Name: Pragmatic Change
Author: Mark Winter

Psychology is WEIRD...and that's a problem!

Psychology 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.

Change, LeadershipMark Winter5 May 2026Change, Leadership, Frameworks, Research, Strategy

Your transformation will be remembered for two moments. Are you designing them?

What 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.

There's a risk in your change programme that rarely makes it onto the risk register.

There'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.

Change, LeadershipMark Winter21 April 2026Change, Leadership, Decision-Making, AI, Strategy, AI Strategy

Most change programmes are still built for an organisation that no longer exists.

Most 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…

Does your AI strategy have a coherence problem?

Most 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.

Change, LeadershipMark Winter5 April 2026AI, Strategy, Change, Leadership

Seeing red to learn: what my terrible stock picks taught me about change, innovation and leadership

Years ago in a bout of career boredom, I played the cursed game of picking individual ASX stocks because I thought I could "see the trends coming" and "beat the market"...

Much to the amusement of my Sydney based finance / wealth industry mates, I'm down 74% 😵

But I'm up infinitely in lessons about change, leadership and innovation 📈

Some of the best money I've ever spent!

Performance, ChangeMark Winter21 May 2025Change, change leadership, Leadership

How To Know When Your Change Is DOOMED To Fail...

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.

#changeleadership

#changemanagement

#leadershipdevelopment

Change, LeadershipMark Winter20 August 2024change management, LeadershipComment

Getting out of change overwhelm

"The Executives I speak to these days...are just maxed out with the amount of change they need to lead and the breadth of topics they need to be across"

That was the message from two very well connected 'Board level' colleagues over coffees in the last fortnight.

Change overwhelm: most of us are feeling it. Budget and Board reporting season doesn't help. But what to do about it?

#changeleadership #changemanagement #leadershipdevelopment

ChangeMark Winter14 July 2024Change, Leadership

Hearts and Minds: Measuring Change Progress Through Numbers and Stories

The 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.

Change, LeadershipMark Winter23 August 2023Change, LeadershipComment

Illuminate the Change: Making decisions visibly as a leader

"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.

Change, Leadership, Org DevelopmentMark Winter23 August 2023Change, Agile, LeadershipComment

Leadership and Change: How to empower contribution in harmony

Everyone is considered...but not everyone gets a say

Imagine this: You've got an incredibly passionate team member...raring to go, championing the change and supporting the team. Their energy is infectious...but let's be real, it's not always helpful.

Sometimes that person just isn't close enough to impacted business processes or they lack the technical expertise, to really contribute in a meaningful way. Or maybe, as blunt as it can be, they just aren't respected amongst their peers and colleagues; to the point where their 'brand' affects the change messaging.

Artful leadership will find a way to still harness that enthusiasm and hence our third Principe of Change is "Empower everyone to contribute appropriately"

In this article I walk you through your role as a conductor of the orchestra in change leadership; you cannot play all the instruments yourself (aka: build all the inputs to change), so your role is about helping people keep in synchronisation and to "do their best solo work" when it's their time.

#changeleadership #organisationaldevelopment #leadership

Leadership, ChangeMark Winter25 July 2023Leadership, Change, ConflictComment