Understanding change
Change management models and the human side.
Three hours on understanding change: testing the evidence, using classic models as lenses, adaptive challenges, resistance as information and sensemaking.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 3 hours
- Where
- Leading through Change and Conflict
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders and managers planning or leading change
Overview
Change is hard, but not for the reasons the popular statistics suggest. This programme tests the claim that seventy per cent of change fails, separates change from transition with William Bridges, and revisits the classic models of Lewin, Kotter, ADKAR and the change curve, treating each as a lens rather than a recipe. It contrasts planned with emergent change through Heifetz, Stacey and Weick, then turns to the human side: resistance as information, ambivalence, loss and immunity to change. It closes on how people make sense of change together, and why middle managers and consistent communication matter so much.
Aims
The aim is to help leaders approach change with evidence and empathy, choosing models with discernment, recognising when a challenge is adaptive rather than technical, hearing resistance as useful information, and supporting the sensemaking that lets people move through transition rather than simply receive a message about it.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain why change is hard, distinguishing change from transition and evaluating the evidence behind the classic models of Lewin, Kotter, ADKAR and the change curve.
- Diagnose whether a change is planned or emergent, technical or adaptive, and interpret resistance, ambivalence and loss as information about what people need.
- Plan change communication that supports sensemaking, equips middle managers and builds trust through a consistent narrative rather than relying on urgency alone.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Explain why the seventy per cent failure claim lacks valid evidence and define what success means before a change begins.
- Distinguish change from transition and diagnose a change's scale using By's spectrum from fine-tuning to corporate transformation.
- Describe the origins and evidence base of Lewin's three steps, Kotter's eight steps, ADKAR and the change curve, and use them as lenses rather than recipes.
- Distinguish planned from emergent elements of a change and decide which parts can be designed and which must be grown.
- Explain how resistance can carry accurate information and how leaders' own actions contribute to it.
- Explain how people make sense of change sideways, and why middle managers act as translators rather than relay stations.
Built from 2 parts.
3 hours of learning.
- 01Why change is hardLewin, Kotter, Bridges and the change curveBitesize3 modules
- 02The human side of changeResistance to change and communicating changeBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Leading through Change and Conflict topic, also sold whole as Through change, together.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 3 hours, £69
- Next stepExplore, Leading change, 6 hours, £129. Already own the Focus? You pay £60.
- The whole topicImmerse, Through change, together, 11 hours, £249. Already own the Focus? You pay £180.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms
Also part of: Change that sticks