption. ”
Rosaline Hester - Global Change Leadership Director, Marketing Transformation Office | Formerly The Coca Cola Company
✔ Tailor & Segment Messaging
Ensure communications are delivered in the right channels and formats to get your messaging across. Uncoordinated messaging and information overload may lead to clogged communication. If not careful with the channel selections, you might also end up moving away from one clogged channel to another.
“Audience and message segmentation is a key process. Determine where people are in the process of change and determine the right channels to use in consequence of that.”
Akita Somani - Senior Vice President, BNPL / POS Lending | U.S. Bank
“Clogged communication will force you to get creative and begin to use different approaches to ensure message delivery. For example, as workforce dynamics evolve, it’s important to figure out where the ‘watercooler’ is, in a hybrid or remote setting.“
Iris McQuillan-Grace - Head of Employee Experience | OLIVER Agency
Some creative approaches you can use in diversifying formats and avoiding clogged communication include:
- Using companywide screensavers and informational chatbots to encourage message delivery.
- Showing people a countdown timer to remind them when a new change initiative will go live.
- Setting a face-to-face meeting every quarter to bring people together.
- Creating a common cross-functional and cross-geographical calendar as a reminder while acting as a filter to avoid simultaneous change efforts and overwhelming the organization
- Setting up an ‘opt-in’ text message communication network and using it sparingly helps engage the workforce especially if their role doesn’t require them to be in front of the computer.
✔ Bite-Sized & Well-Paced Communications
Keep communication brief and direct. People are more used to quick-to-consume information nowadays and nobody has the bandwidth nor the mindset to read through long emails or messages anymore. Sending short, clear messages more frequently is better than just sending one big message at once.
“While repetition is important, do not expect over-communication to compensate for bad planning. Put more rigor and effort into getting the fundamentals right rather than doing it when designing an intervention plan later on. Be more intentional with the design of the change project before putting all your hope on the possibility that people will just fall easily into place.”
Sundeep Thusoo - Director Business Transformation | Philips
2. Capability Building
✔ Upskill for the Future
Integrate capability-building initiatives into existing workflows for seamless adoption. The organization needs to equip employees with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to adapt to new processes, tools, or structures.
“People tend to be invested in the change they are driving rather than one happening to them so find ways to make people become an extension of you. The more invested people are in the change, the better. Emphasizing inclusion and investment in people skills will reduce the amount of handholding required over time.”
Jeffrey Barth - Head of Digital Transformation Office and Strategic Program Management Office | Gap
✔ Inclusion and Co-Creation
Reaching people is less about the assets you build and more about structured organizational design and early planning. Consult and involve future product owners in the process as they will be responsible for executing the implementation and dealing with stakeholders as the organization moves forward. If you are driving a multi-generational transformation or a cultural refresh, set early standards, reinforce them, and ensure all generational representatives are involved in the testing, etc.
“You can asset people to death but assets alone aren’t enough to drive successful transformation. Instead, create ownership and make sure to transfer changes over to the right team.”
Adam Schreiber - Global Director, Change Management, Enterprise Transformation Office | Johnson & Johnson
3. Cultural Transformation
✔ Empower People Leader
Mid-level managers are critical translators of executive vision, turning strategy into movement with actionable steps for their team. Equip them with clear messaging tools and resources to engage their teams effectively. Acknowledge their achievements via newsletters or videos promoting their good work and recognize their contributions with awards, using change leadership criteria.
“Consider what managers like to do outside their main role and get them involved. Give functional managers something to show to help them gain more visibility career-wise. ”
Rosaline Hester - Global Change Leadership Director, Marketing Transformation Office | Formerly The Coca Cola Company
✔ Align Change with Values
Cultural refreshes succeed when employees feel the change aligns with the organizational value. Create a ‘One Team’ ethos by establishing unifying principles that promote alignment across all levels of the organization to help break down silos and foster collaboration.
Find out how you can eliminate the ‘us vs them’ mentality. Ask the employees to ask themselves questions to identify their ‘Circle of Obligation’ and help build a better sense of collaboration and belonging within the organization.
