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Change it up: how structured management can make all the difference to change initiatives
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Change it up: how structured management can make all the difference to change initiatives
Danny Coleman
Published on 3 September 2025
9 min read
Danny Coleman
Published on 3 September 2025
9 min read
Organisational change is crucial for market adaptation, but it often fails due to resistance and poor communication. To improve ROI, take a structured approach to your work management roll-out.
Organisational change, such as implementing new work management tools, integrations, and processes, can feel fraught with risk. Without a coordinated and transparent change management process, there's the potential for chaos, with teams switching things up at different times and everyone on their own page.
But the right work management tools aren't the only consideration. In this blog post, we're exploring the challenges change management can pose and how you can overcome them—from resistance to change and slow adoption to the importance of a change-ready and collaborative culture and clear accountability. Spoiler alert! Many of the solutions involve your people.
But the right work management tools aren't the only consideration. In this blog post, we're exploring the challenges change management can pose and how you can overcome them—from resistance to change and slow adoption to the importance of a change-ready and collaborative culture and clear accountability. Spoiler alert! Many of the solutions involve your people.
What is change management all about?
Having a structured approach to move individuals, teams, and entire departments from one way of working to another is vital to organisations of all shapes and sizes. To meet market demands, technological changes, and customer expectations, you must evolve quickly and effectively while tracking business value.
Change management is how you get from your current state, through a transition state where everyone is figuring out new approaches while keeping business as usual going, and to a future state that will be your new way of working.
And it pays to take a structured approach. Formal change management procedures mean:
Change management is how you get from your current state, through a transition state where everyone is figuring out new approaches while keeping business as usual going, and to a future state that will be your new way of working.
And it pays to take a structured approach. Formal change management procedures mean:
- Higher project success rates
- Faster adoption of new systems
- Greater employee confidence and job satisfaction
- Higher productivity and accuracy
- Lower voluntary attrition rates
- Greater return on investment.
But it's not always as simple as it sounds.
The challenges and complexities of implementing strategic change
Most organisations come up against the following challenges when they embark on a significant transformation initiative, implementing new tools and changing ways of work:
1. Resistance to change—With new technologies like AI, your people might be worried about losing their jobs, disruption to their working practices, and all the uncertainty that comes with that. If you've had multiple change initiatives or ones that have dragged on, they might feel overwhelmed, too.
1. Resistance to change—With new technologies like AI, your people might be worried about losing their jobs, disruption to their working practices, and all the uncertainty that comes with that. If you've had multiple change initiatives or ones that have dragged on, they might feel overwhelmed, too.
2. No clear vision–if you've not defined your objectives clearly, there will be confusion and misalignment. This includes your leadership team. Trust across the organisation can be weakened if they're not consistently involved and aligned on messaging. Make sure you:
- Establish the business case and success criteria
- Articulate the specific business problems the change will solve
- Define the measurable outcomes that prove success
- Identify which processes, systems, and/or behaviours will change
- Explain the timeline so people know what will happen and when
- Align everything with your organisation's business goals
3. Cultural barriers—If people have been working a certain way for a long time, or have a preference for a particular technology within their role or department, where change isn't the norm, those old habits can greatly impact your initiative, undermining efforts and stalling improvements.
4. Communication gaps—Don't keep people in the dark. Unclear or infrequent communication can fuel rumours and create anxiety, making it harder to bring people along on the journey.
5. Resource constraints and skills gaps—an insufficient budget, outdated technology, and a lack of in-house expertise–make executing even the most efficient change management plan difficult.
Ready your culture for change
"Effective change management requires communicating the 'why' at every level." Chief People and Legal Officer Shiran Nawi, monday.com, from the organisation's World of Work report, 2025.
Culture is the foundation that underpins your change initiative. It doesn't matter how well-designed your strategy is if the prevailing culture butts against it. You need to develop a culture that values openness, trust, and adaptability—this will make it easier for employees to embrace change. Your leaders need to align any changes with core cultural values to gain buy-in early on and sustain momentum throughout the initiative.
It's important to know who will be affected by the change, how they feel, and how prepared they are for transformation. This will help you identify where extra support might be needed. Stakeholder insights and readiness assessments are key here. Try to understand people's specific concerns or motivations, and tailor communication, support, and training to suit them.
Culture is the foundation that underpins your change initiative. It doesn't matter how well-designed your strategy is if the prevailing culture butts against it. You need to develop a culture that values openness, trust, and adaptability—this will make it easier for employees to embrace change. Your leaders need to align any changes with core cultural values to gain buy-in early on and sustain momentum throughout the initiative.
