Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Lisa Reynolds:
Are you actually enabling resistance?
When did you last grieve something?
How many individual changes are you actually managing?
Lisa Reynolds leads change management at Christus Health, where her small team punches way above their weight across a massive healthcare system. She's learned that change work is fundamentally about relationships, not processes.
Her approach flips conventional wisdom. Instead of treating resistance as the enemy, she sees it as valuable feedback that can be mitigated by 50% through proactive people strategies. Rather than rolling out enterprise-wide initiatives, she focuses on the individual human experience of walking through change.
The conversation gets delightfully practical. Lisa shares everything from "potty training" (posting flyers in bathroom stalls for busy nurses) to the symbolic power of cutting down dead trees on day one of acquisitions. She reveals why face-to-face communication trumps system emails every time.
But it's her philosophy that shines brightest: change is humanistic at its core. You can't bypass the relationship-building work, and you can't skip the grief process when people leave familiar systems behind.
This is change management stripped of corporate speak and grounded in what actually works with real humans.
Change Signal. Where ambitious leaders seek and find modern change mastery. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works.
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Julie Dirksen’s three key insights about modern change mastery:
most training fails because it ignores immediate relevance;
organizational change temporarily destroys people's competence and professional identity;
corporate learning only addresses logic while ignoring the emotional brain that actually drives decisions.
Julie Dirksen joins me to dissect why most corporate training feels like "high school, but worse." She's spent years figuring out how to design learning that actually changes behavior, not just fills heads with information.
Her printer repair experiment reveals why engagement isn't about jazzing up content—it's about timing and immediate application. When your printer's broken and you need it fixed, suddenly that boring YouTube video becomes fascinating.
But here's what really stuck with me: change doesn't just alter what people do, it shatters who they are. Take someone who's unconsciously competent at their job and force them to learn new processes, and you've just broken their professional identity.
Julie introduces the elephant-rider metaphor to explain why purely rational training approaches fail. Your logical brain might understand why change is necessary, but your emotional, experiential brain—the elephant—often has other plans.
If you're leading transformation efforts and wondering why smart people resist obviously good ideas, this conversation will shift how you think about supporting behavior change in organizations.
Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change. If you’re a transformational leader seeking modern change mastery, you’re in exactly the right place.
***
WHEN YOU’RE READY
🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)
The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly
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💜Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
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27:09
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27:09
Your Brain on Change: Prof Dan Cable
Here are three big questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Dan Cable:
Are you leading with fear-based management?;
How much "freedom within the frame" are you offering? and
How do you use dopamine to best fuel your change efforts?
Dan Cable, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at London Business School, argues that as the world moves faster, leaders can no longer afford to use fear as the primary tool to drive change.
The conversation explores how neuroscience reveals what actually works in transformation. Cable introduces his "seeking system" concept — a part of our brain that's naturally wired to love learning and minimize future surprise.
You'll discover why organizations systematically beat curiosity out of people, even though curiosity is exactly what they need for change. Cable shares practical examples, including a fascinating KLM social media experiment that cost just €10,000 but generated over a million visits.
The discussion challenges conventional wisdom about control, compliance, and execution. Instead of trying to turn humans into robots, Cable suggests we embrace the messy, unpredictable, emotional reality of how people actually thrive during change.
Change Signal. Where transformational leaders find modern change mastery. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works.
***
WHEN YOU’RE READY
🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)
The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly
***
CONNECT
💼Connect on LinkedIn
***
SAY THANKS
💜Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚Leave a review on Spotify
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24:14
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24:14
Three Paths Through Failure. A CEO, a counsellor, a consultant
A CEO, a counsellor, and a consultant share a key question each about change:
How do you really make things safe for people?
Could powerlessness actually, ironically, be a superpower?
What’s the difference between guardrails and control layers?
What if everything you know about leading change is backwards? Garry Ridge turned WD-40 into a global phenomenon by doing something that sounds like career suicide — actively encouraging people to share their mistakes.
Ian Cron watched a wildly successful private equity executive hit rock bottom and say five words that changed everything: "I'm out of ammo." That moment revealed why admitting powerlessness might be the most powerful thing a leader can do.
Mark Smith faced a massive change initiative spiralling toward chaos with 280+ people across multiple programs. Instead of adding more governance, he did the opposite — gave teams complete autonomy within clear boundaries.
If change has ever felt like you're pushing water uphill, you'll find something here that flips the script. These aren't your typical change management playbooks. They're counterintuitive approaches from a CEO, a counsellor, and a consultant who've learned that sometimes the path to transformation runs directly through what feels like failure.
The insights might make you uncomfortable. That's probably a good sign.
Change Signal. Where transformational change leaders seek modern change wisdom. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works.
***
WHEN YOU’RE READY
🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)
The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly
***
CONNECT
💼Connect on LinkedIn
***
SAY THANKS
💜Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚Leave a review on Spotify
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21:59
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21:59
Should You Lie About Change? Michael Bungay Stanier solo episode
The three key insights from this episode: change is orienteering through unknown territory, not following a GPS route; organizations are addicted to efficiency when they desperately need experimentation; and the best experiments are designed to fail safely, not succeed predictably.
I'm diving solo into why small experiments might be the only sane approach to change in these chaotic times. After 30 years in this game, I've learned that "change management" is mostly a delusion — you can't manage your way through the unknown.
Most organizations want Google Maps for transformation, but what we're actually facing is orienteering through a misty valley with no clear path. Your company is probably designed to exploit what it knows, not explore what it doesn't, which creates a fundamental tension for anyone trying to lead change.
I'll walk you through what makes a good experiment, share some strategies for convincing skeptical stakeholders, and explain why you might need to run "two books" — one official, one real. Plus, why kindergarteners consistently outperform MBA students at innovation challenges.
If you're tired of change plans that feel more like wishful thinking than actual strategy, this episode offers a different way forward.
Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change and transformation.
***
WHEN YOU’RE READY
🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)
The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly
***
CONNECT
💼Connect on LinkedIn
***
SAY THANKS
💜Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚Leave a review on Spotify
If you’re leading change in organizations, this will be your favourite podcast.
Change is harder than ever. Transformation is more complex, unpredictable and overwhelming than it’s ever been. Change Signal cuts through the noise to find the good stuff that works.
Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit and organizational transformation student for thirty years, talks to the best thinkers, senior leaders, and experienced practitioners in the world of change, to find what works, what doesn’t, and what to try instead. With Change Signal as your guide, you’ll be more efficient and less overwhelmed, and your change projects will more likely succeed.
Change Signal: Where we cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works.
Sign up for weekly updates at TheChangeSignal.com
Ireland