As a change manager, my passion is to guide and facilitate change. I’m convinced, after all, that change is what drives progress, growth, and innovation. But lately, I find myself facing a different kind of challenge—one that sometimes goes against the grain of my role: I started advising against too much change. It might seem… Read More »
As change managers we know: In the labyrinth of organizational dynamics, the secret to success often lies NOT in the robustness of strategies or the sophistication of technologies but in the HUMAN ELEMENT: the collective will of the employees. A recent article by McKinsey, “Going all in: Why employee ‘will’ can make or break transformations,”… Read More »
When I first stepped into the Daimler headquarters in Stuttgart as an intern, it truly felt as though I had entered a foreign country, replete with its own language, customs, and unspoken rules. Since that initial experience, I’ve navigated through other corporate giants like Bayer, Fresenius, and Roche. Each was unique in its own right,… Read More »
In the medical world, the placebo effect is well-known for demonstrating how positive expectations can lead to real improvements in health. Interestingly, this psychological phenomenon has significant implications for change management. By understanding and utilizing the placebo effect within organizational change initiatives, leaders can profoundly influence how changes are perceived and embraced by their teams.… Read More »
Did you ever end up in a situation where you thought: Guys, we made it so easy for you to switch to his new system or process, but you’re not even moving an inch! Your initiative may have become the victim of a phenomenon that in psychology is described as Yerkes-Dodson Law… The Yerkes-Dodson Law… Read More »
In the quest to drive transformative changes within organizations, many fall into a common pitfall: overengineering the change. Many change initiatives end up like a remote control with a hundred different buttons—they could do a lot, but the user can’t even figure out how to change the channel anymore. Drawing on this analogy, let’s explore… Read More »
In change management, effective communication is pivotal. Yet most of the projects that I have seen found themselves unwittingly caught in the trap of the “curse of knowledge.” This psychological phenomenon, vividly demonstrated in Elizabeth Newton’s 1990 “tappers and listeners” experiment at Stanford University, highlights a common disconnect: change leaders, intimately familiar with the details… Read More »
Many organizational changes originate from the ideas of senior leaders. So far, so good. But let’s be honest: more often than not, these leaders tend to be senior men with visions of greater efficiency and innovation. With this particular group comes a particular trap for change initiatives — ‘mansplaining.’ Falling into this trap not only… Read More »
One frequent observation from the projects I support is that project teams and their sponsors often adopt an insular approach. They decide against involving their target groups in the change process. They usually do this consciously to “not burden” the business or avoid interference with the project’s target product. But that’s short-sighted. While it may… Read More »
Observing numerous change projects, I’ve noted a common phenomenon: as practitioners we often present change as one-directional and absolute. I have for example accompanied a few global restructurings as well as launches of new admin organizations including Global Business Services (GBS). This thinking leads us to see the world black and white – an impacted… Read More »