It's important to know who will be affected by the change, how they feel, and how prepared they are for transformation. This will help you identify where extra support might be needed. Stakeholder insights and readiness assessments are key here. Try to understand people's specific concerns or motivations, and tailor communication, support, and training to suit them.
Manage resistance to change
Even with all the will in the world, there will be resistance. And that's ok. It's how you manage it that's most important. Here are a few key things to do:
- Track new process adoption—(quantitative metrics like usage patterns and behaviour changes, as well as qualitative feedback). This will help you understand the resistance problem. You can then identify who needs additional support or what adjustments need to be made. Don't skip this even if adoption is relatively high. It's valuable feedback that will help you improve implementation in the future.
- Identify where people are engaging—these will be early indicators of enthusiasm. Where there's lower engagement, people will need more encouragement and support.
- Put interventions in place—be ready to implement additional training, create more resources, and provide assistance so people can get the help they need early on. They will then become champions to help drive adoption by others.
- Don't be afraid to course correct—Good change management means being able to adjust your strategy based on data and feedback. This will improve outcomes for the remaining phases of your change initiative.
Implement robust account governance
Governance provides structure, accountability, and oversight throughout the process. Without it, change efforts can become fragmented, unfocused, or misaligned with your business goals.
Clear governance in place defines decision-makers, transparently outlines roles and responsibilities, and actively manages risks. This allows you to consistently prioritise initiatives, align them with strategic objectives, and efficiently allocate resources. It also builds trust among your stakeholders by demonstrating that progress is monitored and outcomes are measured against agreed-upon criteria.
Clear governance in place defines decision-makers, transparently outlines roles and responsibilities, and actively manages risks. This allows you to consistently prioritise initiatives, align them with strategic objectives, and efficiently allocate resources. It also builds trust among your stakeholders by demonstrating that progress is monitored and outcomes are measured against agreed-upon criteria.
Make sure everyone knows their role
Change happens when everyone understands how they're part of it and what they need to do to make it happen. If you clearly define and track responsibilities, progress is measurable, and any barriers can be easily overcome.
Making everyone accountable for their role in the change process decreases the likelihood of resistance and disengagement. People don't want to be the weak link in the chain. However, leaders need to set the tone to build a culture where promises are kept and outcomes are delivered.
Making everyone accountable for their role in the change process decreases the likelihood of resistance and disengagement. People don't want to be the weak link in the chain. However, leaders need to set the tone to build a culture where promises are kept and outcomes are delivered.
Never stop changing
Change isn't a one-and-done occurrence. And it doesn't stop when you've successfully implemented the tool or changed the process. It requires ongoing reinforcement to ensure the new way of working becomes permanently embedded in your organisation (at least until the next time it changes!).
Ensure you're embracing reinforcement activities, like celebrating adoption by teams and individuals, refining processes based on user experiences, and sharing knowledge. Hence, it's not just a few people who know what's what, and making sure new behaviours are seen as the new normal, not exceptional cases.
Ensure you're embracing reinforcement activities, like celebrating adoption by teams and individuals, refining processes based on user experiences, and sharing knowledge. Hence, it's not just a few people who know what's what, and making sure new behaviours are seen as the new normal, not exceptional cases.
Drive collaboration at every stage
If it's not apparent, successful transformation depends on people working together toward a shared goal. Collaboration creates open dialogue, enabling employees to voice concerns about change, share insights about new tools or processes, and co-create solutions that work for them.
Effective change management provides the structure—through clear communication, defined processes, and supportive leadership—that allows collaboration to flourish. In response, collaborative working builds buy-in, accelerates problem-solving, and ensures diverse perspectives are considered at every stage.
Effective change management provides the structure—through clear communication, defined processes, and supportive leadership—that allows collaboration to flourish. In response, collaborative working builds buy-in, accelerates problem-solving, and ensures diverse perspectives are considered at every stage.
Ready or not, change is coming
Don't fear moving your teams to new tools or elevating your processes, but make sure to choose a strategic solutions provider that can help you follow best practices and support you through the change and beyond. We'll help you embrace change management. As strategic partners of the best-of-breed technology companies, including Atlassian, AWS, monday.com, and GitLab, we can help you transform so you can confidently start making those significant changes to your ways of working and the tools that your teams use.
Written by
Director, Strategic Services and Operations
Danny leads Adaptavist's monday.com Professional Services globally, directing teams that deliver complex system migrations and enterprise work management transformations. He focuses on strategic leadership and clarity, helping global organisations navigate complexity and scale confidently.