Developing Change Management Plans

"Culture change" is the biggest lie in organizational transformation. Here's what actually happens: You run workshops. You print posters. You train people on new values. Six months later, behavior looks exactly the same. Why? Because you've got the causality backwards. Culture follows structure. Not the other way around. Craig Larman captured this in his Laws of Organizational Behavior. The first law: Organizations are implicitly optimized to avoid changing the status quo of middle- and first-level manager positions and power structures. Read that again. Your organization isn't resisting change because people are difficult. It's resisting change because it's designed to resist change. The structure, rewards, and processes are all optimized to preserve existing power. Want to change culture? Change the structure. Want people to collaborate? Remove the structural barriers that make collaboration expensive. Want innovation? Create Product Groups with real P&L ownership and decision-making authority. Want customer focus? Merge customer-facing and product development units so everyone shares the same measures of success. Jay Galbraith's Star Model shows this clearly: Strategy, Structure, Processes, Rewards, and People practices must be in harmony. Change one without the others, and the system snaps back. Stop running culture workshops. Start redesigning your organization. The culture you want will emerge from the structure you create. #SimplificationOfficers #OrganizationalChange

🙈 “Risks in the Shadow of Change“ 🙉 The basic goal of Management of Change (MOC) is to determine the risks brought by changes to be made in a hazardous process in advance, to eliminate or minimize these risks and to ensure that the change is implemented safely and sustainably. This approach is of vital importance, especially in technical areas. Because even a small change can have major consequences; it can cause rupture, leak, fire or even a major industrial accident. Unfortunately, many change approvers make decisions by evaluating this process only on paper. It is a common mistake to approve without seeing the reflection of the change in the field and without making the necessary analyses and observations. This can ironically turn change management into a process that creates risks rather than reducing risks. MOC is not only a procedural approval process, but also a critical discipline that requires technical expertise, field experience and a multi-faceted evaluation. Therefore, it is essential to adopt a multidisciplinary approach, especially in technical changes. Different areas of expertise such as mechanics, electricity, chemistry, operator, automation, occupational health and environment should come together to make an evaluation. Many industrial accidents in the past have resulted from the implementation of changes without sufficient analysis. For example, a small design change made in a pipeline may not be able to withstand the system pressure and may eventually cause explosions. Similarly, a small error made in software updates may hide alarms of processes that will create risks in PLC or DCS systems. In order to prevent such results, the MOC process must be supported by field observation, engineering calculations, and function tests. Although analyses on paper provide some basic insights, they cannot always reflect the complexity of real conditions. Therefore, conducting onsite inspections, interviewing employees, and observing the physical condition of equipment are critical steps. It should not be forgotten that change inherently involves uncertainty. This uncertainty can only be managed through a planned, systematic, and participatory MOC. It is necessary not only to analyze risks, but also to be prepared for these risks, to provide transparency in processes, and to create systems that can reverse change when necessary. Creating an effective MOC not only prevents accidents, but also paves the way for continuous improvement and innovation. Therefore, it is a critical requirement for change management practitioners to have field awareness as well as technical knowledge. #oil #gas #LPG #refinery #process #safety #learning #engineering #MOC #managementofchange #risks #riskassessment #terminal #safeoperation #safechange #LNG #oilandgas #evaluation.

To change culture, you have to structure the promises people make. Edgar Schein, a known organizational psychology researcher, showed that culture isn’t what you write on a wiki. Culture is the shared assumptions a group learns while executing tasks and solving real problems. You might be looking at quarterly surveys, but if you truly want to see your engineering/operating culture, you should be looking at how micro-commitments behave in Slack on a random Tuesday: - When a deadline slips, does someone flag it early or hide it in a 40-message thread? - When a manager asks something vague, does the team push for clarity or type “on it” and hope for the best? - When someone misses a promise, does the system notice or does it disappear into the noise? Those details aren't “just communication.” They are your culture’s real digital footprint. You don’t fix execution by updating values on a slide deck. You fix it by shaping how promises are made, tracked, and completed every day. Where do your team's promises usually go to die and does anyone notice when they do?

