Hello all! Two months ago I posted about what industry information says about the failure rate of change initiatives and the costs associated with initiatives that don’t achieve the desired results. Last month I tackled the question, “If change initiatives don’t seem to be going great, why don’t we change how we ‘do’ change?”

Beginning this month, I will be sharing my perspective on how we can ‘do’ change differently. In this post, I will briefly mention some ideas. In future posts, I will expand on these ideas.

Doing change differently

The essence of how we can do change differently is twofold.

One is what executive facilitator, team coach, and speaker Caroline Kealey calls change accompagnement (a-com-pan-new-mow),. In her Feb 11/2025 blog post What’s next for change? Kealey defines this as walking with, not ahead, in providing support through a challenge or change.

Another is rather than taking an episodic, transactional approach to change the focus is on building long term change capability and self-sufficiency to successfully navigate whatever changes come your way while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of successful outcomes for the specific change initiative you are currently working on. It is like building a kayak to help you navigate the white water of change rather than treating each change as an isolated situation.

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

How does this happen in real life?

Tangible ways to do change this way include in the real world include the following. In my experience much of this work is not part of traditional change work.

• Clear, holistic goals vs unclear change goals
• Compare change goals to your policies, procedures, and ways of working to see if these help or hinder your goals
• Awareness of what you believe about people and change and how it impacts the actions you take / decisions you make do vs operating on sub-conscious beliefs
• Catalogue all changes that have recently taken place, are currently taking place, and will take place in the near future for the people who would be affected by a particular change initiative.
• Co-create change, go to the Gemba, human-centric, participatory change vs. the command and control / doing change to people approach
• Spend more time building ownership, buy-in, and skin in the game vs “telling and training”
• Outcomes/results focused vs. a focus on activities, canned tools, templates, assessments, playbooks, decks, or a particular methodology / way of doing things.

Closing thoughts

I want to hear from you. What are your thoughts about how we can effectively do change differently? Or, do you think there’s no need to adjust?

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

Later this year I will be open to work directly with individuals and organizations on their change initiatives. Feel free to reach out! My contact information is in the Contact section of my blog. I would love to listen and learn about your change management needs and explore how I can be of help.

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

Mike