Many transformations fail not because the strategy is wrong, but because people are not truly engaged in making it real. Leaders are not fully engaged, communication feels abstract, and people are left to figure out new ways of working on their own. The result is slow adoption, low confidence, and benefits that drift further into the future.
Engage to change is the discipline that turns a good design and a solid execution engine into real behavioural change. It focuses on creating a compelling narrative, building ownership at all levels, and enabling people to adopt and sustain new ways of working so that benefits are actually realised in the organisation.
In this deep dive, we focus on how to design and run the people side of your transformation in a way that is structured, practical, and scaled to a programme context.
This OnPoint concludes our deep dive series into the three disciplines of our best practice Transformation Programme Management framework (Build for high impact, Drive progress, and Engage to change), built on more than 25 years of experience with large scale transformations. After setting a clear transformation ambition and building an efficient execution engine, we now turn to the question of how to mobilise the organisation and sustain the change.
Engage to change is about engaging the receiving organisation through appealing communication, active leadership, and strong local capabilities. We’ll walk through pragmatic, field tested approaches to:
- Prepare for and communicate change
Create transparency on what’s coming, assess change readiness, and design an engaging core story and communication flow that make the transformation concrete for different stakeholder groups. - Help leaders drive change
Clarify sponsorship roles, equip leaders to act as visible change agents, and establish a simple approach to stakeholder management, pulse checks, and ongoing dialogue across the programme. - Build capabilities to sustain change
Identify the critical capabilities needed in the receiving organisation, design focused learning and enablement, and activate local change ambassadors who keep the new ways of working alive after go-live.
You’ll leave with concrete ideas on how to strengthen the people side of your current or upcoming transformation, and how to connect change activities tightly to your transformation vision, roadmap, and execution engine.
We look forward to continuing our exploration of transformation programme management with you!
Missed the first sessions in the series? Watch the recordings: