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Provocations

“You need to be able to point out that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. The most valuable role I played in a number of change programmes was asking the questions: yes, but what will actually change?; yes, but what difference will it actually make?; and yes, when this will actually happen?”
Mairi Doyle

“What you say may not be what gets heard. So you have to try and figure out what it sounds or reads like from the recipient’s perspective. Just to make it even harder, no one audience will all receive and interpret it in a same way. So on whom is the main onus - the sender or the audience?”
Rod McPhee

“Our essential task during change is to get people to realise that they can and should make the right changes happen. One of our key roles is to encourage and support capable managers and leaders to lead their people through change: to give them the space and support to work out what needs to be done and then to inspire them to do it.”
Hilary Scarlett

“Rule 1 for success: don’t even mention the word change. Have the courage to collaboratively redesign the work around a shared purpose.The effective delivery of the purpose is the goal, not the change itself.”
Robert Goodsell

“My experience of change programmes is that they tend to be very inwardly focused and, frankly, a bit dull. My sense is that a combination of focusing on customers - combined with high-quality marketing activity towards employees - is what you need to generate huge amounts of energy and commitment.”
Richard Gray