Change Management is boring

The Change Practice Reputation is on the Line

Last week, I spent a full VIP day with a senior transformation executive, shaping the talent and capability needed before a large transformation program kicks off.

We were mapping the team across the timeline, not just “who’s in the room on day one, but who needs to be present at each milestone.

Transformation lead.

Change leadership/enablement.

Customer experience.

Service design.

Process.

Business architecture.

AI architect.

Delivery.

Governance.

The full system.

The full system.

At one point, we got onto the role of change, what it needs to look like, how it needs to be resourced, and what support it will require to actually land outcomes.

And he said something that stuck with me:

“Jess, I get it… But what I’ve seen time and time again is that change management is so damn boring and traditional that I’m not sure I want to invest in full-time change leads for that. I know the value of change, but the talent has always delivered less than the promised outcomes of true change leadership. Maybe with you it will be different, I’m just saying what I have seen the last five years.”

Ouch.

Not because he was being rude.

Because he was being honest.

And if I’m honest? I’ve felt the same frustration.

We stayed with it for two hours, clarifying what the program truly needs, what “good” looks like, and what two-way support and buy-in actually mean. And yes, the kind of change lead we had in mind was hard to find (as expected).

But today isn’t about talent.

It’s about the bigger issue behind his comment.

Because this critique is showing up everywhere:

Change management as a discipline is facing a credibility problem.Many leaders now experience it as boring, formulaic, and back-seat, especially in high-stakes transformations. The result is scepticism: “Is this a strategic capability… or a set of documents?”

So…

Why has change management earned this “boring, back-seat” reputation?

Below are 10 patterns I see repeatedly in most organisations. Not always. Not everywhere. But often enough that the reputation has become predictable.

1) Change as a companion to delivery

Change gets positioned as “support” something to help deliver what’s already been decided. When it’s placed behind delivery, it rarely shapes the conditions of success early enough to matter.

2) Change as a reporter on resistance and heat maps

A familiar cycle plays out: stakeholders are “mapped,” resistance is “tracked,” and heat maps are presented. And then… nothing changes. Information becomes reporting, not movement. Resistance becomes a dashboard item, not a leadership conversation with next steps.

3) Change stuck in terminologies and templates that lost their meaning

Plans, checklists, comms calendars, and engagement decks are often built from old language and old assumptions. But transformation today demands depth, speed, and personalisation. Static templates don’t hold the weight of constant change and complex human dynamics.

4) The victim mindset and avoiding the hard talk

A real example: a change director did all the “right” prep work, strategy, comms, and engagement planning. Then, when asked about alignment and blockers, the answer was:“One of the C-level leaders isn’t onboard.”

That was it.

No next step.

No diagnosis.

No escalation with options.

No plan to shift conditions.

Just a complaint, as if the problem is tossed around and belongs to someone else.

5) Change isn’t supported, and practice doesn’t compensate for the gap

In many organisations, change is under-resourced, under-sponsored, and brought in late.

At the same time, some change practitioners rely on activity volume (more comms, more workshops) to compensate for a lack of mandate, influence, or access. That combination produces work that looks busy… and feels ineffective.

6) Change management is a victim of its own name

“Change management” carries a quiet message: administration, documentation, coordination, compliance. Even when the intent is leadership and enablement, the label pulls the function toward the back seat, and the organisation treats it accordingly.

7) The really good ones are known by name, and they’re taken

The strongest change leaders often move through networks and reputations. They get requested by name. They get “held onto”. That’s not a compliment to the practice. It’s a signal that in many places, change is still carried by heroes, not embedded as a reliable organisational capability.

8) The rise from supporter to strategic driver is needed, and it’s not about frameworks

The next step for the profession isn’t another model. It’s being able to influence real decisions: sequencing, trade-offs, sponsorship behaviour, capability investment, operating rhythm, and reinforcement mechanisms. Without that, change stays in output-land.

9) Change isn’t measured, or it’s measured in ways that miss the point

In many organisations, change success is assumed when comms are sent, and training is delivered. But adoption is behaviour. And behaviour can be measured: usage, adherence, time-to-proficiency, shifts in customer experience, performance deltas.

