Change Management Success in Organizational Agility

I keep returning to Damon Centola’s research on how #change spreads. Not because it’s clever. Because it’s true. Centola found that change doesn’t move like information. You can’t push it through announcements or clever messaging. It spreads through behavior, #trust, and networks. He calls it complex contagion, and it tracks with what I see inside organizations every day. People don’t change because someone at the top says so. They change when they see people they trust doing something new. Then they see it again. Then maybe one more time. That’s when it starts to feel real. That’s when it moves. Here’s what Centola’s research shows actually makes change stick: - Multiple exposures. Once isn’t enough. People need to encounter the new behavior several times from different people. - Trusted messengers. It’s not about role or rank. It’s about credibility in the day-to-day. - Strong ties. Close, high-trust relationships are where change actually moves. - Visible behavior. People need to see it being done, not just hear about it. - Reinforcement over time. Real change takes repetition. One wave won’t do it. This flips most #ChangeManagement upside down. It’s not about the rollout or coms plan. It’s about reinforcing new behaviors inside the real social structure of the organization. So, if you are a part of change, ask your team and self: 1. Who are the people others watch? 2. Where are the trusted connections? 3. Is the behavior visible and repeated? 4. Are you designing for reinforcement or just awareness? Change isn’t a #communication problem. It’s a network pattern. That’s the shift. That’s the work. And that’s what I help teams build.

There are a few approaches to introducing agility into a skeptical organization that seem generally applicable. First, do not use the word "Agile." It's come to mean one of several dysfunctional approaches that can be actively destructive. You want agility, flexibility, creating systems that delight your customers and a workplace that people are excited to work in. Agile™ is irrelevant. People hate Agile™ (which includes Scrum, SAFe, &c.) for good reasons. I'd also avoid the phrase "Agile transformation." Sure, the intent is to change the way the company works (and it's culture), but you don't do that by bringing in an army of zealots who force things down people's throats. That's just bullying. Instead, sit down with upper management and make a list of problems that keep them up at night. Working collaborative, identify the single worst problem. Formulate an experiment that will move you towards (not arrive at) a solution. Try it. Get feedback. Observe effects. If the experiment didn't work as expected, try a different experiment. Repeat until the problem is solved, then start over again from the beginning. The key here is incremental change surrounding specific problems and pain points. Most of the "Agile Transformation" crows (and the people who hire them) have no idea what problems they're solving. Next, focus on fears. For example, people want estimates because they see the development as opaque, and hope that estimates, milestones, &c., will give them a way to monitor progress. They fear that they'll spend millions on a project and get no (or bad) results. The solution is transparency. Management can Gemba Walk to the teams and work with them. When you deliver every couple days, progress is visible. Also, there's a real risk of spending millions creating something that nobody wants. The solution is frequent feedback on frequent small releases (and changing the plan based on that feedback). Work collaboratively with users/customers and talk to them frequently during development. Focus on true *user* stories, that describe problems and concerns that *users* have, not invented solutions. If you have any other advice, feel free to put it in the comments. What's worked for you?

Change Capacity: How to Build It Before You Need It Following my post on change fatigue, I got a few messages asking about proactive solutions. The answer? Deliberately building change capacity before you need it. At one time I was working on successfully implementing a major tech transformation while adapting to regulatory changes and updating the staffing model. Our secret wasn't better project management—it was intentionally building change capacity across three dimensions: 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: We invested in resilience training for all employees, teaching practical techniques for managing uncertainty. Research from MIT shows this approach reduces resistance by up to 32%. 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: We established "change champions"—not just to communicate but to protect team bandwidth and raise the red flag when implementation timing and sequence needed to be negotiated. 𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: Most crucially, we implemented a "change absorption index"—a simple measure of how much change each user group was processing at any time. When a unit approached 80% of their maximum capacity, new initiatives were automatically sequenced. 📊 Quick Change Capacity Audit: - Do people know where to direct their concerns about change overload? - Can managers successfully negotiate implementation timing? - Does your organization measure and track change absorption? - Are change initiatives deliberately sequenced or randomly deployed? The potential ROI is there: imagine faster implementation times and higher adoption rates when change isn't saturated. In today's environment, change capacity isn't just a nice-to-have—it's the difference between organizations that thrive through disruption and those that merely survive. How is your organization deliberately building change capacity? Have you established formal mechanisms or is it still managed ad hoc? #ChangeManagement #OrganizationalResilience #TransformationLeadership #ChangeCapacity

