Strength Training for Organizations: Building Change Management Muscle

Change is hard. 

I’m tired of changing. 

We’ve had too much change. 

Sound familiar? 

Organizations invest millions annually implementing technology change efforts, from large scale transformations to smaller, targeted improvements. The digital change transformation market projected value is a massive $1.9 Billion in 2025 (Fortune Business Insights, 2025) – underscoring the criticality of change success. Wasted efforts, massive sunk costs, or projects that run over budget aren’t an option – yet 35% of change programs fail to meet timeline, budget, or scope goals and 56% achieve fewer organizational benefits than stated. 

Ouch. 

Standing still isn’t viable either. Slow adoption or resistance to change signals shareholders and competitors a path to obsolescence. Failure to adapt is a death sentence for businesses. A change strategy addressing common pitfalls—poor communication, resistance, unclear goals, and weak leadership support—is essential for success (Prosci, 2025). Effective change management drives higher success rates, faster implementation, and more resilient, adaptable organizations.   

Change isn't hard for everyone; it's hard for the unready. - Cy Wakeman

Consider change management not just a plan or a process, but a leadership competency. When exercised regularly at all levels, it builds lasting change muscle for everyone. This competency doesn’t promise a Superman physique, however the organization will grow stronger change management muscle through these practices: 

Create a change plan tied to success. Clear, measurable objectives co-created by business and IT create transparency and alignment. Projects that measure compliance and performance achieve a 76% success rate versus only 24% for those that don't track these metrics. Ongoing monitoring and adjustment of metrics ensure continuous improvement, enabling quick course corrections and sustained success. 

Unleash your secret weapon: your people. Develop change strategies in which frontline employees are change drivers. Early involvement turns them into advocates, and better yet, they help uncover resistance early, raising underlying problems or revealing unseen barriers (BCG, 2024). McKinsey Research reports this approach boosts success rates to 71%. Gartner’s “open source” change method accelerates adoption, enhancing workforce engagement and retention.  

Invest in building digital maturity. Companies with high digital and AI maturity implement large-scale programs faster, with 85% exceeding planned scope, 41% finishing early, and 27% under budget (BCG, 2024).   

Instill a culture of continuous improvement. Successful transformations build new skills and increase support for innovation and improvement (McKinsey, 2010). Sustaining momentum beyond the celebration party develops muscle memory for incremental, continuous improvement. When employees are accustomed to ongoing small changes, even larger transformations feel a bit less overwhelming.   

Resistance is Futile…. when you create accountability for change at all levels. Cy Wakeman argues traditional leadership strategies prioritize comfort over accountability, fueling resistance and low morale. Her reality-based approach emphasizes clear standards and direct communication to create individual accountability and prepare for future challenges.  

Yes – You Can Achieve Big Results. Here’s Proof. 

Feei Ang, RISE program graduate, flexed her change management muscle to reduce Cloud spending. Using the ADKAR framework, she crafted a clear “why” for the change to generate desire for change, providing the knowledge needed to execute. Feei secured CIO advocacy and developed a simple toolkit for teams that included easy-to-follow guidelines for teams to analyze root cause of the inflated spend by app, and re-usable code samples to implement solutions.  

Feei proved you don’t need a team of consultants to successfully lead change. Senior engineers served as implementation coaches, and an intake process was used to vet and respond to non-urgent questions. Self-service Q&A and program guidelines streamlined support. Within two weeks, her team identified $1.5M in annualized savings – and better yet, the solutions were implemented in three months. To sustain the change, Feei’s team enhanced FinOps reporting in the developer portal with a compliance scorecard and established an ongoing FinOps practice for monitoring and coaching. 

Feei’s success stemmed from consistent communication, clear priorities, and achievable solutions executable in one or two sprints. With strong leadership support and team empowerment, resistance was minimal. 

Our mentees are RISING to lead change 

In June, RISE mentees explored change management, studying human behavior and “survive and thrive” responses. Mentees leaned into practical approaches to change, exploring Kotter and ADKAR methodologies, learning how to avoid common pitfalls through robust communications and how to reframe. Their next task: RISE mentees are building a transformation plan using a change framework for their organizations.   

SOAR mentees focused on ownership as a leadership foundation. Ownership means taking full responsibility for results and proactively solving problems, boosting credibility, career growth, and team performance. They tackled barriers like fear of failure and blame culture, learning to cultivate ownership by starting small, practicing consistently, and fostering ownership in others. 

Key takeaways 

Change management is a critical leadership competency that drives organizational success by addressing pitfalls like poor communication and resistance. With 35% of change programs failing to meet goals and 56% underdelivering benefits, organizations must act to stay competitive. Feei Ang’s $1.5M cloud cost reduction shows how clear plans, employee engagement, and accountability deliver results. Leaders must build adaptable, change-ready organizations – what will you do to build that muscle today? 

Comment below and share your action plan!

What’s Next for RISE and SOAR? 

On July 16, our RISE and SOAR mentees experience an exclusive evening of insight and inspiration at the SIM Detroit RISE and SOAR CIO Fireside Chat, where seasoned executive leaders take center stage to share the “Lessons from the Top” - pivotal moments, challenges, and turning points that shaped their leadership journeys.  

This powerful conversation will feature a distinguished panel of Chief Information Officers and executive technology leaders reflecting on the personal and professional milestones that brought them to the top of their fields.   

Our distinguished panel includes: 

Moderator – Kalpana Yendluri, Director Emerging Technologies, Great Lakes Water Authority   

Jim Beechey, Vice President, IT and Security and Chief Information Officer of CMS Energy principal subsidiary of Consumers Energy.    

Elizabeth Klee, Vice Chancellor for Information Technologies and Chief Information Officer, Oakland Community College (OCC)   

Kevin Johnson, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Clarience Technologies  

Designed for current and aspiring leaders alike, the event is part of SIM Detroit’s commitment to developing the next generation of leadership through the RISE (Resilient, Inspired, Strategic, Empowered) and SOAR (Strategic Thinking, Ownership, Action-Oriented, Resilience) programs. Our mentees walk away with not only valuable career insights but also actionable wisdom they can immediately apply to their own leadership development journey. 

References 

BCG. (2024, November 13). Most Large-Scale Tech Programs Fail – Here’s How to Succeed. Most Large-Scale Tech Programs Fail: How to Succeed | BCG

Fortune Business Insights. (2025, June 9). Digital Transformation Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Technology…and Regional Forecast, 2024 – 2032. Digital Transformation Market Size, Share, Trends, Growth [2032]

Gartner for HR. (2019). Changing Change Management: An Open-Source Approach. changing-change-management.pdf

McKinsey Digital. (2012, Oct 1). Delivering large-scale IT project on. Time, on budget, and on value. Delivering large-scale IT projects on time, on budget, and on value | McKinsey

McKinsey & Company. (2010). McKinsey Global Survey results: What successful transformations share. what successful transformations share mckinsey global survey results.pdf

Prosci. (2025, February 17). 6 Reasons Why Change Management Fails and How To Avoid Them. https://www.prosci.com/blog/why-change-management-fails 

Prosci. (2025, June 13). Metrics for Measuring Change Management. https://www.prosci.com/blog/metrics-for-measuring-change-management 

The Oxford Review. (2016, April 15). Do 70% of Organizational Change Projects Really Fail? https://youtu.be/_xle0yoKYKM?si=FeLrsEABfXe8Uvzc\ 

Wakeman, Cy. (2017). NO EGO: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Workplace Drama, End Entitlement and Drive Big Results. https://realitybasedleadership.com/no-ego-book/