Strategies For Sustaining Change In Teams

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

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

Ever watched a promising change initiative burst out of the gate… only to lose steam a few weeks later? After studying hundreds of transformation efforts, I’ve learned this: it’s rarely a 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 problem. It’s an 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 problem. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘀: • Vague expectations about what “changed behavior” actually looks like • Not enough skill-building to support new actions • Competing priorities that overwhelm capacity • No systems to reinforce or provide feedback • Emotional responses to change left unacknowledged Most leaders try to push harder (but that usually backfires). What looks like 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 is often a signal of unmet needs: 🔹 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗴𝗮𝗽: 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵, 𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘰𝘸. 🔹 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗴𝗮𝗽: 𝘐’𝘮 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘵𝘩. 🔹 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗴𝗮𝗽: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨. Sustained transformation happens when we address 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦—skill, capacity, and emotion—𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦. One school leadership team I worked with reignited a stalled initiative by: ✔️ Adding weekly 20-minute skill-building sessions ✔️ Pausing lower-priority demands ✔️ Naming and normalizing the emotional discomfort of change 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻: What’s one strategy you’ve used to move teams 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 resistance and into lasting change? I’d love to learn from you.👇 P.S. If you’re a leader, I recommend checking out my free challenge: The Resilient Leader: 28 Days to Thrive in Uncertainty  https://lnkd.in/gxBnKQ8n #LeadingChange #ImplementationScience #Transformation #LeadershipDevelopment #EducationLeadership

“They’re being difficult. They just don’t want to change.” Sound familiar? Let’s talk about what might really be going on: change fatigue, not resistance. And if that's the case, your org might be out of shape. Change fatigue isn’t resistance. It’s a warning sign. And it’s time we treated it like one. I recently hosted a session for our internal Change Management Community of Practice. When I introduced the idea of Change Fitness, most hadn’t heard the term, but instantly recognized its cousin: change fatigue. Change Fitness = an organization’s ability to sustain and absorb transformation over time. It’s not about the volume of change—it’s about the impact. Fatigue shows up as disengagement, silence, missed milestones, and cynicism. According to Prosci, change saturation happens when the disruption exceeds your organization’s capacity to absorb it. Imagine a bucket: The size = your change capacity The water = disruption When it spills = it burnout So what’s filling your org’s bucket? • Too many projects, not enough alignment • Communications that confuse instead of clarify • Leaders pushing isolated changes without visibility (or care) into other efforts • No structured CM plan—causing more chaos than calm Here’s what I often see: Leaders label fatigue as “resistance” and double down on “driving adoption” (usually more emails 🙃). But what’s really needed? Relief. Clarity. Focus. That’s where Change Fitness comes in. Just like physical fitness helps us meet physical demands, Change Fitness allows organizations and individuals to meet the demands of ongoing transformation. Instead of asking: “How do we drive adoption?” Try asking: 🔺 “Did we demonstrate the benefits of the last change?” 🔺“Have we responded to what’s draining our teams?” 🔺“Are we reducing friction—or adding more effort?” If you’ve built that trust, reinforced those muscles, and practiced good CM habits, your org will be more fit than most. Ways to build Change Fitness: • Use Prosci’s Change Saturation Assessment • Audit comms to simplify (less jargon, more showing) • Map your change portfolio to catch collision points • Equip managers as coaches, —not just messengers Because fatigue has a voice, it just speaks quietly...until it runs out of steam. Have you seen fatigue misread as pushback?