Lead Change Well

Storytelling and Change Leadership Development, Training and Strategy

You can have the best strategy in the world and change will still land badly if your leaders aren’t ready to lead it, and your people aren’t brought along on the way. I’ve spent 25 years on the inside of organisational change: as the consultant designing it, the leader delivering it, and the person living through someone else’s. I know what makes it work, and what breaks trust when it goes wrong.

I work across three areas: building the capability of your leaders to lead change well, helping people tell a better story about the change they’re going through, and helping you build your leadership capability using storytelling skills.

Change Leadership (Workshops, Mentoring, Training)

Build a leadership team that can actually lead change. For many organisations the first challenge of implementing change is taking your team along the way. To achieve the things you need to achieve, you need your team to remain engaged and committed along the way. And that’s your leader’s job.

Most leaders treat a restructure or a transformation as another item on the to-do list. It isn’t. It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ask someone to do: hold their team together, have the conversations no one wants to have, and keep delivering their day job at the same time.

I’ve watched good leaders burn out doing this without support. And I’ve watched teams get frustrated lose trust in leaders who weren’t ready for it. Which means the organisation struggles to deliver.

Change Leadership services are about building that capability directly in your leaders, before they need it and while they’re using it. Not a one-off session. Real capability that stays with your team.

Good change leaders who can hold the hard conversations, not just survive them, and find the outcomes that work for their organisations and their teams, maintaining engagement and commitment along the way.

Programs include:

High Performing Executive Teams
Mentoring for Change Leaders
Change Leadership Training Programs

Storytelling For Change (Keynote/Workshop)

It can be hard to know what to tell your people about the changes you have planned. Whether it’s a restructure, a new system or changes resulting from AI implementation, it’s difficult to know how much to say and when - particularly if their role is impacted.

It can often be frustrating watching the leaders in your team seem paralysed by the scale and volume of the change, waiting for you to tell them what to do and when.

Drawing on my doctoral research into trust, storytelling and change, and 25 years of watching large scale changes go right and go wrong I can help you and your teams understand what to say, when, and the important role that everyone plays in taking change forward.

Keynote:

A keynote address, tailored to your change and your audience
Practical guidance on using story, not just information, to communicate change
Emphasis on the role all leaders have to play

Workshop:

A workshop with your extended leadership team to develop and refine the story for your change program.
Develop a common message for your leaders as a foundation of the change program
Build your extended leadership team’s confidence and ownership of the change message.

Storytelling for Leaders (Training Program)

Training in the practical craft of storytelling at work.

Most leaders know, in theory, that a good story lands better than a slide of bullet points, but not everyone finds it easy to find the right story or understand how and when to use it to create engagement.

This is a training program for leaders and middle managers in the practical craft of storytelling: how to find the story that’s already in what you’re trying to say, and how to tell it so people remember it, believe it and act on it. It’s not about becoming a keynote speaker, it’s about using storytelling as a leadership tool, to create engagement, improve trust and become a better leader.

Who it’s for:

Leaders and Middle Managers who want to increase engagement and trust of their team.

What’s included:

One day workshop program for up to 20 people
Connecting the role storytelling plays with best practice leadership
Practical approaches to finding and telling the story you need

Strategy and Risk Assessment

If you are implementing a significant change such as a restructure, merger or large scale transformation, I can help you develop your strategy and understand where the risks might be for your organisational engagement.

As the approach will be different according to the organisation and change program, please contact me directly to discuss how I can help.