Aligning Leadership With Change Goals

Most change initiatives don't fail because of the change that's happening, they fail because of how the change is communicated. I've watched brilliant restructurings collapse and transformative acquisitions unravel… Not because the plan was flawed, but because leaders were more focused on explaining the "what" and "why" than on how they were addressing the fears and concerns of the people on their team. People don't resist change because they don't understand it. They resist because they haven't been given a compelling story about their role in it. This is where the Venture Scape framework becomes invaluable. The framework maps your team's journey through five distinct stages of change: The Dream - When you envision something better and need to spark belief The Leap - When you commit to action and need to build confidence The Fight - When you face resistance and need to inspire bravery The Climb - When progress feels slow and you need to fuel endurance The Arrival - When you achieve success and need to honor the journey The key is knowing exactly where your team is in this journey and tailoring your communication accordingly. If you're announcing a merger during the Leap stage, don't deliver a message about endurance. Your team needs a moment of commitment–stories and symbols that anchor them in the decision and clarify the values that remain unchanged. You can’t know where your team is on this spectrum without talking to them. Don’t just guess. Have real conversations. Listen to their specific concerns. Then craft messages that speak directly to those fears while calling on their courage. Your job isn't just to announce change, but to walk beside your team and help your team understand what role they play in the story at each stage. #LeadershipCommunication #Illuminate

Too often sales managers and VP's 'Set Expectations' but then are SHOCKED when people don't follow through. More often than not it's because they skipped some VERY important steps when it comes to rolling out anything new. So for change management to really occur, any new process, these are the steps you have to follow. 1. Sell vs Tell - Sell WHAT you want done. Tell the story. Tell the impact. Sell the WHAT, not just tell it. 2. Explain the how - Aka WGLL (wiggle aka what good looks like) - Here is what good looks like. 3. Teach and Train - Don't just assume people know how to do it! You have to actually teach it step by step. 4. Get Agreement and Commitment - You need direct agreement back saying 'yes I will do this thing and I feel confident i can do this thing' 5. Do it together - The first few weeks/iterations ideally are done as a group. Get the momentum going, get the questions out of the way, etc. 6. Inspect and Follow Up - Don't let weeks go by and THEN check in. That needs to be done before something is due AND after. Don't wait for the miss. 7. The 4 R's - Recognize (If they did it, recognize them for it!) Reward (same idea, what does it unlock) Repercussion (If they didn't what are the repercussions) Repeat/Repetition (Keep it going. Review, Update, etc) This is change management. So if there are certain things your team is supposed to be doing but arent... Go to these 7 steps. Did you miss something?

We've spent years pushing for the concept of "better together", advocating for the importance of alignment across sales, product, and success. However, it's time to stop talking about "better together"; we all understand and get it. Let's do, "Together. Better." Especially today, when speed is essential and demanded in everything we do. Speed is seductive. It feels like progress. It looks like momentum. But without alignment, speed just creates motion sickness (OK, so maybe I'm still recovering from thinking about altitude sickness after a week in Peru). You get busy teams chasing goals that are aligned at the 30,000-foot level, but aren't aligned in where the work actually happens. There are unspoken and competing agendas. And fleeting and shallow wins that celebrate individual victories but not company wins. In the end, we're all left with mounting frustration that no one can quite name, but everyone feels. This is one of the hardest balancing acts in leadership: How do we move fast without breaking trust, clarity, or direction? How do we actually do "together, better?" The answer is not to slow down. It is to align more intentionally. More often. And more visibly. Alignment is not a kickoff slide or a mission statement. It is a discipline. A muscle. A shared drumbeat that keeps people running together, not just running. Because without alignment, speed scales confusion. With alignment, speed scales outcomes. My thoughts on three ways to lead with both speed and alignment: 🔹 Communicate decisions out loud. Assume nothing. Clarity compounds when leaders speak directly and often about what is changing and why. I've lost track of the number of times I thought something was communicated clearly, but realized I had been working on a concept for months and had only communicated it to the team for a few days. 🔹 Cascade purpose, not just tasks. When people understand the “why,” they can act faster and smarter without waiting for permission. Prioritize perspective over permission, which means sharing openly, broadly, and consistently enough context to create the perspective that lets people closest to the work make confident, bold, and faster decisions. 🔹 Check for drift. Build in rhythm to realign. Fast-moving teams need regular calibration. Without it, small gaps become big ones. At DISQO, our cross-departmental, recurring meetings are focused on ensuring continued alignment and providing colleagues with the opportunity to understand changes and collaborate on solving gaps together. Are you ready for "Together. Better?" #CreateTheFuture #LeadershipInAction #StrategicAlignment #HighVelocityTeams #LeadWithClarity #ExecutionExcellence #FutureOfLeadership #TeamPerformance #GTMLeadership #CultureOfExecution #ScaleWithPurpose #CustomerSuccessLeadership

