{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"We Not Me","title":"Why change fails and what leaders can do to get a different result - with Michael Lopez","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2220,"description":"Episode Summary\nMost transformation programmes are built around the hardware of an organisation: the systems, the ERP rollout, the AI licences switched on and handed out. Michael J. López, consultant, author of CHANGE, and the person behind a new national workforce study of 1,000 workers, has spent two decades delivering that traditional playbook, and the last five trying to change it. His starting point is simple: when his team asked employees for the top five things they get from their company during change and the top five things they actually need, the two lists had nothing in common. What people get is the stuff done to them. What they need is the stuff done by them.\nThe conversation with Dan and Pia moves from diagnosis to what leaders can actually do differently. Michael names the \"failure minimisation cycle,\" where everyone downplays how hard change will be to get budgets approved, which leaves people under-resourced and more cynical each time. His alternative is to treat change as a capability rather than a project: stress-tolerant cultures, executive teams that genuinely lead together, goals people feel they've contributed to, and progress measured through behavioural inputs and stories as well as hard outputs. It's an honest episode about why change takes 18–24 months, and why pretending otherwise costs more.\nKey Themes & Takeaways\nIn Michael's study, the top five things employees receive during change (emails, communications, training) had zero overlap with the top five they need (experimentation, room for productive mistakes, coaching, leaders going first, the right environment).\nThe \"failure minimisation cycle\" is well-intentioned but corrosive: underselling complexity to win approval leaves people under-resourced, so change feels harder than promised and trust drops with every programme.\nTreat change as an organisational capability, a muscle built over time, rather than a project with an end date, because the next change is always coming.\n65% of...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/cTxm0uMo1AuvRTsg1GhIjdn998MJJQ_xMMLaqK_LTcA/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8zOTk3/MThmYWIxNDllNjc2/YzEwZjVhOWNmZjVm/ODNmNi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}