Change is disruptive, and AI is increasing its pace. Organizations can no longer assume they will move from one period of stability to the next. People are learning new technologies while processes are redesigned, roles shift, and expectations evolve. Often, several of those changes happen at once. Organizations that manage this disruption well can turn adaptability into an operating advantage.
Think about how much has changed in the way you work over the past year. Consider the tools you use, how your team operates, and how quickly AI has become part of everyday work. This pace is unlikely to slow as organizations adopt new capabilities and redesign work around them. The volume of change is already significant. Deloitte's 2026 Global Human Capital Trends research found that one-third of workers experienced 15 major changes in the previous year. Leaders should treat that finding as a signal that managing change is becoming more important, not less.
Change management is often treated as a supporting workstream rather than a core leadership practice. That needs to change. Leaders must build organizations that can adapt continuously without exhausting the people who make each transformation work. In my experience, that capability takes shape within the change itself. For organizations adopting AI or redesigning marketing operations, the stakes are commercial. The value of a new capability depends on whether people can use it effectively, understand their responsibilities, and make sound decisions as their work changes.
Context Helps People Move with the Change
By the time a transformation is announced, the people leading it have spent months researching the problem, debating options, and designing a new way forward. They've had time to question the idea, understand the trade-offs, and see why standing still isn't the right decision.
Everyone else, the ones most affected by the change, gets an announcement, a slide deck, and a training plan. That is a very different starting point. Employees learn about the change while trying to understand what it means for their jobs, their teams, and their futures. And no matter how detailed or informative the announcement communications are, those questions do not disappear simply because the business case is compelling.
"The value of a new capability depends on whether people can use it effectively, understand their responsibilities, and make sound decisions as their work changes."
In many of the change initiatives I’ve led, the change plan was built alongside the solution itself, which can create a false sense of readiness among leaders. Because they’ve been immersed in the context and understand how and why the decision was made, they often mistake clarifying questions for resistance. Most often, this shows up in survey comments, such as “not enough communication” or “I don’t understand why we’re doing this.”
Leaders who recognize that gap give their teams the context needed to engage with the decision. They explain the problem the organization is trying to solve, the options considered, and the thinking behind the path forward. They also leave room for questions before expecting people to advocate for the answer. Part of that conversation is understanding what people value about the current environment. A new system may affect the confidence of someone who's spent years mastering the old one. A redesigned process may change how much autonomy people have in their work. A new operating model may reshape trusted relationships or shift where decisions get made.
When people hesitate, it’s often because they see a potential loss that leaders have not yet addressed. Leaders should ask two questions. “What will this change improve?” and “What do people value today, and how do we help them carry the best of it forward?”
Employees may raise concerns about the technology, the timing, or how the new process will work in practice. Listening past the first objection can reveal unclear responsibilities, missing capabilities, and consequences the design team may not have seen from its vantage point. Used well, those questions strengthen the change before it ships.
Ownership Begins While Options Are Still Open
Organizations often seek employee “buy-in” after the answer has been developed. Effective change management starts earlier, while people still have a meaningful chance to shape the outcome. That early involvement creates shared ownership and helps leaders make better decisions before implementation begins.
Deloitte found that workers were twice as likely to feel negatively about a change imposed by their employer as one they initiated themselves. (Deloitte, "Staying relevant in a world that won't sit still") The finding points to the role of agency in how people experience change. Even when leaders retain decision authority, people want a real chance to influence how the change will work, and their input can still matter.
I’ve seen change efforts stall because of broken feedback loops. Leaders ask for input, receive it, and then nothing visibly happens. Skepticism creeps in when people cannot tell whether they were heard.
Bring people in early enough for their knowledge to affect the outcome. Ask them to test assumptions, identify what could break in practice, and shape how the change will run in their part of the organization. This is how involvement supports better, faster decisions. It surfaces operational realities before they become late-stage problems.
Leaders should also be honest about the boundaries. What’s already decided? What’s still open? Where can employee input make a genuine difference? Clarity builds trust, and so does closing the loop. When feedback changes the plan, say so. When a recommendation cannot be adopted, explain why. People need to know their participation was real and understand how their input shaped the final answer. That is where shared ownership lives.
Early Input Makes Execution Faster
Early involvement accelerates adoption by surfacing problems while there is still time to solve them. It is one reason change management should begin during design rather than after leaders have settled on a solution.
Different changes need different playbooks. Boston Consulting Group’s research suggests that leaders consider how influence moves through the organization, how disruptive the change will be, and how clearly employees can see its impact. (BCG, "From Change Management to Change Strategy") A hierarchical organization may benefit from highly visible leadership. A decentralized one may rely more on respected peer advocates. The level of support should match the impact, from a minor process update to a transformation that reshapes roles or ways of working.
Focused feedback loops bring in the people who understand the work and will live with the result. Their input helps leaders make better decisions faster without adding everyone to every meeting.
Managers are especially important to effective change management. Employees usually experience change through the person who sets their priorities and answers their day-to-day questions. Give managers enough context to discuss what is changing, what will remain in place, and what remains uncertain. Time invested here creates speed later by reducing confusion and the workarounds that follow. It also gives the organization a stronger foundation for adoption.
PMG’s transformation work connects strategy with implementation, with teams working within client organizations to support ongoing testing and learning. Employee involvement gives that work essential operational context. The people who will use a new capability can identify where a proposed workflow conflicts with existing responsibilities and what support they need to adopt it.
Every Change Management Effort Should Build Capacity for the Next
Before announcing a change, leaders should be able to answer a few questions honestly. Who will experience it most directly, and how have they helped shape it? What do people value about the current way of working? Which decisions are fixed, and which can still be influenced? Are managers ready to discuss the practical impact with their teams?
One more question is harder to answer up front. How will we know the new way of working has taken hold once the attention around launch fades?
These questions belong throughout the design process. Going live marks one milestone in a longer effort, and the real test comes after the project team moves on. Change management should leave the organization more capable than it found it. When adaptability becomes part of how the organization operates, each change strengthens its capacity for the next one.
Making Adaptability Part of the Next Change
Leaders can use an upcoming initiative to establish practices that remain useful after implementation.
Test the change with the people whose work will be affected. Before finalizing the design, ask a small group to walk through a real task using the proposed process. Identify where responsibilities become unclear or the change adds work. Explain which decisions they can influence, then show how their feedback affected the plan.
Prepare managers to explain the practical consequences. Give managers time to discuss the change before they introduce it to their teams. They should understand why it is happening, what employees will need to do differently, and where answers remain unresolved. Establish a route for questions they cannot answer and return those answers to the people who raised them.
Define what adoption will look like after launch. Choose observable signs that the new approach is taking hold, such as teams completing work through the intended process or making decisions without reverting to old workarounds. Assign an owner to review progress after 30 and 60 days. Where adoption is uneven, investigate the workload and support needs before drawing conclusions about resistance.
Use those reviews to document what helped people adapt and what should change in the next implementation. Over time, that experience gives leaders a more informed starting point and employees greater confidence that they can shape how change unfolds. As AI accelerates the pace of transformation, this repeatable change management capability becomes a durable leadership advantage.