You know that sinking feeling… Someone interrupts your carefully prepared presentation with “But what about...?” and raises a point you never considered. Everyone is looking at you, and you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders. In that moment, the idea or solution you’ve been presenting weighs in the balance. Address the resistance well, and your idea will likely be adopted with even more optimism than before. Address it poorly, and your idea is as good as gone. Here’s a quick overview of my “RAP” formula that you can use in these moments to turn blindside objections into “aha” moments. 1. R: Recognize the type of resistance you’re facing: - Logical resistance (conflicting data or reasoning) - Emotional resistance (values or identity challenges) - Practical resistance (implementation concerns) 2. A: Address it proactively in your presentation: - For logical resistance: Acknowledge competing viewpoints before they’re raised. "Some might point to last quarter’s numbers as evidence against this approach. Here’s why that perspective is incomplete..." - For emotional resistance: Connect your idea to their existing values. "This initiative actually strengthens our commitment to customer-first thinking by..." - For practical resistance: Demonstrate you’ve considered the real-world constraints. "I know this requires significant change. Here’s our phased implementation plan that accounts for..." 3. P: Provide a path forward that transforms resistance into alignment: - Give them space to voice concerns (but in a structured way) - Incorporate their perspective into the solution - Show how addressing their resistance actually strengthens the outcome The most powerful thing you can say in a presentation isn’t "trust me", it’s "I understand your concerns." When you genuinely see resistance as valuable feedback rather than an obstacle, you’ll find your ideas gaining traction where they previously stalled. #CommunicationSkills #BusinessCommunication #PresentationSkills

After nearly 2 decades in elite sport, I’ve found a simple framework that helps me understand: • Team dynamics • Current culture • Performancd pressures It’s the foundation of the work I do with any organization. Here’s a breakdown of the framework and how you can use it: Team culture work goes in phases. 1. Observation. 2. Assessment. 3. Analysis. 4. Action. Now that you know the phases, here’s what I typically look for: Trust and Team Dynamics All of my consultation starts with network mapping. I want to know: • Who is a leader (formally or informally) • Where are there silos • Where is there successful integration This gives me a sense of how well the team is working together and gaps that might cause problems. Environment The environment is a huge factor in individual behavior. Here I’m looking for: • How is the space set up? • What policies are there? • How is the culture represented visually? These help me figure out how well the space promotes the behavior the team is after and what could make it more impactful. Motivational Climate Mindsets are made through feedback. The motivational climate determines how feedback is given. Do people: • Talk about individual or team success (or both)? • Have clarity on what’s rewarded? • Understand what isn’t welcomed? Answering these questions lets me determine the attitude coaches and athletes bring to the building. Performance Pressure Every team comes into the season with expectations. Those expectations influence how people show up and what success or failure looks like. I’m assessing for: • Competition-related pressure • Internal team dynamics (athletes and coaches) • External expectations (media or otherwise) This helps me grasp how the team will respond to failure and what they need to sustain success. Organizational Culture The last aspect is understanding leadership and “how things get done”. This includes: • Leadership styles and preferences • Decision-making processes • Role clarity • Team values • Standards and norms This aspect of the system is where I start my assessment. It helps explain the rest of the dynamics. These also represent some of the highest-leverage places to intervene. Once I’ve gathered this data, I make a plan and present to the leadership team. That plan includes 30, 60, and 90 day interventions, rank-ordered by what would be most impactful. If I only get one shot to make a difference, I do something that can demonstrate real value. Lastly, every consultant I know is asked how to measure success. Here are some metrics I use: Short-term: • Team engagement • Improved communication • Greater role clarity Long-term: • Trust in me and sport psych • Reduced conflict • Better performance This system has helped me build trust across pro teams and elite college programs. If you want to read more about it, drop me a comment below. If there’s enough interest, I’ll publish a full-length treatment in my newsletter.

