Coaching & Workshops
Change fails in the layer between the announcement and the team, where managers are asked to sell something they were told about last week. This session prepares that layer to lead the change rather than forward the email.
Why it matters
Leadership decides, communicates, and moves on. Middle managers are then left holding questions they cannot answer, from people who are frightened, while privately having their own doubts. Most of them cope by staying neutral, and neutral reads as agreement that the change is bad.
That silence is where change programmes die. Not in opposition, but in a quiet, polite waiting-it-out that looks like compliance for about a quarter and then shows up as attrition.
What the session covers
In the room
Prepared properly, including the ones with no good answer. "I do not know yet, and I will tell you when I do" is a skill.
Managers who fake enthusiasm get found out. We work on what honest support sounds like when you have reservations.
Most change programmes lose people in the months after the announcement when nothing seems to be happening.
Signs you need this
Silence after an announcement is almost never acceptance. It is people deciding privately whether to wait it out, and the decision usually shows up as attrition one to two quarters later.
If two or three of these are true you are past the point where it resolves on its own. None of them are unusual, and all of them are cheaper to fix than to wait out.
Sound familiar
Afterward
Which is the layer where change programmes actually succeed or fail.
Including the awkward ones, which is much better than them circulating unanswered.
Most programmes lose people long after the announcement, when nothing visible is happening.
How it runs
The management layer carrying the change to their teams. Usually supervisors and middle managers. A short executive segment is useful so leadership hears the real questions.
Sessions run on site or virtually, and they are built around situations attendees bring rather than case studies from a textbook. You get a fixed fee before we start, and the person who scopes it is the person who delivers it.
Practicalities
Questions
The management layer that has to carry the change to their teams. Usually supervisors and middle managers rather than the executives who designed it.
Reorganisations, acquisitions, new systems, relocations, strategy shifts, and return-to-office decisions. The mechanics are similar.
A short segment with them is useful, mainly so they hear the questions their managers are actually getting.
Half a day, ideally within two weeks of the announcement.
Then honesty is the only workable strategy and we will help managers deliver it. Pretending otherwise costs more.
Very common and worth surfacing in the room rather than leaving it private. We work on what honest support sounds like when you have reservations, because faked enthusiasm is detected immediately.
Within about two weeks of the announcement. Before it is better still if you can, though that requires letting managers in early, which not every organisation will do.
Yes, and it is one of the harder cases because managers are usually affected personally by the same policy they are asked to defend.
Related
Senior-led, delivered by the person you meet
Tell us what is changing and we will scope a session. No obligation, and we will say if one of the others fits better.
Tell us what is going on