Setting Your Change Initiative Up for Success
Dear Change Leader,
“We don’t have time to plan—we need to act now!”
If you’ve felt this pressure, you’re in good company. The urgency to launch, to show progress, to respond to mounting demands—it’s real. Unfortunately, it’s often exactly what derails change before it has a chance to succeed.
Most change initiatives don’t fail in execution. They fail in preparation. But preparation doesn’t mean endless planning. It means paying attention to four essential moves that create the conditions for success.
Move 1: Map Your Landscape
Before you can chart a path forward, you need to understand where you’re starting from. A context map helps you see the forces shaping your current situation—internal dynamics, external pressures, and historical patterns that will influence how change unfolds.
Example: A nonprofit executive facing budget cuts spent two hours with her leadership team mapping their situation. They discovered that what seemed like a funding problem was actually connected to board relationships, staff turnover, and shifts in their donor base. Instead of across-the-board cuts, they restructured programs around emerging donor priorities.
What You Can Do: Gather your team for 60 minutes. Ask: “What are all the factors contributing to our current situation?” Capture everything. Look for connections you hadn’t noticed.
Bonus! Create a Context Map together.
Move 2: Mobilize Your Stakeholders
Every change has champions, resisters, and many who are waiting to see which way the wind blows. Knowing who stands where—and why—is essential. A stakeholder assessment reveals not just positions, but underlying interests that allow you to address resistance before it hardens.
Example: A department head planning a process change assumed his biggest obstacle would be the operations team. His assessment revealed that the real resistance came from a peer leader who felt blindsided. One honest conversation about shared concerns turned a potential adversary into an advocate.
What You Can Do: List ten people or groups most affected by your upcoming change. For each, ask: “What do they care about that this change touches? What would make them a supporter?”
Bonus! Collaborate on mapping your stakeholders.
Move 3: Move with a Flexible Plan
Notice I didn’t say “create a detailed plan.” Change rarely follows a straight line. What you need is a plan that provides clear direction while remaining adaptive—one that tells you where you’re headed without locking you into decisions you’ll need to revise.
Example: A CTO preparing for a system migration created a “planning horizon” approach. She mapped the full journey in broad strokes but only detailed the next 30 days. As each phase came to completion, she detailed the next. Her team stayed focused while adapting to inevitable surprises.
What You Can Do: For a current initiative, identify your destination and your first three concrete steps. Resist the temptation to plan further than you can reasonably see how things are proceeding.
Bonus! Develop a context-informed plan.
Move 4: Message the Change
How you communicate matters as much as what you communicate. Too often, leaders announce changes and assume their work is done. Real messaging is ongoing, multidirectional, and honest about uncertainty.
Example: When a hospital administrator needed to restructure clinical teams, she began with small group conversations before any formal announcement. She shared the “why” first, acknowledged what was uncertain, and asked for input on implementation. By the time the announcement came, most concerns had already been heard and addressed.
What You Can Do: Before your next change communication, ask: “What do people need to understand? What questions will they have? What am I still uncertain about?” Let these questions shape your message.
Bonus! Clearly Communicate Change.
The Foundation Matters!
These four moves—mapping, mobilizing, moving, and messaging—aren’t sequential steps to complete and forget. They’re practices to return to throughout your change process. The time you invest in preparation isn’t time away from “real work.” It’s the work that makes everything else possible.
Until next time,
P.S. I’m speaking at a state-wide Leadership Conference this week on this very topic. If you’re navigating a significant change and would like to think through how these moves apply to your situation, I’d welcome a conversation.
Recent Articles
Read other editions of this newsletter for further insights:
- “The Fatal Flaw of ‘Ready, Fire, Aim‘” explores the hidden costs of skipping preparation and introduces the pre-mortem technique.
- “The Leadership Trap That Creates Tomorrow’s Crises” addresses temporal discounting and practices for reclaiming the future.
- “The Pathfinder Approach: Leading When You Can’t See The Full Trail” offers ideas for navigating uncertain terrain.
EFFECTIVE CHANGE RESULTS FROM INTENTIONAL LEADERSHIP
We’re a leadership and organization development consultancy. My team and I work with leaders like you to prepare for and lead successful change processes.
Here’s why our clients call us:
- Leadership Coaching: I support leaders as they navigate transitions into new roles or expanded responsibilities.
- Group Coaching and Learning Programs: Bringing groups of leaders together, I facilitate learning experiences and months-long programs that equip people to be effective change leaders.
- Effective Teams and Stronger Organizations: I work with leaders and their teams with tailored processes that increase their effectiveness, building layers of aligned teams that transform organizations.