Masterclass: Designing Organizational Change That Actually Sticks
Summary
Executives and employees experience organizational change in fundamentally different ways—70% of executives feel positive about change versus only 45% of employees. The gap stems from executives' decision-making power and past success with change, while employees face uncertainty and loss of agency. Bridging this 'change distance' using behavioral science is critical to making changes actually stick.
Key Takeaways
- There's a 25-point sentiment gap between executives (70% positive) and employees (45% positive) on upcoming organizational change, revealing a critical communication blindspot leadership often misses.
- Executives reach their positions by succeeding through change and maintain agency as decision-makers, while employees often associate change with negative past experiences like missed promotions or layoffs—creating fundamentally different psychological starting points.
- The 'change distance' between optimistic executives and anxious employees is where change efforts typically fail. Close this gap by understanding employee concerns and designing change to bring them along with agency, not impose it on them.
- Apply behavioral science principles throughout the entire change lifecycle—from announcement through implementation—rather than treating change communication as a one-time event, to ensure sustained adoption.
- Employees experience change as something happening 'to them' with limited control, unlike executives. Restore employee agency by involving them in how change is designed and implemented, not just communicating the outcome.
Related topics
Transcript Excerpt
Executives and employees have totally different experiences of change. When we actually ask executives how they feel about change, almost 70% felt very positive. We didn't even tell them that it was a positive change or not. We just said, "Is a change coming?" and 70% were positive. When we asked employees the same question, only 45% were. Executives have a very different experience with change. >> [music] >> They've usually gotten to executive positions because they've done well in change. And when you're in executive position, you have the opportunity to be a decision maker in the change. Contrast that with being an employee, you might not have had a good experience with change. It might have meant that you didn't necessarily get a position that you were looking for or that there was job…