“The Circles of Obligation framework encourages employees to identify their primary team and their immediate circle of accountability, consequently allowing them to expand outward to connect with the broader organization.”
Matt Hill - Strategy & Business Transformation Leader | Shaw Industries
✔ Recognize & Adapt to Resistance
Acknowledge that change takes time and that certain changes require different stages of loss and grief.
“Give people an outlet to express themselves and how they feel going through the change. For example, when a company is bought by another company, the employees will have to properly grieve the loss of their logo which was a big part of their company and brand, for them to be able to start afresh.”
Allison Drobniak - SVP, Chief of Staff Office of the COO | S&B
✔ Foster Psychological Safety
Fear of the unknown or feeling unprepared are common reasons employees resist change. Transparency and trust from leaders are essential to create a safe psychological environment for the organization. Hold ‘One Team’ connect sessions to prep rallies where successes, challenges, and opportunities are shared. Include Q&A segments to help employees clarify ambiguities.
“The ‘One Team’ connect sessions are a part of a consistent ‘heartbeat operating system’, ensuring predictable monthly communications from leadership. It prevents overwhelming employees with frequent, scattered updates while enforcing key messages through repetition.”
Matt Hill - Strategy & Business Transformation Leader | Shaw Industries
Reimagining Change Activation with a Magic Wand: How Would You Do It Differently Today?
We asked council members to share what they would do differently if given an opportunity to redo a past initiative, starting anew with a blank slate, or with access to a magic wand.
✔ Bring together insights we have on employee behavior and use that to share with them targeted messages at the right time.
✔ Using technology more strategically by leveraging AI for smarter change management to identify sentiments and behaviors as well as using mobile apps for enhanced accessibility.
Stacey Taylor - VP, Implementation & Change | Visa
✔ It would be ideal if we could manage the pace of change so people could take time and enjoy the transformation experience at a slower pace.
✔ If we could stop operations temporarily and let people take the time they need and mentally adjust to changes, that would really help.
Jeffrey Barth - Head of Digital Transformation Office and Strategic Program Management Office | Gap
✔ Customizing change communication to people’s realities. Organizations need to provide the people with the resources they need to make change a success because they won’t just magically work more to make it happen.
✔ Stop infantalizing employees and start treating them like adults. Make the why of the change more compelling instead of just telling them what to do.
✔ To find a way to tackle the challenge of timezone differences across a spread-out organization.
Sundeep Thusoo - Director Business Transformation | Philips
✔ It would be great if everyone impacted by the change could gather together physically at one location and be given time to solely focus and look over the changes together.
Nadine Hammer - Sr. Organizational Change Lead - Product Development, Portfolio, Strategy, and Execution | Genentech
✔ It would be ideal if we didn’t have to inherit changes that weren’t useful and if we could drop some of the changes the predecessors tried to do especially if it’s proven to just not work.
Naomi Adams - Senior Officer, Change Management | The World Bank Group (IFC)
✔ To have leaders be more comfortable with transparency and building a culture of trust to strengthen the psychological safety within the organization.
Michaela Van Schalkwyk - Vice President, Change | Baker Hughes
✔ If there is a way to upskill faster to better activate learning and expertise sharing and accelerate change momentum.
Anurag Chaturvedi - Vice President Operations Strategy & Transformation | Kyndryl
✔ Proper allocation of resources and budget to account for change management.
Nan Li - SVP, Head of Global Transformation | Condé Nast
✔ Increase empathy in leaders toward understanding the ability of the workforce to absorb something new, setting limits to planned changes per given period, and tying the change’s success to leadership pay.
Vanessa Hammett - Change Communication Lead | Mars
✔ Make sure clear and aligned prioritization for all change initiatives and prevent conflicting agendas.
Alessandro Prieto - Senior Directior, HR North America Lead | Analog Devices
Conclusion
Driving organizational change demands strategic planning, inclusive collaboration, and clear, impactful communication. Success is rooted in aligning initiatives with organizational values, executing them thoughtfully, and actively engaging the workforce at every stage. By fostering a continuous feedback loop and adapting strategies as needed, organizations can cultivate a culture that embraces change and thrives through it.
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.
Interested in joining ECLC? Learn the membership criteria and sign-up below.
