Change Signal: Modern Change Management that Works

Here are three questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation: Who gave you permission to lead? What if 25 percent is enough? Where have you become the hub? In this episode, I talk with Alex Budak, UC Berkeley faculty member and author of Becoming a Changemaker, about how change leadership actually spreads through an organization. We explore why people wait too long to claim the role of...

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 transformati...

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 choices...

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 stall, not because peopl...

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 a more practical appro...

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-relationships story. Tizia...

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 that conversations are t...

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 actually happen. In...

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,” and a plan to get t...

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 efforts stall—not becau...

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 sounds — and more useful t...

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 sixteen years and helpe...

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 struggle not because...

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 perspective —  someone who’s...

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 people, pace, and th...

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 because of bad framing. D...

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 Disrupt Design. Her work si...

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 accountable for results...

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 a single silo; it em...

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 what actually helps or...

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 take you so far. In th...

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 makes a simple but unse...

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 experience and fresh thinkin...

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 reality of 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-driven” often runs into...