Change management sounds abstract. Even a little boring.

But if you care about making things better, in your company, your family, your community, or yourself, then you’re in the business of driving change. And the ability to lead and manage that well may be one of the most important skills of the next five to ten years.

In this episode, I unpack why change so often fails, especially in technically minded environments. We default to thinking the strategy wasn’t good enough, the plan wasn’t tight enough, or the tactics weren’t executed cleanly enough.

Sometimes that’s true.

But more often than we admit, change fails because we treat it like a technical problem when it’s actually a human one.

I share how I’ve been thinking about change inside PJ Wallbank Springs, what I’ve learned from watching leaders like Chris Wallbank and Tracy Fletcher take this seriously, and the four conditions that I believe have to be true before real buy-in can happen.

This isn’t a clean framework or a step-by-step playbook. It’s a reflection on what I’m seeing, where I’ve struggled, and what seems to matter if you want change to actually stick.

Topics Covered

• Why leading change may be the defining leadership skill of the next decade

• Proactive change vs responding to external change

• Why most change efforts fail, even with good plans

• The difference between technical complexity and human complexity

• How identity and ego quietly resist change

• Why force and authority don’t create lasting commitment

• The four conditions required for genuine buy-in

• Trust, understanding, belief in direction, and belief in success

• Why meaningful change requires long-term relationship investment

• “Go slow to go fast” in practice

• Applying these ideas across work, family, and personal growth

Closing Thought

Change isn’t a sprint. It isn’t a memo. And it isn’t just better tactics.

It’s deeply human work.

And if we want to build better, we have to treat it that way.

Music: Slow Burn, Kevin Macleod