Hello all! Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how to best describe why I’m so passionate about change management. The more I’ve thought, the more it became clear to me that the main reason lies in my personal journey.

A brief personal history

For much of my life I’ve operated under the premise that I’m not enough, that I’m less than, that I don’t have what it takes to “cut it” in this world, that since I don’t have the power within myself to navigate life the power to do so must come from outside of me.

I’ve come to realize that I’ve been operating under false beliefs. Through a variety of life events and experiences, my basic operating system became coded with these malware beliefs. Through a lot of debugging via counseling, reading, recovery groups, a relationship with a Power greater than myself, key people in my life, physical activity, yoga/meditation, and an amazing partner my basic operating system settings have been restored, including:

• I am enough.
• I am equal to.
• I have what it takes.
• I have the power within myself to navigate through life.
• I get to write the story of my life in concert with others.

Every day my actions reflect that I’m somewhere on the continuum of these two belief systems and that my home base has moved from “someone else needs to get me through life because I can’t” to “While I can’t do everything on my own I have power and agency in my life.”

My home base has moved from “someone else needs to get me through life because I can’t” to “While I can’t do everything on my own I have power and agency in my life.”

How my journey relates to change management

And so it is with change management. To date, our discipline mostly reminds me of my former belief system. It operates on principles such as:

• People need to be managed through a change.
• People need to feel like they are involved in the change, but “we” need to create and manage the change and “they” need to adopt it.
• People will inherently resist change, it’s not a great thing, and we need to manage their resistance and get them past it as quickly as possible.
• It doesn’t really matter how people feel about a change, it’s going to happen anyway, people have no choice.

I don’t agree with these principles nor am I a fan of the term “change management”. The essence of what I’m passionate about regarding change is what executive facilitator, team coach, and speaker Caroline Kealey calls change accompagnement. In her Feb 11/2025 blog post What’s next for change? Kealey defines change accompagnement as walking with, not ahead in providing support through a challenge or change.

Walking with, not ahead in providing support through a challenge or change.

Looking to the future

The idea of walking with, and providing support to, through a change aligns with my current home base as a human being. It also fits with my belief that all of us (practitioners and the people we work with) would be better served if we did change management with people rather than to them.

What would happen if the change work we do / actions we take was based on principles such as:

• People need to be intimately involved in the change from the beginning and throughout in addition to “feeling” like they’re involved.
• There isn’t a we and a them or givers and receivers of change, there’s us, human beings taking actions to reach our full potential and achieve personal and business goals.
• Resistance is a thing, but we don’t label people as that or manage them through it. We create an environment where people can share wherever they’re at on their change journey, where they will be heard non judgmentally, and where resources will be available to help them.
• People do have a choice. Choosing to move forward with the change or choosing to not and to look for a better fit inside or outside the company are both viable, positive outcomes.

Closing thoughts

I want to hear from you. What resonates with you about this post? What do you agree and disagree with? What does it make you feel and think about your change work and the change management discipline?

Please post your thoughts and comments below. Let’s help each other become the best change management practitioners and enthusiasts we can be!

Thank you for reading. Until next time, take care and keep up the good work!

Mike