This month, we finished a 9-month #OrganisationalCulture consulting project with a German client using Systemic #TransactionAnalysis (TA) thinking 🌐. It was a humbling experience, and I am chuffed to share my insights from this enriching journey, thanks to my fellow lead-consultants and our supportive cohort of 15 accomplished professionals. 🤝 As an OD consultant, I have done a fair share of organisational consulting work, but this learning approach guided by Rosemary Napper & Thorsten Geck at TAworks involved deeper nuances of observing the #organisationsystem as TA #CulturalAnthropologists. Curious about this approach? let's connect! 😊 This learning project provided me with the provocative opportunity to pause and reflect on: ❇️ Who am I as a consultant? & ❇️ What make me lead the way I do? A reflective practice encouraged in TA and one I would highly recommend to practitioners looking to enhance their professional practice. Here are the 6 🗝️ lessons I carry forward from this project: 1️⃣ Presence over Perfection: ✅ This project's emergent structure challenged my reliance on preparation. Reflecting on those intense client engagements, I recognise that learning opportunities arose when I failed to account for myself before responding, it wasn’t so much about a data point or the perfect language as it was about my objective presence. 2️⃣ There is no such thing as too much contracting: ✅ Effective contracting and recontracting are crucial to avoid time-consuming management of mismatched expectations. TA highlights the importance of 3 contracting levels—Administrative, Professional, and Psychological—to address interpersonal dynamics and clarify expectations beyond the surface. 3️⃣ Invest time in creating a Steering-Committee that represents the whole organisation: ✅ Culture runs in the DNA of an organisation, and to understand or change it, the workgroup has to be a representative of the entire organisation, beyond the founders or top executives. 4️⃣ Observation over Diagnosis: ✅ For an effective Org. Culture study, the job is to be curious 🥇. Observing the system involves considering one's somatic responses and intuition before proceeding to the objective distillation stage. Engaging human felt sense can make a learning conversations richer. 5️⃣ Systems can overpower our Objectivity: ✅ The role of the consultant is to be on the edge and aware of the influence the system they are observing can have on their interpretations and actions. Yes, the system is strong and can overpower one's frame of reference. 6️⃣ Self-work supplements Potency: ✅ To be effective and ethical as behavioral science practitioners; #coaches, #facilitator & #ODconsultants, it's crucial to invest in skill-building, supervision, and therapy. Collaborating with other professionals who share similar ethical principles is also vital in organisational work. Grateful for some remarkable ones I have been fortunate to find in this journey. 🙏

It’s a Culture Thing * * In uncertain times, culture reveals itself. Sometimes that revelation is uplifting. Other times… not so much. I’ve had a front-row seat in boardrooms, finance meetings, and HR discussions, and here’s what I know: When a leader’s back is against the wall, mode kicks in. That “people-first” language becomes eerily silent. You go from being “valued talent” to “resource realignment.” It’s rarely personal—it’s just painfully systemic. And right now, with organisational restructures ramping up again, culture is being tested on every level. Talking with my OD/OE colleagues, there’s no shortage of work. Organisations are “trimming the fat” (though no one can quite say where it was hiding), chasing efficiency like it’s a silver bullet. But let’s be honest—efficiency doesn’t live in org charts. It lives in culture. McKinsey & Company’s research confirms this: 70% of transformation efforts fail due to culture-related issues—not strategy or systems. Gallup tells us only 1 in 5 employees feel their performance is managed in a way that motivates them. And Forbes rightly points out: “Culture is the invisible hand that shapes behaviour.” So, if your internal behaviours don’t reflect your external values, no restructuring plan in the world will save you. Now let’s talk about one powerful lever: 🔁 Reverse Mentoring. Not as a one-off initiative, but as a catalyst for real change. When done right, Reverse Mentoring: Builds empathy between generations and backgrounds Develops leadership agility Surfaces blind spots in decision-making Strengthens retention by giving marginalised voices access and influence Drives culture change from the inside out But it can’t succeed in a culture that only listens when it’s convenient or safe. It requires: ✅ Executive vulnerability ✅ A bias toward action, not optics ✅ Safe, structured, reciprocal relationships ✅ And a genuine desire to change how power works in your workplace So here's the call to action: 💬 If you're restructuring—start with your culture. 🎧 If you're listening—make sure you're learning. ⚡ If you want a high-performing, future-ready organisation—build it on trust, not titles. Reverse Mentoring is not a trend. It’s a tool. One that rewires culture, builds belonging, and creates leaders worth following. Is your organisation ready? #OrganisationalCulture #Leadership #DEI #ReverseMentoring #PeopleStrategy #OD #ExecutiveCoaching #Inclusion #CultureShift #ThePivotPoint #FutureOfWork

