Three key insights from Anne Gotte: change management is as outdated as "personnel" organizations must diagnose their change allergies before attempting transformation; and leaders need to embrace clumsy imperfection while providing clear direction.

Anne Gotte is SVP Global Talent & Organization Effectiveness at Mondelēz and she brings refreshing honesty to the messy reality of organizational transformation. She's worked at Bumble, Ecolab, and General Mills, collecting scars and wisdom along the way.

This conversation challenges the traditional playbook. Anne argues that "decree change" — where executives design solutions in isolation, announce them broadly, then expect magic — as well and truly reached its expiration date.

Instead, she advocates for building ongoing change capacity rather than managing episodic projects. Her approach starts with uncomfortable questions: Who are we today? What makes any change difficult for us? How do our systems contradict our change story?

The discussion explores why change feels clumsy (spoiler: it's supposed to), how to honour uncertainty while providing clarity, and why slow can actually be fast. Anne's insights about getting comfortable being uncomfortable offer a different path forward for change leaders tired of pretending transformation should feel orderly and predictable.

This is change leadership for grown-ups who've learned that the mess is actually the work.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change and transformation.

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Three key insights: Change work isn't transformative anymore—it's operational; your organization does everything the same dysfunctional way; and everyone secretly benefits from broken patterns.

My guest, Rodney Evans from TheReady, has abandoned talking about "adaptability" because people's eyes glaze over. Instead, she starts every conversation with leaders by asking about their gnarliest cross-functional problem that can't be solved.

Why does this work? Because everyone has experienced that moment where important work gets "chopped up, parceled out across the org chart where it goes to die."

Rodney introduces her depth-finding model — four organizational zones from sky to midnight that reveal how change actually happens. The insight that stopped me cold: how your organization does hiring is how it rewards, makes strategy, and handles everything else.

A particularly uncomfortable truth? Broken organizational patterns persist because everybody gets something out of them, even while complaining. The solution involves naming the pattern and stepping outside it through small interventions in how work actually gets done.

This conversation will shift how you see organizational change from discrete projects to continuous evolution. If you're tired of the same problems recurring, Rodney Evans offers a different way forward.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change, transformation, and growth.

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Could it be that your strategic planning is actually paralyzing you, your biggest critics hold the keys to breakthrough innovation, and the military metaphors you're using to lead change are fundamentally broken?

Charles Conn, former McKinsey partner, former Head of Rhodes House, and current chair of Patagonia's board, brings a provocative challenge to how we think about transformation. He argues that our obsession with perfect planning is the enemy of progress in uncertain times.

Instead of waiting for clarity, Conn advocates for small, reversible experiments that build capability while you learn.

But here's also what’s true: you need to actively seek out the people who aren't impressed by you — the unhappy customers, the skeptical colleagues, the ones giving you one-star reviews.

Conn shares a powerful framework for breaking overwhelming problems into manageable parts, focusing on high-impact, low-difficulty components. He also reveals why Amazon never bought a bank to enter financial services, and how two Stanford students disrupted orthodontics by seeing through their customers' eyes rather than the industry's.

This isn't theoretical change management — it's battle-tested wisdom from someone who's led transformation at scale and lived to tell the tale.

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Discover why emotional "monsters" sabotage change projects, learn the "fight it three times" rule for managing upwards, and understand why grief is the most overlooked emotion in transformation work.

Molly Graham has scaled teams at Google and Meta, and now runs Glue Club for startup operators. She brings hard-won wisdom about the messy human side of change that most leaders pretend doesn't exist.

The conversation digs into why competing visions create "zebra-giraffe" disasters and how to craft clarity that actually sticks. Molly shares her mentor's brilliant approach to influencing stubborn bosses without burning bridges.

What I thought was most powerful? Her insight about work grief. Leaders race ahead to the future while their teams are still mourning what they're losing. It's the marathon effect — you've crossed the finish line while everyone else is still running the race.

Oh, and then there's Bob. Molly's personification of the emotional chaos that comes with any change, good or bad. Once you meet Bob, you'll never look at resistance the same way.

This isn't your typical change management playbook. It's real talk about the loneliness, emotion, and community that make or break transformation efforts.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change, transformation, and growth.

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Why does nobody care about your billion-dollar vision, what can Chick-fil-A teach you about bottlenecks, and how does fixing one problem always create another?

Dan Heath drops some astute and provocative truths about change leadership that'll make you rethink and reset your approach to change. First up: your carefully crafted corporate vision probably sucks because it's all about hitting numbers instead of serving real people.

Heath's blunt takedown of “corporate visions” is just a warm-up. He reveals how the theory of constraints can reset your change strategy by focusing obsessively on the single biggest bottleneck … and he tells a great story about Chick-Fil-a to make the point

Here's the bad and the good news: solving constraints is like organizational whack-a-mole. Fix one bottleneck and another pops up somewhere else. And that gives your change process focus. 

