You wouldn't engage me if you didn't have a financial strategy…so why should I take you seriously if you didn't have a cultural strategy?
A transformation without a functional budget (that's regularly contextualised) is going to fail. Every senior leader knows the financial version of this.
So what is the cultural or behavioural equivalent in your program?
And why do I even have to ask that?!
My answer has a name — and a tool your leadership team can run this week.
Read More2003. First passport photo, frosted tips and all. I'm posting it as evidence of our ability to learn and evolve.
Between 2016 and 2022, employee support for workplace change collapsed from 74% to 43%. A knee-jerk and misguided conclusion: people have lost the ability to adapt.
Human nature doesn't move 31 points in six years. We are built to adapt — it's arguably our defining trait as a species. What broke was the dated playbook, and the collective trust in leaders who stick to it.
The neuroscience remains consistent; we physically change our brains in the right conditions. And not just the part responsible for haircuts...
Please understand: you are better at change than you realise. So is everyone in your organisation.
So what do leaders do about this? My thoughts on Pragmatic Change below 👇🏾
Read MoreAs a busy leader…should I really give a sh*t about your personal problems?
And more begrudgingly: Since when was it my job to be the therapist…? Do all these kids just lack resilience?!
I’m not making these questions up; as an elder millenial with lines blurred between social and professional circles…I’ve heard them all in the past fortnight. From frontline retail shop owner to Biotech CE.
So…do you? Yes - it’s surprisingly “life or death”. (I can back that up, read on)
You can’t fake it and you do have to figure out your own version of “how”.
Thoughts in article and app.pragmaticchange.com.au as your safe rehearsal space with my best attempt at an authentic AI version of me.
Read MoreManager engagement has collapsed to 22% — yet managers are now the single biggest factor in whether AI adoption works. Is it still worth the struggle? Yes, but not the way it’s currently set up.
Read MoreI love the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs.
The best coaches know: at this point in the season, you can't squeeze your players any more. But what is our temptation as leaders, when the pressure is on and all eyes are on us?
I'm sad one of my all time heroes LeBron James is out. But I'm intrigued by what Mike Brown is building in New York. From being fired four times, to (in his first year with the team) making the Finals!
And now, on the cusp of success in a city with notoriously high expectations...he's making it all about the players.
I'm in my own 'playoff series' right now on a project. I just hope I've positioned us right for success.
Read MoreYou know how I'm supposed to open a LinkedIn article. Especially one published on a Monday...who does that?!
Recognisable caricutures from the Boardroom. A leadership vignette. A clever mixture of intruige and just enough panic to make you keep reading...
Instead, I'm compelled to share a gem from my Evernote files, saved during my Masters at the University of Sydney in 2012.
It's from a British physicist named Mark McKergow. He coined a word using Japanese roots because English didn't have one for the concept he needed. It's 2026 and I keep coming back to it.
Because the way most organisations are approaching complex change right now lacks the substance that McKergow was writing about fourteen years ago.
So what does it actually mean to lead complex change in 2026?
Read More49 conversations with Pragma. 190 messages. Two learnings from the data: the first thing people present is rarely the problem, and specificity is the admission ticket.
Read MoreThe Planning Fallacy is the diagnosis. Reference Class Forecasting is the discipline. Why looking outside your own boardroom — at what actually happened to comparable projects — is the single best corrective to inside-view optimism.
Read MorePsychology is WEIRD…and that’s a problem. Not a diversity problem. A validity problem. 96% of the psychological research your change frameworks are built on came from populations representing 12% of the world. Most of it was built on American college students. Then generalised to your manufacturing workforce. Your regional council. Your healthcare organisation. Your university with significant first-generation student populations. And when the frameworks produce mediocre results…we blame resistance. Poor sponsorship. Inadequate resourcing. It might simply be that the framework wasn’t built for these people.
Read MoreWhat two moments will your transformation be remembered for?
Not the months of stakeholder engagement. Not the training rollout. Not the governance forums. Not even that beautiful documentation you’ve laboured over.
Over the long run: The emotional peak. And how it ended.
That’s what the research says. And if you’ve led (or been lead into…) a major change, I’d wager it matches your own memory too.
This is called the Peak End rule and applying it deliberately is one of the most underused lenses in change leadership.
Read MoreThere's a risk in your change programme that rarely makes it onto the risk register. And if you've been watching the AI conversation lately...I can guarantee you've seen it! It's not a toxic leader, hostile stakeholder or external 'threat'.... It's someone capable and well-intentioned...but whose confidence has quietly outrun their calibration. It has a name. David Dunning and Justin Kruger documented it in 1999. Most importantly: before you look around the table and start spotting it in others, there's a quick game worth playing first.
Read MoreMost change programmes are built for an organisation that no longer exists.
The 2005 playbook: appoint a sponsor, hire a change manager, “do comms”, run training, go live…play a Kayne West track and declare success.
