Strategies for Leading Change
Edwina talks to Tony Lockwood about her experience of leading global business through significant M&A activities. We demystified what "irrational change" actually means and why it matters and talked about real "dos and don'ts" from high-stakes M&A and how we apply them to everyday change leadership.
KEY THEMES
Humans aren't rational — so why is your change plan? Most models assume a logical, rational process. Organisations aren't vacuums; they're noisy, competitive environments where people are cognitively overloaded and running on shortcuts.
We're predictably irrational. Humans look irrational from the outside, but we all take the same cognitive shortcuts — which means behaviour can be predicted and designed for.
People don't hate change, they hate surprises. Surprises make us feel out of control. Give people predictability and you free up capacity to adapt.
M&A is the extreme end of change management. It's where behavioural and cultural change get tested hardest. Every deal is personal — business is human, not rational.
Leadership is the #1 driver of change. You can only achieve as much change as you have leadership for. Change agents have trained leaders badly by taking on the work they should be doing themselves.
ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
Know your value. Every deal exists for a reason — know it, protect it, and don't destroy it in the integration.
Expect surprises — make it a mantra, a piece of team self-talk, not a threat. Reframe problems as opportunities and mistakes as growth ("every day's a school day").
Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Delegate decisions to the people with the best judgment at the sharp end; escalation turns good judgment into poorly informed opinion.
Always tell people what's not changing. Project teams crave recognition and over-state the drama; individuals' worlds are usually more stable than the messaging suggests.
Put in the deal room. See the value case through from the room to end adoption — and recognise due diligence rarely goes deep enough to surface cultural surprises.
Accelerate trust and build empathy. Humans solve subtleties better than any process — relationships are the mechanism, not the obstacle.
Take the space. If you want the promotion, act at the next level up. People adjust to the space you claim.
Never write leaders' communications for them. Leaders are humans first; humans spot inauthenticity at a distance.
DO DIFFERENT
Design for the irrational, not the idealised rational. If your humans make emotional, predictable choices, factor that into the plan — ditch time as the driver and follow conviction instead.
Shift the leader to shift the tribe. Because organisations are tribal, the biggest driver of behaviour change is leadership, not slick communication or another model.
Surprising a stakeholder counts as your failure. Manage expectations so deliberately that "inform rather than surprise" becomes a design principle.
Original Episode: Strategies for Leading Change
