About the Author
I don't think leading change should take this much out of you.
The problem was hiding in plain sight.
When you talk to people about how change goes in their organizations, you can see it on their faces. The hopelessness. The resignation. The eye rolls.
I spent the first part of my career following the playbook and trying to tune that out. At some point I couldn’t do that anymore.
I noticed that a lot of clients became more capable of describing solutions. They were more aligned with those who already agreed with them. Yet there were people they needed to reach and couldn’t, and that often didn’t change. That kept them from seeing the impact they hoped for.
I realized that the approaches I had been taught weren’t helping with this problem. I began to worry they were making it worse.
The solutions weren't.
I went looking for skills that could help, and I ended up very far from my chosen field. I started learning from psychiatrists, counselors, mediators, political canvassers—anyone with an informed and evidence-driven skill set for helping other people move toward change that you can’t make for them.
The field of Motivational Interviewing fundamentally changed my understanding of my work. Other disciplines taught me about where MI needed to change and adapt to reach more people.
The more I learned, the clearer it became that we were using almost none of this.
Organizational change fails for the same reason that many broader changes fail: we struggle to reach those who feel differently from us. Doing this well is not a product of personality or charisma. It’s a skill you can learn, informed by decades of evidence.
More people need them.
I'm writing Change with Dignity to share that with more people. These are skills for being present with people who feel differently from you. They are sorely needed in and beyond the workplace. You can follow the work as it develops on Substack.
I’m trained in behavioral science and adult learning, and hold a Master's in Education from Harvard University. I’m a faculty member with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a board member of Motivational Interviewing in Leadership and Organizations (MILO), and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT).
I live in Maine with my family, where I hike, visit the ocean as often as possible, and stay deeply curious about how people grow, individually and collectively.