The highest-performing teams have one thing in common: They can say it all in the room. Not behind each other’s backs, not in the “meeting after the meeting,” and not as hallway whispers that never reach the people who need to hear them. They bring candor into the open to push performance to the next level. That’s one of the core shifts I write about in Never Lead Alone, a book now being used by hospital systems in the US. Each chapter in the book is intentionally short and actionable, built around a shift a leader needs to guide their team through, with practical tools to make it stick. One of my favorites is the shift from conflict avoidance to candor. Too often, leaders tell me they want more open dialogue, but when I ask, “What’s your protocol for making that happen?” they don’t have one. Culture change is a set of repeatable behaviors. Here’s one practice that works every time: The Candor Break. Right in the middle of a meeting, pause and say: "What’s not being said right now that needs to be said?" Now, if you ask that question to the whole room, you’ll often get silence. But if you pair people up and give them 60 seconds to agree on one or two things that need to be said, then bring it back to the group, you’ll unlock what’s really on people’s minds. People are more candid in small groups, and because we are far more likely to follow through when something is framed as an assignment rather than a vague invitation. Make it a protocol. Do it in every meeting. Watch your team’s trust, collaboration, and problem-solving capacity grow immediately.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗖𝗠𝟮 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? Most organizations run change governance through a single board. One body assesses the impact, decides whether to approve, and figures out how to implement. Assessment, decision, and implementation collapse into the same conversation, the same meeting, the same people. Projects overrun budgets and schedules by 30 to 40% on average. A significant contributor? Change governance that blurs assessment, decision, and implementation into a single conversation, so that it is no longer clear where assessment ends and decision begins. CM2 separates change governance into three distinct functions, each with documented operating standards. None of the three major industries (aerospace, automotive, and medical devices) does this explicitly. The 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 (ECA) compiles the full impact picture before any board convenes. Which configurations are affected, what the downstream consequences look like, and what the technical and business implications are. Without a thorough ECA, the CRB makes decisions on incomplete information. With it, every stakeholder enters the review with a shared, traceable understanding of what the change actually touches. The 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗕𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 (CRB) handles technical governance and the approval decision. It evaluates whether a change is sound, assesses risk, and determines whether to proceed. The CRB maps to the CCB practices in aerospace and medical device contexts. Its quality depends entirely on the ECA. A CRB without a structured assessment is a room full of opinions. The 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 (CIB) handles cross-functional implementation governance. Representatives from every impacted activity prepare detailed plans and assign effectivity. Three distinct questions. The ECA asks: "What is the impact of this change?" The CRB asks: "Should we implement this change?" and "What happens if we do not?" The CIB asks: "How, when, and where do we implement this change across all impacted baselines?" Three different competencies, three different sets of people. The engineer compiling the impact assessment is not the executive weighing strategic risk, nor the resource manager who needs to commit to an implementation plan. This aligns with a broader trajectory. EIA-649C placed greater emphasis on "Implementation Planning" than 649B, a subtle acknowledgment that approval without structured implementation creates risk, not resolution. Does your organization separate assessment, decision, and implementation? Or does one board try to do all three? #ConfigurationManagement #CM2 #ChangeManagement #ProcessExcellence #EngineeringManagement #PLM #ProductLifecycleManagement #CM #HowDoYOUCM2 #Governance

People rarely resist change. They resist uncertainty. I've seen this play out repeatedly over three decades of leading transformation programmes. Fear is the only emotion that is about the future. Once there is clarity, this emotion erodes. Think back in your own career. How you and your colleagues reacted to new systems and technology. Usually with fear. When a new system, process or organisational structure is announced, the first questions are rarely about the change itself. They're about what the change means for me. Will my role change? Will I still be valued? Can I learn what's expected? Who will help me succeed? Most resistance isn't driven by the future. It's driven by the unknown. The best leaders don't just communicate the change. They reduce the uncertainty around it. Because clarity doesn't eliminate every concern. But it gives people the confidence to take the first step. Clarity doesn't eliminate every concern. But it removes much of the fear. One book I'd recommend is Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It reinforced something I've seen repeatedly over the years: people don't need every answer before they change. They need enough clarity to take the first step. P.S. This is part 6 of my Observations About Work series. Short reflections from three decades of leading teams, driving transformation, and learning how organisations really work. #BeThatManager