That model assumed stable hierarchies. Predictable timelines. Clear authority.
That 2005 world is largely gone. And not just because Kanye has lost the plot.
700 change practitioners across the globe just told us what’s actually coming.
In reading about it and writing this article, I realised I’ve been living it for 20 years…
Read MoreMost leadership teams can’t answer this question…without looking at a slide. Can your leadership team name your 3-6 distinctive capabilities? Then: does your AI investment map to those - or does it map to a desire to look like you’re keeping up? The Coherence Premium isn’t just a strategy concept. It’s the difference between AI that builds momentum and AI that quietly drains it.
Read MoreThere's an essential leadership concept behind why so many hyped AI projects are underperforming.
Your people don’t trust each other enough to share their data...or to do the work to create meaningful, high-quality data.
No trust = no data.
No data = no AI impact.
Let's get back to the bottom of the pyramid; here's Patrick Lencioni's perennial Five Dysfunctions of Team through an AI implementation lens
"What's the first thing I should do for this complex change?"
It's seductive to think there's a "perfect" starting point... but complex change isn't linear—it's a web of intertwined processes and people.
A more effective question is, "What are all the relevant aspects of the change that I should consider?" Here's some shortcuts:
🌏 Think Holistically: Address multiple elements simultaneously rather than sequentially.
📊 + ❤️ Balance Data and Stories: Metrics tell you what's happening; stories reveal why and how.
🤩 Integrate Process and People: Technical solutions need human engagement to succeed.
Complex change demands both the head and the heart. By embracing this duality, you prepare yourself to navigate challenges with agility and authenticity.
Success isn't about a single step; it's about understanding the whole journey to lead with confidence and impact.
A change effort is doomed to fail when the key leaders of the change are arguing from a fixed position of what the 'future state' will look like.
They’ve already decided what the organisation "will be", and now the "change management" is simply getting everyone else on board. In essence, they are trying to win an argument.
And when leaders are focused on winning arguments, they’re not focused on solving the real problems that change management is meant to address.
Great leaders don't take charge and argue...they co-create care and accountability. The fundamentals of how to do that, are in this article.
Read MoreThe comprehensive change leader is one who can engage both "hearts and minds".
Which one do you need to refine? Which one do you need to lift?
Done well, it surpasses mere progress reporting or 'sense making'; it's about profound understanding of the Change and how we need to lead it. Our Seventh Principle is "Measure progress with both numbers and stories" By intertwining data with personal journeys, we attain a panoramic perspective on change, laying the groundwork for more insightful, empathetic, and adept leadership.
"Seeing is believing". And within the organisations we work with, people want to believe; believe in the purpose, believe in their leaders, believe in their own personal convictions about this place that they've decided to commit the majority of their waking hours towards.
When we illuminate our decision-making process, we make our leadership of change believable. That's because we're not just shedding light on the outcomes; we're spotlighting the rationale, the inclusivity, the rigour, and the alignment with organisational values that underpin those outcomes. We’re demonstrating how decisions align with the change objectives and how they contribute to the broader vision of the organisation.
More importantly and on the flipside...in the absence of being told the story, people will make up their own!
Our Sixth Principle of Change is "Make decisions visibly", so this article spotlights some of our favourite decision-making tools and pragmatic tips on how to give a sense of visibility for even the most sensitive of changes.
Read More"Seeing is believing". And within the organisations we work with, people want to believe. Believe in the purpose, believe in their leaders, believe in their own personal convictions about this place that they've decided to commit the majority of their waking hours towards.
When we illuminate our decision-making process, we make our leadership of change believable. That's because we're not just shedding light on the outcomes; we're spotlighting the rationale, the inclusivity, the rigour, and the alignment with organisational values that underpin those outcomes. We’re demonstrating how decisions align with the change objectives and how they contribute to the broader vision of the organisation.
More importantly and on the flipside...in the absence of being told the story, people will make up their own!
Our Sixth Principle of Change is "Make decisions visibly", so this article spotlights some of our favourite decision making tools and gives pragmatic tips on how to give visibility, for even the most sensitive of changes.
Read More"Nice idea...but that doesn't work here"
Fair enough, it's your organisation and your culture...so I'll believe you. But I also take guidance from a Thomas Edison quote: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Neither of us has time or budget for 10,000 failed ways, so let's run some well thought out change experiments and get successful change happening sooner and smoother! In this article I introduce our Fourth Principle of Change, which is underpinned by creativity: "Learn Together through Experimentation." I lay out my top five Change experiments (aka: spoiler alerts for working with me...) and give ways to get started in even the most conservative environment.
If you've got a poor change culture or the 'bad vibes' are still lingering in the hallways from the last organisational change, then I'd argue you can't afford to ignore creative approaches to change; reasons stands that if you do the same things, you'll get the same results. #changeleadership #leanchange #leadership
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