In the last 12 months, Demandbase has increased our product deployments by 50%, while increasing sprint predictability by 30%, and decreasing production bugs by 10%. This required a MASSIVE change management and committing to Full Ownership within the *shift-left* framework. Here are the 5 big lessons we learned in undergoing a company transformation to increase product velocity: 1. Align everything to a “why” Our leaders started by being clear, consistent, and confident on the “why” of the massive change in processes. We need greater velocity. Why? Because we need greater product iteration. Why? Because go to market teams face a lot of challenges and need our product to be more effective. Why? Because our mission is “to transform the way B2B companies go to market.” 2. Develop common vocabulary When you ask people and teams to do new things you need a new common vocabulary to signal and explain the change. This vocabulary needs to be introduced intentionally and modeled consistently by leaders. It’s hard to have massive change without massive change in the way teams communicate. 3. Embrace Detractors & Skeptics early The tendency is to focus on early adopters of change and build momentum from there. The problem is resistance can become entrenched and the longer it persists the more momentum it can take on. This is why it’s important to embrace detractors and skeptics early. Often they have very legitimate concerns or have been burned with something similar before, so they need to be heard and their opinions integrated, but also need to be held accountable to the new standards. 4. Track & Measure participation and desired outcomes It’s critical people involved in the change know what is expected of them and what the desired outcomes are. This requires knowing what the key actions are to track (an example for us was all scrum teams developing a shift-left plan in the Q124) and knowing and measuring the desired outcomes (velocity, predictability, and quality measures were our north stars). 5. Maintain focus We used every opportunity with the team we had to focus on our *shift-left* transformation. Every monthly R&D All Hands, the bi-annual R&D insights, and our annual India R&D keynote. We treated this change as our sole programming in R&D for the year, each event building on the last and making the transformation more tangible. It’s exciting to be a part of a major change management effort that exceeds the goals set out. The immediate business impact is important, but just as important is the confidence built in the team seeing what can be accomplished together. Thank you Umberto Milletti, Jason Muldoon, Luis Teixeira, Ohad Atia, and Sean Malone for being inspirational leaders!

This one change transformed how we build software. And it’s not what you think. ⬇️ Tweaking Our Process to Build Better. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗶𝘁: ● We mapped out our entire workflow ● Identified bottlenecks that were holding us back ● Streamlined every repetitive task. It wasn’t smooth. We hit resistance from the team, and the old ways kept creeping back. But we pushed through by emphasizing small, manageable changes rather than a complete overhaul. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗱: 1. Automated daily stand-ups → Boosted communication 2. Introduced code review sprints → Improved code quality 3. Switched to feature-based squads → Cut down on dependencies 4. Integrated real-time feedback loops → Better alignment on projects (𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗼𝗿𝘆.) ✔️ 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱: ● Change management is a process, not a one-time action. ● Communication is the biggest driver of efficiency. ● Teams need time to adapt and trust new workflows. 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝘄𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻: ● Expanding automation in testing. ● Offering training for our new process. ● Scaling this approach across all our projects. PS: Let me know in the comments if this resonates, or if you have similar experiences! #softcircles #softwaredevelopment #processimprovement #teamwork #efficiency #devops #changemanagement #agilemethodology #communication #nyc

“𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚!” 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙝𝙤𝙬? 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻’𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲. But you can 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 for others to change their mindset. When Toyota joined forces with GM in the 1980s, they set out to take GM’s worst-performing plant and transform its culture. The approach: ❌ They didn’t mandate. ❌ They didn’t force. ❌ They didn't lecture. Instead, they immersed leaders in a new way of working — learning-by-doing, side-by-side with their Toyota counterparts in Japan — to experience what the possibilities of that change could be. One year later, the NUMMI plant was GM's best performing: ✔️ Absenteeism dropped from 20% to 2% ✔️ Quality increased to Toyota’s standards ✔️ Productivity soared and the time it took assembling a car was cut in half In this episode of Chain of Learning, Toyota leader Isao Yoshino — the leader behind the design and delivery of NUMMI’s leader training program in Japan — shares how he and his team (including John Shook) approached training 100s of American and helping them become a "new me". They created the space for leaders to shift their own mindsets — no pushing, no forcing — just powerful opportunities to learn and grow. Because forcing change rarely works. You might get compliance, but not lasting impact. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗲𝘄, 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀. 🎧 Tune in or watch to discover the inside story behind one of the most famous business transformations in history — and how you can leverage these successful principles to lead the changes you envision for your company too. 🎙️ChainOfLearning.com/50 #ChainOfLearning #IsaoYoshino #LeadingToLearn #Lean #ChangeManagement Lean Enterprise Institute #NUMMI Mike Rother