When measurement is missing, change remains “fluffy” in the eyes of leadership, even if the work is valuable.

10) The heavy lifting gets avoided, and “people stuff” becomes a hot potato

Here’s the truth most teams know but rarely say out loud:

The hardest issues are human: power, trust, fear, identity, loss, incentive conflict, and leadership misalignment.

Too often, those are passed around from sponsor to project, from project to change, and back to sponsor until no one is holding them. And very few people put real skin in the game on the human issues, because it’s politically risky work.

This isn’t only a “change” problem. It’s multi-faceted.

If we reduce this to “change managers need to be better", we miss what’s actually happening. Five systemic problems keep reinforcing the “boring, back-seat” outcome:

1) The name and the practice haven’t moved modern and practical enough

Language shapes status. And practice shapes belief. When the visible outputs look dated, the function gets dated.

2) The value is misunderstood and undervalued

Saying “we have change support” means very little. What matters is whether change is actively increasing adoption, reducing drag, and lifting outcomes.

3) Culture and people dynamics are avoided or outsourced

Many leaders want transformation without the discomfort of culture work. Yet the program pays for that avoidance later.

4) The compensation and mandate often don’t match the expectation

High emotional labour. High political complexity. Limited authority. Limited reward. That mismatch drives safe behaviour, not courageous leadership.

5) Where change sits is wrong

If the change starts after the project starts, it will always be behind.

Change needs to run head-to-head with delivery from the earliest shaping stages, not as a service function, but as a core success lever.

If that executive’s comment stung, it’s because it points to something real:

A lot of “change management” has become a tick-the-box layer of comms plans, training sessions, engagement workshops, while the deeper work (alignment, influence, reinforcement, culture) stays undercooked.

And when organisations are living in a continuous flow of change, fatigue rises fast. In that environment, no amount of comms or stakeholder maps will magically fix overload. Pacing and prioritisation become part of the change work, whether anyone names it or not.

So here’s the question worth sitting with:

If your transformation is high-stakes, what are you actually buying when you hire “change”? Deliverables… or outcomes?

Last word: If you’re in the Change space and you’re satisfied that your practice is “good,” pause. What would it take to make it great? Because “good” isn’t enough anymore.

Stakeholder Management Playbook Is Outdated

We are back with our monthly Masterclasses designed to elevate Change and Transformation practices for practitioners, leaders, and executives.

Inside the Transformation Leadership Institute, we don't just talk about theory; we practice what we preach.

And this month, the masterclass is about Stakeholder Psychology Mastery.

We are going to dismantle the "standard playbook" of engagement that relies on logic and slides, and replace it with the psychology required to move human beings. You will learn how to decode the hidden "Red Zone" fears blocking your stakeholders so you can design and master effective interventions that turn resistance into genuine momentum.

If you are tired of "polite nods" and endless meetings that go nowhere, this is the toolkit you have been missing.

Keep an eye on your inbox, I’ll be sending a series of emails with all the details soon.

If you can't wait and know how powerful TLI's Masterclasses are, message me or comment with "stakeholders", and I will send you all the details before all spots are taken.

This month Inside the Transformation Leadership Institute

This Month, we are kicking off with a highly in-demand topic at the heart of every Transformation and Change. In my Guest expert session with Terry January’s Guest Expert Session: “The Enterprise Operating Model” with Terry Roach

Terry Roach is the founder of Capsifi and a globally recognised leader in enterprise architecture, business architecture, and operating model design.

In this session, Terry unpacks why operating models are so often misunderstood and how they sit at the centre of strategy execution, transformation, and decision-making. The conversation connects operating models directly to real-world challenges leaders face across complexity, prioritisation, and delivery.

A sneak peek of that session is in our free community, The Change Makers Corner CMC). Join and listen to the first 20 minutes of this session, which is guaranteed to add value

If you are not already a member, join me at www.TL-Institute.Com and click Join free community, set up your profile in 2 minutes, and then you're in.