This isn't your typical transformation advice – it's provocative, practical, and grounded in real stories that'll change how you think about leverage points. Heath challenges the sacred cows of change leadership with insights you won't hear anywhere else.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change, transformation, and growth.

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Most change programs get the sequence backwards; uncertainty secretly sabotages willpower; and using your non-dominant hand might triple your success rate.

My guest, Roy Baumeister, is one of psychology's rock stars, and he's spent decades studying what actually works when it comes to willpower and behaviour change. Turns out, we've (mostly) been doing it wrong.

Here's the thing: everyone assumes you need to change minds before you change behaviours. Roy's research suggests the opposite. Get people acting differently first, and their attitudes will follow.

Here's where it gets really interesting. Your people aren't running out of willpower during change — they're hoarding it. When uncertainty creeps in, our brains go into conservation mode, making everyone look resistant when they're actually just being smart.

There’s a surprising way around that. Start ridiculously small. Roy's former student had people practice tiny willpower exercises — like opening doors with their non-dominant hand — before tackling smoking cessation. The success rate tripled.

If you're leading transformation in a large organization, this episode will flip your assumptions about human behaviour, willpower, and what actually drives lasting change. Sometimes the smallest interventions create the biggest shifts.

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What if the pain you're pushing through is actually the data you need; resilience programs are burning billions on the wrong problem; and there's a psychological theory that could transform your change work, but almost no one in business knows about it?

Here's the uncomfortable truth: we're living in a "chaos era" of chronic, compounding stress that our bodies weren't designed for. Traditional resilience — that "bounce back" mentality — was built for isolated crises, not the relentless multi-domain pressure your people face daily.

As a change leader, it’s time to go beyond resilience … for you, your team, and for the people who you’re inviting through change.

Dr. Tasha Eurich’s new book "Shatterproof" challenges the foundation of how we approach resilience.

She reveals why 95% of large organizations are investing in resilience programs that aren't working. The real issue? We're ignoring three fundamental human needs rooted in Self-Determination Theory: confidence, choice, and connection.

When these needs get frustrated, people develop "shadow" behaviours that sabotage your change efforts. But there's a four-step process to help your people become "shatterproof" — not just surviving change, but growing forward through it.

This isn't about adding more wellness programs. It's about fundamentally reimagining how transformation actually works in the human psyche.Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change and transformation.

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Could it be that the biggest barrier to change isn't resistance from others, but three voices in your own head? And what if taking action too quickly is actually making everything worse?

Otto Scharmer, creator of Theory U and MIT lecturer, reveals why most transformation efforts fail at the deepest level. The problem isn't strategy or resources—it's that we're fighting internal enemies we don't even recognize.

Scharmer identifies three forces that sabotage every change leader: the voice of judgment (killing creativity), the voice of cynicism (creating emotional disconnect), and the voice of fear (keeping us trapped in old patterns). Recognizing these voices is literally fifty percent of the battle.

But here's the real kicker: he argues that our obsession with action is backfiring. When we jump from challenge to immediate response, we're just reacting—and reactive responses are the number one problem in organizations today.

The alternative? Learning to "let go and let come"—creating space for genuinely new solutions to emerge rather than recycling the same old approaches.

This isn't fluffy theory. Scharmer shares practical exercises (including one "brutal" MIT practice) and explains why the interior condition of the change leader determines whether interventions actually work.

If you're tired of change initiatives that create more problems than they solve, this conversation will shift how you think about transformation forever.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change, transformation, and growth.

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Learn why trust is contextual, resistance signals engagement, and successfully navigating change requires embracing uncertainty.

In this episode of Change Signal, I dive deep with Rachel Botsman, the world's expert on trust and Oxford University fellow, to explore how trust enables change — and how change can damage trust.

Rachel challenges us to identify our organization's "trust states" and segment our communication accordingly, just as marketers would.

What if those resistant employees aren't difficult, but deeply invested? What if your real trust influencers aren't who you expect?

I love Rachel's definition of trust as "a confident relationship with the unknown."

It elegantly captures the tension at change's heart and invites us to develop what Keats called "negative capability" — holding space for ambiguity instead of rushing toward false certainty.

For change leaders obsessed with acceleration and momentum, Rachel offers a provocative counterpoint: perhaps fragility, care, and patience need to become part of your change vocabulary.

Because as she memorably puts it, "Move fast and break things. Worst mantra ever. Don't break people."

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change, transformation, and growth.

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Discover how a simple three-role model can reveal dysfunctional patterns, what your least-played role says about your biggest triggers, and which powerful questions can transform strained relationships during change.

In this LinkedIn Live, I dive into the Karpman Drama Triangle—a model I've used for 30+ years as both a self-management and change management tool.

We all play Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer roles, especially when stress levels rise during transformation initiatives. The question isn't if you'll fall into these patterns, but how quickly you can notice and exit them.

Here’s a killer insight: The Rescuer might seem heroic, but this role creates victims and disempowers those around you. (Sound familiar?)

Listen to the full interview to find the three questions that can pull you out of the Drama Triangle.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change, transformation, and growth.

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