Essential Readings :

Context

We've all witnessed it: a promising organizational change initiative, launched with genuine enthusiasm and a seemingly solid plan. Yet it gradually loses momentum, eventually joining the graveyard of abandoned transformation efforts. In today's business environment, leaders face mounting pressure to drive change quickly while maintaining clarity and direction, often sacrificing deep engagement in the name of speed. Yet this approach typically yields disappointing results: a revolving door of initiatives, minimal lasting impact, and teams who grow increasingly cynical about the possibility of meaningful change.

Through my work with organizations navigating transformation, I've discovered that sustainable change emerges from twofold commitment: commitment to the outcome we’ve built together, and commitment to our fellow leaders we’ve crafted it with. Engaging in this way doesn’t mean watering down strategy through concessions. Instead, it’s about creating the conditions where team members integrate their diverse perspectives, and see their contributions being integrated. That’s what positions us as individuals to respect and support a group’s decision even if our idea didn’t “win the day.” The result is powerful: when teams and leaders commit simultaneously to the mission and to each other, change finally sticks.

Content

Let's explore five pieces that further illuminate this perspective.

The Problem with New Leaders Using an 'Out-with-the-Old' Approach

Forthcoming in the Globe & Mail, co-authored with Mike James Ross

In this column, Mike and I examine a common pitfall when executives arrive in a new role: it’s all too easy to say (or act as though) “everything that was done before I arrived was wrong, that’s why there needed to be a change.” But when they reach for this all-too-seductive narrative, they inadvertently create two significant risks. First, they dismiss elements that were working well. After all, companies don't survive long without getting many things right. Second, criticism of processes often sounds like criticism of the people who created or implemented them. The piece offers a more effective alternative: demonstrating continuity between past, present, and future by engaging a dynamic mix of participants, using processes that engage both hearts and minds, and being mindful of who delivers which parts of the message. This approach creates stronger commitment to change by honouring what came before while still embracing the potential of what's to come.

The Number of Transformational Initiatives Has Skyrocketed. Here's How Yours Can Be in the Minority That Succeed

Forthcoming in the Globe & Mail, co-authored with Elizabeth Cannon

This piece examines why up to 70 percent of change initiatives fail despite organizations increasingly practicing transformation. Drawing on experiences from both inside and outside perspectives, the authors reveal that successful transformation requires mutually reinforcing integration of strategy and culture. Using the University of Calgary's Eyes High strategy as a case study, the article demonstrates the extensive communication needed to drive change against the status quo—engaging 10 percent of stakeholders directly in the initial strategy with 30 percent participating in later refinement. The authors emphasize three critical elements: taking the journey together through broad engagement, reducing complexity by making strategy simple enough to be actionable, and removing barriers by aligning organizational machinery with desired behaviors. This integrated approach creates consistent decision-making across the organization that generates differentiated value.

🔗Seeding For Uncertainty: Cultivating a VUCA Culture Through Hiring

Originally published in Forbes, co-authored with Karl Moore

This piece explores how organizations can build resilience to uncertainty through innovative hiring practices. Using premortem risk identification during the hiring process creates a collaborative dialogue that shifts the typical power dynamic of interviews. By inviting candidates to envision potential failure scenarios, organizations gain insight into candidates' thinking patterns while simultaneously signaling their cultural values around collaborative problem-solving. The approach demonstrates that commitment starts from the very beginning of the employment relationship, establishing mutual accountability as a foundational principle.

🔗Designing blueprints for behavior change with Ruth Schmidt

Originally appeared on The Decision Lab podcast

This conversation explores how behavioural science can bridge the gap between strategic intent and daily practice. When organizations design supportive contexts for desired behaviours, they make change logical rather than just expected. Ruth discusses how traditional approaches often focus on communicating change while overlooking the practical conditions needed for new behaviours to emerge. The episode reveals that sustainable change requires both clear direction and infrastructural support, creating environments where commitment to new ways of working becomes the path of least resistance rather than an uphill battle.

🔗Nudging organizational visions into reality with Katie Rice

Originally appeared on The Decision Lab podcast

This discussion examines the challenge of translating organizational visions into concrete actions. Katie highlights how the most effective leaders focus on changing just 3-4 behaviours at a time, creating achievable change cycles throughout the year. By establishing clear metrics for these targeted behaviours and approaching change with an experimental mindset, organizations build momentum through visible wins. The conversation emphasizes that when leadership commitment is demonstrated through context-shifting and consistent modelling, team members develop deeper psychological ownership of change initiatives rather than merely complying with directives.

Coherence: How It All Comes Together

Looking across these diverse explorations, a consistent thread emerges.

Sustainable change doesn't happen through messaging alone. It requires creating environments where mutual commitment can flourish between leaders and teams. When organizations balance clear direction with genuine receptivity to diverse perspectives, they transform the traditional top-down change model into something far more powerful. The key insight running through all these pieces is that commitment is reciprocal: leaders must demonstrate their commitment to the team before expecting the team's commitment to the mission. By designing supportive contexts, inviting constructive dissent, and modelling the behaviours they seek, leaders create the conditions where team members will actually drive change rather than merely complying with it.

Connection: Personal Growth

My advocacy for this approach isn't merely theoretical. It's deeply personal.

Early in my career, I witnessed countless "strategy processes" that involved people purely for show, while leaders had already pre-determined the outcome. When I launched Converge, I fundamentally rejected this approach, asking: "What if organizations already have all the good ideas they need, and my most valuable contribution isn’t to try to be the smartest person in the room—but rather to create space for the best ideas to emerge collectively?"

This mindset shift transformed my practice. I discovered that no individual enters the room with the best idea fully formed. Excellence emerges through collaboration. While co-creation might take longer to reach sign-off on a document called "strategy," it dramatically accelerates actual transformation and results. The most impactful work of my career has been helping teams commit simultaneously to each other and to the ideas they build together. When we balance conviction with curiosity, leading as a team doesn't dilute our direction or resolve; it strengthens both immeasurably.

Carrying Insight Into Action: Next Steps

Is your organization struggling with any of these challenges:

• Waning commitment to important conversations, as committee / task-force activities drag on (and on)
• Difficulty converting strategic intent into consistent action throughout the organization
• Low sense of ownership or accountability
• Teams and individuals hyper-focused on their personal objectives, which no longer add up to the transformation they’re supposed to support
• Growing cynicism among team members about the possibility of meaningful change

This keynote addresses these challenges by providing practical approaches for building the collective leadership that drives sustainable change. Through concrete examples and actionable frameworks, I demonstrate how teams can co-create truly great ideas, how they can cultivate ecosystems that drive real changes in behaviour, and how they can use challenges to correct course and increase team commitment.

Contact me to discuss how I can help your team develop the collective leadership that drives lasting transformation.

Looking for an even bigger boost? Consider the Extended Session option, which supplements the keynote with a collaborative workshop where your leadership team can apply these principles directly to your current change initiatives, for an immediate boost to your velocity of transformation.