I’ve had to protect my team in the past, particularly when their time or focus was at risk. I’ve seen this happen at companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, where mandates and initiatives would stack during the same timeframe. While each initiative alone might have been reasonable, together they overburdened the teams. Those compiled costs may be invisible to the folks driving the individual mandates. You may have seen teams get overwhelmed by a major release, a review cycle, and bi-annual business planning all at once. This type of time management stress is usually manageable, but there are times when teams can be stretched too thin and compromise morale and quality. When you witness this, I believe it’s crucial to step in. You will hear from your team and you need to be close enough to the issues to decide how to respond. This can be tricky for a leader: on one hand, you want to ensure your team can succeed; on the other, you’re part of the broader leadership and need to support the decisions being made. Sometimes, you have very little room to maneuver. In those cases, I find it most effective to have a private conversation with key decision-makers. Meeting behind closed doors allows you to present the reality of your team’s capacity without putting anyone on the spot. Armed with clear data or project plans, you can often negotiate more realistic timelines or priorities. Another common pressure is when stakeholders create frequent direction changes. Repeated shifts in goals or features will thrash your team and waste energy. This often reflects deeper issues with strategy, alignment, and communication. However, you may not have time for a complete overhaul of your planning processes, and you still need a way to prevent thrash. A short-term fix is to set firm near-term milestones or “freeze” dates, after which any changes must go through a formal triage process. This ensures that if changes are necessary, they follow a transparent, deliberate sequence rather than blindsiding. After the freeze, broader project changes can be considered. Ultimately, I see my responsibility as a leader as fostering an environment where my team can perform at a high level, stay motivated, and avoid burnout. Part of a leader's role is to protect their team’s capability and long-term health. There will always be sprints and times when you need to push, but you also need to consider the long view and put on the brakes when required. People who feel supported are more productive, more creative, and likely to stay engaged.

Last month, I was facilitating a workshop for a group of leaders on how to navigate and lead through change. At one point, someone posed an important question: “Where do you think leading change efforts usually go wrong?” It was asked with genuine curiosity and what was unique was that everyone in the room was a people leader, but just as importantly, they had all been on the receiving end of change themselves, as individual contributors, team members, and participants in past transformations, both good and bad. To harness all that insight, we ran a “pre-mortem” exercise asking: If this change were to fail, what would have caused it? What surfaced was a revealing list of frustrations and patterns ➡ ️ Formulaic Approaches That Ignore the Human Side: There was a general agreement that change frameworks and models can be useful, especially at scale and for organization. But when change becomes a checklist rather than a conversation, it feels mechanical. Because change is personal. People don’t experience it in uniform ways. If we don’t make space for the human reaction, we lose the heart of the effort. ➡️  The WIIFM Trap (“What’s In It for Me”)We’ve all been told to lead with benefits, but several leaders called out how this can backfire. When the “what’s in it for me” message is tacked on as an afterthought, or worse, spun in an obviously false way, it erodes trust. Authenticity matters. If the benefit isn’t real, or if it’s only framed from the organization’s perspective, people will feel it. ➡️ Compliance > Commitment: While it’s true that you can mandate behavior, you can’t mandate belief or commitment.  Many leaders described being in environments where the focus was solely on  compliance, mandates, policies, new systems rolled out with minimal dialogue.  The result? Surface-level adoption at best, quiet resistance at worst. Commitment takes longer, but it leads to energy, ownership, and sustained effort. ➡️The Say-Do Gap: This one came up a lot. When leaders say one thing but act differently, when behaviors, priorities, or incentives don’t align with the stated change,that sends a loud signal. People don’t just listen to what leaders say. They watch what they do. Have you experienced one of these failure points during a change effort? Or figured out a way to avoid them altogether? I’d love to hear what’s worked for you.

