Speaking
What if the two biggest obstacles to successful change – Poor Preparation and Resistance – were actually your greatest advantages?
Leaders facing change rarely lack commitment or intelligence. What they often lack is a clear-eyed understanding of where change efforts most commonly go wrong — and practical strategies to address those challenges before they become crises.
Michael Randel has spent more than thirty years working alongside leaders and their teams as they navigate the opportunities and disruptions of change and growth. With experience across more than twenty-five countries and hundreds of organizations, he brings hard-won insights, compelling real-world stories, and practical frameworks that participants can apply immediately — leaving better equipped to lead change with calm and confidence.
Signature Topics
Getting Change Right from the Start:
Four Power Moves for Leaders
The most common reason change initiatives fail isn’t what happens in the middle — it’s what gets skipped at the beginning. When leaders rush past the critical work of preparation, they build on an unstable foundation. The cracks may not show immediately, but they almost always appear.
This session offers a focused, practical deep-dive into the work that every change initiative needs before implementation begins. Through four powerful and interconnected moves — Map, Mobilize, Move, and Message — participants learn how to assess the landscape for change, build genuine stakeholder support, develop a workable plan, and communicate in ways that bring people with them rather than leaving them behind.
Participants will leave able to:
- Explain why preparation is the highest-leverage stage of any change process
- Apply four practical moves to lay a strong foundation for change
- Assess stakeholder readiness and identify potential sources of support and resistance
- Communicate about change in ways that build buy-in from the start
The Power of Pushback:
How Resistance Drives Transformation
When people push back against change, most leaders treat it as an obstacle to overcome. But what if resistance is actually one of the most valuable signals available to a leader?
Resistance is predictable — and that means it can be prepared for, understood, and even harnessed. The key is knowing how to read it. Not all resistance is the same: some stems from confusion, some from genuine concern, and some from a deeper breakdown of trust. Each form requires a fundamentally different response — and misreading one for another is one of the most costly mistakes a leader can make.
Drawing on proven frameworks and real-world stories from organizations across sectors and continents, this session transforms the way leaders think about and respond to resistance — turning what feels like opposition into a powerful driver of lasting transformation.
Participants will leave able to:
- Recognize resistance as a source of valuable information rather than an obstacle to overcome
- Distinguish between different forms of resistance and what each is signaling
- Apply targeted strategies that address the root cause of pushback rather than just the symptoms
- Lead through resistance with greater confidence, curiosity, and effectiveness
The Foundation of High Performance:
Building Psychological Safety at Work
What separates teams that merely function from those that truly thrive? Decades of research point to a single, powerful answer: psychological safety — the belief that a team is a safe place to speak up, take risks, share ideas, and be authentic without fear of judgment or repercussion.
When psychological safety flourishes, the results are tangible and far-reaching. Teams innovate more readily, make better decisions, learn faster from mistakes, and hold onto their best people. Organizations that invest in psychological safety don’t just build better cultures — they build stronger, more competitive, and more resilient businesses.
As a Certified Facilitator of The Psychological Safety Playbook, Michael brings both the research and the practical “how to” into the room. Through interactive discussion and hands-on exercises, participants explore the five building blocks of psychological safety and leave with tools they can apply immediately in the teams they lead or belong to.
Participants will leave able to:
- Explain what psychological safety is and why it is the foundation of high-performing teams
- Identify behaviors that strengthen or undermine psychological safety in their workplace
- Apply practical strategies to build safer, more inclusive team cultures
- Create an action plan to develop psychological safety in their own team or organization
About Michael
Michael Randel has spent more than thirty years helping leaders and their teams navigate the opportunities and challenges of change and growth. He has worked with hundreds of organizations across more than twenty-five countries, spanning corporations, nonprofits, and public sector institutions — bringing the same practical, people-centered approach to every context he encounters.
His work is grounded in a simple but powerful conviction: no change will last if people feel overlooked, disengaged, or fearful. Creating the conditions where people feel genuinely safe to contribute their best thinking isn’t just good leadership — it’s the foundation of every successful change effort he has witnessed in three decades of practice.
Michael is a sought-after keynote speaker, workshop presenter and team consultant. He has spoken with groups large and small across sectors, industries, and countries.
Michael is the founder and director of Randel Consulting Associates, based in Washington D.C., and a Certified Facilitator of The Psychological Safety Playbook. His core framework, the RCA Seasons of Growth™, is grounded in original research and decades of real-world application.
Let's Talk
Whether you’re planning a conference, a leadership retreat, or a team event, Michael would love to hear about what you’re working on and explore whether there’s a good fit.
“Michael creates the conditions where trust develops quickly, perspectives shift, and people leave genuinely changed.”