If you’re leading change in organizations, this will be your favourite podcast.
Change is harder than ever. Transformation is more complex, unpredictable and ov...
An MBS change tool: Audit what works (and what doesn’t)
Audit your change tools, map them on a 2×2 matrix, and discover your untapped breakthrough approaches. In my first solo episode, I share a practical framework for evaluating your change management toolkit — perfect for transformation leaders who want to boost their success rate. Inspired by my conversation with Carolyn Webb, I suggest creating a consultant's classic tool: a 2×2 matrix plotting usage against impact.
This matrix reveals four crucial insights about your change approaches. Your high-use, high-impact tools are your trusty go-tos, while the low-use, low-impact quadrant shows what you've wisely abandoned.
The most interesting quadrants? High-use with low-impact (why are you still using these?) and the potential goldmine: high-impact tools you're underusing. These underutilized approaches might be your breakthrough opportunity.
Are you clinging to comfortable but ineffective methods? Or avoiding powerful tools because they're challenging? Your transformation's success might depend on your answer.
Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change management.
🎧 New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at thechangesignal.com.
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4:21
Do this ONE thing before you do ANYTHING else: Caroline Webb
Here's why auditing current commitments is essential before launching any new initiative, how to overcome our powerful bias toward maintaining the status quo, and what a 19th-century philosopher's fence teaches us about intelligent transformation.
When leading organizational change, it pays to first understand what's already in motion. In this bonus episode, Caroline Webb, leadership coach, former McKinsey consultant, and author of "How to Have a Good Day," reveals our tendency to add new initiatives without stopping existing ones—and how this leads to burnout and ineffective change efforts.
Drawing from her experience coaching executives and leading organizational transformations, Caroline highlights our blind spot: we don't even know what we're already committed to. She shares a powerful example of mapping initiatives with a hospital CEO's team, where they discovered projects some thought were finished, others no one had heard of, and many with unclear status.
What makes this conversation valuable is Caroline's no-nonsense approach to the change leader's dilemma: you can't add something new without making space by removing something else. Her insight that every choice—including not changing—comes with "prizes and punishments" and provides a powerful framework for decision-making. The audit process she describes helps not only identify what to cut, but also reveals where you can leverage existing work rather than creating something entirely new.
If you're wrestling with overwhelmed teams, wondering how to create space for new initiatives, or trying to focus on what truly matters, this episode gives you actionable tools to audit your current state before embarking on any change journey.
Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change management.
🎧 New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at thechangesignal.com.
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20:24
Your Brain's Dangerous Change Blind Spot: Leidy Klotz
When everyone else is adding, it pays to subtract.
Seems simple enough, but it’s a strategy that’s overlooked and misunderstood, and change projects suffer because of it.
Leidy Klotz reveals this blind spot we all share when looking to make improvements: we instinctively think about what to add rather than what to take away.
Leidy offers practical approaches to overcome this bias, like incorporating subtraction into performance reviews and using "reverse pilots" to test removing processes. As change leaders, we can make subtraction visible by celebrating what we've eliminated.
The conversation with Leidy will help you distinguish your organization by finding the courage to cut what no longer serves you. His insights at the intersection of engineering, architecture, and psychology illuminate why less is often more.
Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change management.
🎧 New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at thechangesignal.com.
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26:12
Why Leaders Keep Making Change Harder: Margaret Heffernan
Here's how to rebuild agency in change-resistant organizations, why euphemistic language kills transformation, and what we can learn from artists about embracing the unknown.
When you're trying to lead organizational change, it's easy to fall into the trap of infantilizing your people - treating them like children who can't handle the truth. Margaret Heffernan, author of "Uncharted" and mentor to global CEOs, challenges us to think differently.
Drawing from her experience running tech companies and advising executives, Margaret shows why most transformation programs fail: we've created management systems that turn people into robots, then wonder why they lack initiative. She shares a fantastic case study from Pixar that demonstrates how to engage your entire organization in solving complex challenges.
What I love most about this conversation is Margaret's no-BS approach to change. She argues that constant change isn't just inevitable - it's literally a sign of life. If you're wrestling with resistance to change or trying to figure out how to give your people more agency in transformation, this episode will give you practical insights you can use right away.
Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change management.
🎧 New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at thechangesignal.com.
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27:52
The High School Secret to Org Change: Katy Milkman
Fresh starts supercharge change initiatives, pre-mortems predict failure points before they happen, and the “movable middle” holds the key to transformation success.
Ever notice how change initiatives start with a bang but fizzle by February? As someone leading organizational change, you’ve probably seen this pattern too many times.
In this episode, I explore these challenges with Katy Milkman, professor at Wharton and author of “How to Change.” She shares a mind-blowing insight: 40% of premature deaths come from changeable daily decisions – which got me thinking about how this applies to organizational transformation.
We dig into practical tools for change leaders, including how to diagnose resistance (spoiler: your assumptions are probably wrong), why traditional change management wisdom fails, and what actually moves people to embrace new ways of working.
Plus, Katy busts one of the most persistent myths in change management. Turns out all that “visualize success” stuff? Not backed by science at all.
Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change management.
🎧 New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at thechangesignal.com.
If you’re leading change in organizations, this will be your favourite podcast.
Change is harder than ever. Transformation is more complex, unpredictable and overwhelming than it’s ever been. Change Signal cuts through the noise to find the good stuff that works.
Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit and organizational transformation student for thirty years, talks to the best thinkers, senior leaders, and experienced practitioners in the world of change, to find what works, what doesn’t, and what to try instead. With Change Signal as your guide, you’ll be more efficient and less overwhelmed, and your change projects will more likely succeed.
Change Signal: Where we cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works.
Sign up for weekly updates at TheChangeSignal.com
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