Curiosity is the job of leadership. To me, leadership isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about staying curious. The way we work has changed, and so has leadership. Leaders who thrive today aren’t those with all the answers, but those who ask the right questions. Curiosity has become a critical leadership skill, enabling leaders to seek feedback, explore new perspectives, and adapt to rapidly changing environments. A recent Harvard Business Review piece suggests that, in today’s world, leaders must develop several essential skills: (1) Emotional Aperture: Understanding the emotional dynamics of your team, reading the room, and ensuring all voices are heard. Leaders who tune into these dynamics build stronger relationships and keep employees engaged. (2) Adaptive Communication: Great leaders adjust their style to fit the situation and audience. It’s about connecting with people, knowing when to motivate, and when to create space for creativity. (3) Flexible Thinking: In times of uncertainty, effective leaders embrace ambiguity and seek new perspectives. Asking the right questions helps open doors to innovative solutions and thoughtful decisions. (4) Perspective Seeking: As leaders rise, power can narrow focus. Great leaders actively seek out different viewpoints, essential for negotiation, conflict resolution, and strategic thinking. (5) Strategic Disruption: Leaders need to challenge the status quo, not just for the sake of change, but to continuously improve—especially in advancing inclusion and equity. (6) Resilient Self-Awareness: Leaders are human too. Recognizing limitations and building a strong support network is key to managing stress and leading by example. To me, curiosity ties all these skills together. Staying curious allows leaders to keep learning, adapting, and growing—both for themselves and their teams. Curiosity opens the door to fresh ideas, deeper connections, and a more dynamic, responsive leadership style. In a world of constant change, curiosity isn’t just a good-to-have—it’s a must-have for leading with empathy, awareness, and insight. #curiosity #skills #leadership #agility #innovation #collaboration #teams https://lnkd.in/eYy7VUhG

Change isn’t just about strategy—it’s about people. Yet too often, leaders roll out new initiatives, restructure teams, or shift priorities without providing the necessary context, expectations, or support. The result? Confusion, frustration, and resistance. When change lacks clarity, it also lacks two key emotional intelligence competencies: 💡Empathy (Social Awareness): Leaders who don’t anticipate how change impacts their people miss the opportunity to address concerns proactively. Without empathy, employees feel unseen and unheard. 💡Relationship Management: Change requires trust, communication, and alignment. Without clarity, teams struggle to stay engaged, morale dips, and trust erodes. You know what else happens? Key contributors lose confidence when they no longer feel competent in their roles. People don’t resist change—they resist uncertainty. And uncertainty thrives in the absence of clear, emotionally intelligent leadership. And emotionally intelligent leadership lowers the threat threshold of their team. Before implementing change, ask: ✅ Have I clearly explained why this change is happening? ✅ Have I acknowledged the emotional impact on my team? ✅ Have I created space for questions and dialogue? ✅ Have I prepared proper training to support my team? Emotional intelligence isn’t just about staying calm—it’s about leading with clarity, connection, and care. Because when people feel informed and considered, they don’t just endure change—they help drive it. How have you seen EQ (or the lack of it) impact organizational change? Let’s discuss. ⬇️ #emotionalIntelligent #changeManagement

My AI lesson of the week: The tech isn't the hard part…it's the people! During my prior work at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), we talked a lot about how any technology, whether a new drug or a new vaccine or a new information tool, would face challenges with how to integrate into the complex human systems that alway at play in healthcare. As I get deeper and deeper into AI, I am not surprised to see that those same challenges exist with this cadre of technology as well. It’s not the tech that limits us; the real complexity lies in driving adoption across diverse teams, workflows, and mindsets. And it’s not just implementation alone that will get to real ROI from AI—it’s the changes that will occur to our workflows that will generate the value. That’s why we are thinking differently about how to approach change management. We’re approaching the workflow integration with the same discipline and structure as any core system build. Our framework is designed to reduce friction, build momentum, and align people with outcomes from day one. Here’s the 5-point plan for how we're making that happen with health systems today: 🔹 AI Champion Program: We designate and train department-level champions who lead adoption efforts within their teams. These individuals become trusted internal experts, reducing dependency on central support and accelerating change. 🔹 An AI Academy: We produce concise, role-specific, training modules to deliver just-in-time knowledge to help all users get the most out of the gen AI tools that their systems are provisioning. 5-10 min modules ensures relevance and reduces training fatigue.  🔹 Staged Rollout: We don’t go live everywhere at once. Instead, we're beginning with an initial few locations/teams, refine based on feedback, and expand with proof points in hand. This staged approach minimizes risk and maximizes learning. 🔹 Feedback Loops: Change is not a one-way push. Host regular forums to capture insights from frontline users, close gaps, and refine processes continuously. Listening and modifying is part of the deployment strategy. 🔹 Visible Metrics: Transparent team or dept-based dashboards track progress and highlight wins. When staff can see measurable improvement—and their role in driving it—engagement improves dramatically. This isn’t workflow mapping. This is operational transformation—designed for scale, grounded in human behavior, and built to last. Technology will continue to evolve. But real leverage comes from aligning your people behind the change. We think that’s where competitive advantage is created—and sustained. #ExecutiveLeadership #ChangeManagement #DigitalTransformation #StrategyExecution #HealthTech #OperationalExcellence #ScalableChange

Executives and employees continue to tussle over return-to-office and AI adoption. Mandates aren't working, but neither does individual chaos. There's a better path forward. I've been working with senior leaders navigating both workplace flexibility and AI adoption, and here's what's striking: the organizations succeeding at one tend to excel at both. Those struggling? They're making identical mistakes. We're repeating the same management failures: Only 25% of managers are trained to lead distributed teams. Only 22% of firms have clear AI adoption plans. After working with dozens of companies, talking with hundreds of leaders and listening to employee and experts, I've identified four pillars that drive success: 🎯 Talent Strategy: Know your "why" and your "who" before mandating anything: am I after top talent, does deep engagement matter, and if so are we willing to invest in human-centered leadership? 📊 Outcomes-Based Management: Measure results, not badge swipes or tool usage. Clear goals and transparent communication unlock alignment, build momentum, and enable trust. 👥 Team-Centered Approach: Teams are where real transformation actually happens; managers and employees building norms and redesigning how they work together. 📚 Learning Culture: Building learning mindset organizations requires investments in experimentation, iteration and support -- and a mindset that knows you're never "done" getting better at how you work. The companies thriving five years from now won't be those with the "right" hybrid policy or "best" AI tools. They'll be the ones that built cultures capable of evolving with whatever changes come next. But I need your input: Which of these four pillars is your biggest challenge right now? Are you struggling with unclear strategy, activity-focused metrics, top-down mandates, or one-time policy thinking? Full framework and diagnostic tool: https://lnkd.in/gyc9ucNA What am I missing? Where do you see organizations getting this right? #FutureOfWork #Leadership #ChangeManagement

A leadership team I worked with had just wrapped a major strategy retreat. Values were refreshed. Vision was clear. Energy was high. But six weeks later? Alignment had faded. Mid-level managers were overextended. Stress was spiking. Not because the strategy was wrong, but because the team hadn’t committed to the rhythms that would sustain the change. You can’t lead on clarity and operate on chaos. Culture doesn’t stick without rhythm. When we stepped back in, we settled into the Design & Walk phase. The team didn’t need more content. They needed structure. We established new rhythms: -Biweekly leadership huddles focused on decision-making and alignment instead of updates (moving eyes forward). Reshaped 1:1s built around both results and relational feedback (focused on connection and alignment) -Quarterly reset sessions tying strategy to lived experience across teams What changed? (checking for alignment in strategy and culture) Impact? -Decision speed increased -Team energy stabilized -Managers felt more supported -Turnover dropped in key departments They didn’t just need vision. They needed clear support structures to live it out—together. Real results happen when strategic alignment and human connection move in rhythm. 📌 Where does your team need a rhythm that actually reflects what you say matters? #groundedandgrowing #leadershipdevelopment #organizationalhealth #culturebuilding #executivealignment #designandwalk #rhythms #teamstrategy #managerdevelopment