The Only Constant - A Playbook for Change Leaders

Why do internal comms teams and change teams clash so often during transformations? In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Christian Lundberg (CSO, Vocable Communications) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how internal communications and change communications serve fundamentally different purposes - one focused on efficient information transmission, the other on creating authentic connection...

Change isn't just accelerating—it's gone exponential. And most organizations are about to get left behind. In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Aric discusses with Nellie Wartoft how the pace of technological change has shifted from Moore's Law's predictable two-year cycles to explosive six-month doubling periods, why traditional change management approaches are now obs...

What if the solution to AI-driven unemployment isn't government handouts, but finally getting paid for the data you've been giving away for free? In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Amelia Green discusses with Nellie Wartoft how traditional UBI pilots fail due to unsustainable government funding, why tech giants are making record profits from our personal data, and her revolut...

Your AI is only as biased as the humans who created the data it learns from. In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Richard Wiedenbeck (Chief AI Officer, Ameritas) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how the myth of needing perfectly structured data for AI is holding companies back, why information sets matter more than data sets, and how AI is actually exposing the mediocre management practic...

What happens when you take the leap of faith and actually trust your workforce to engage with internal comms? In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Allison Nelik discusses with Nellie Wartoft how to overcome the control mindset in internal communications, why two-way feedback drives transformation success, and how to create an internal news outlet that employees actually want to engage...

"It's really just garbage pickup, isn't it?"  When a senior executive dismisses the business’ sustainability initiative with those words, you know you need to flip the script. In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Gina Cano (Sr. Director Strategy, Dell) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how she transformed a failing sustainability program from environmental fluff into hard...

The modern workforce expects leaders to be coaches, not commanders, so why do we still manage change like it's 1970? In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Annemie Verrijken (VP Change Management, Belden) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how COVID accelerated the shift toward people-first change management, why speaking senior leadership's language about ROI and risk is crucial for...

Why do brilliant strategic visions crash and burn when they make first contact with reality? In this week's episode of The Only Constant, Jennifer Dass (Chief Operations & Transformation Officer, Advertising Agencies & Co-Founder of Dass Collective) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how to navigate complex transformations through her own proven Dass framework, covering everything from stak...

Are you spreading yourself too thin across multiple initiatives, or should you bet everything on one transformational win? In this week's episode of the Only Constant, Dan Rickards (Interim Head of Change, Group Transformation, BBC) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how to strategically build organizational change management maturity and how to turn those early wins into headcount.  ---- Connect w...

What if every transformation dollar could pay for itself twice?  In this week's episode of The Only Constant, Aric Wood discusses with Nellie Wartoft how to speak CFO, leverage past organizational failures as proof points, and structure bronze-silver-gold investment options that guarantee project success while accelerating strategy activation velocity. ---- Connect with: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nellie Wartoft...

Traditional change frameworks can only take you so far. So, let’s take a page out of the marketing playbook. In this week’s episode of the Only Constant, Nicolas Becquet (Transformation Senior Director, Pernod Ricard) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how borrowing from brand marketing - purpose, consistency, symbolism, and storytelling - creates the emotional engagement that makes change stick in way...

What happens when you focus on building change capability instead of just managing individual projects?  In this episode of The Only Constant, Dan Rickards (Interim Head of Change, BBC) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how transformation offices can grow by unlocking different parts of their function, all while creating consistency in how their organization interacts with change and increasing their...

What if the reason why so many transformations fail isn't due to poor strategy but due to poor financial storytelling? In this episode of The Only Constant, Aric Wood (Chief Strategy Officer, Tigerhall) discusses with Nellie Wartoft why senior change leaders must learn to "speak CFO" to win the resources they need and bill strategy activation resources as "ROI insurance". I...

You have the budget, you need more hands on deck but who should you hire exactly? You might think ‘someone like me’ but Roger Guerrero has a completely different answer.  In this episode of The Only Constant, Roger Guerrero (Head of Strategy Execution, Merck) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how to not be limited by your own definition of what a transformation office should be and shares his blueprin...

What happens when your organization's biggest strategic challenge isn't technology, process, or budget but just getting everyone to play for the same team? In this episode of The Only Constant, Ben Cook (Head of Global Customer Service Strategic Transformation at Ford) discusses with Nellie Wartoft how to build more than surface-level alignment for the strategic direction your organization...

Would you work out if you didn't gain any health benefit from it?  Probably not. Yet this is exactly what we're asking our teams to do with organizational change. If you’re ready to connect the dots between executive vision and frontline execution for your org, you won’t want to miss this week’s episode of The Only Constant with James Hoch (Sr. Director of Transformation & Strategy, Te...

When was the last time your organization redesigned work, not just reorganized jobs? Ravin Jesuthasan, bestselling author and global leader for transformation services at Mercer, explains why work redesign is the missing foundation for successful transformation. Drawing from his books "Work Without Jobs" and "The Skills-Powered Organization," Ravin shares how deconstructing wor...

Why do technical experts often make poor change leaders? Roger Guerrero, Head of Enterprise Strategy Execution at Merck, challenges how organizations select and develop leaders in transformation environments. Drawing from his experience overseeing Merck's corporate strategy implementation, Roger explains why change leadership shouldn't be confined to specialized teams but embedded as a cor...

Restructuring without destroying morale? It's possible!  Connie Klimko, Transformation Lead at Siemens Energy, takes us inside their successful flattening of a hierarchical organization that eliminated management layers while keeping talent.  She reveals their strategy for reframing career paths beyond traditional "boxes" on org charts, empowering experts, and rebuilding trust between newly combin...

Ever wonder why perfectly logical transformation plans meet fierce resistance? Travis Hahler, change management expert and neuroscience researcher, reveals how our brains are hardwired to fight change through two fundamental mechanisms: energy conservation and protection.  For transformation leaders, this shifts the entire approach from trying to design "lovable" changes to creating envi...

When does a company need its first-ever Chief Technology Officer? Shankar Kalyana takes us behind the scenes of becoming Stantec's first CTO while simultaneously leading their digital transformation and AI initiatives.  With refreshing honesty, he shares how he balanced technical expertise with transformation leadership, shaped a role that didn't previously exist, and executed a strategic 100-day...

Ever get asked for proof that your transformation is working?  While the rest of the business obsesses over dashboards and metrics, transformation leaders are often left with... vibes?  Stacey Taylor, Vice President of Implementation & Change at Visa, has cracked the code on measuring the "unmeasurable" in change initiatives. She shares their practical three-pillar framework connecting individ...

Are your stakeholders making or breaking your transformation efforts?  Hardeep Kaur, Director of Business Transformation at Merck, shares her three-stage approach to stakeholder management that has driven successful change across her 25-year pharmaceutical industry career. Discover how to map stakeholders on an influence/impact matrix, create tailored engagement plans, and maintain alignment throu...

You may well be familiar with the stat that 70% of organizational changes fail. But what if you could build an internal "special forces" team that turns that statistic on its head? In this week's episode, Connie Klimko, Transformation Lead at Siemens Energy, explains how she's created a two-tiered system of change champions that has demonstrably improved productivity, profitabili...

If marketing is dating, change management is like a marriage that constantly needs some spice. In this conversation, Nellie speaks with Stacey Taylor, VP of Implementation and Change at Visa, about the glaringly obvious overlaps between marketing principles and successful organizational change. “Everyone says change is hard, but nobody says marketing is hard,” - despite both disciplines aiming to...