Q: From your work with clients and leading EY People Advisory in CEE, how do you see change management as an executive competency - what specific leader behaviors separate successful transformations from failures? 

A: Based on my experience, change management is not a support stream around transformation; it is one of the core disciplines of any execution. In complex transformations, the difference between success and failure is rarely the quality of the strategy alone. Much more often, it is the quality of leadership in translating that strategy into aligned decisions, sustained sponsorship, and real behavioral adoption across the organization.

The leaders who consistently deliver successful transformation outcomes tend to demonstrate three specific behaviors:

1. They lead the case for change themselves. They do not delegate the narrative to communications or HR, but personally articulate why the change matters, what it requires, and what will be different.
2. They manage adoption risk with the same seriousness as financial, operational, or delivery risk. They ask disciplined questions about stakeholder impact, readiness, resistance, and the mechanisms through which the new model will actually be adopted.
3. They role-model the future state. They align their own actions, decisions, and leadership routines with the change, which sends a powerful signal that the transformation is real and not optional.

In this sense, change management is an executive competency because it is fundamentally about turning strategic intent into business reality. Organizations do not fail to transform because they lack plans; they fail because leadership underestimates the work required to build understanding, alignment, commitment, and sustained execution.

Q: Our survey found boards often underestimate CM's strategic value. How should owners and boards assess CM capability when hiring executives or approving large transformations?

A: Owners and boards should assess change management capability in the same way they assess financial judgment, strategic thinking, or governance maturity: through evidence of applied leadership in complex situations. It is no longer sufficient to appoint executives based only on operational track record or functional excellence if their role will require them to lead enterprise-wide transformation.

When hiring or promoting executives, boards should look for clear evidence that a candidate has successfully led significant change, not merely operated within stable conditions. This means examining how the individual built sponsorship, handled resistance, aligned stakeholders, and sustained adoption beyond formal launch. The most useful discussion points are not abstract opinions about change, but practical examples: what transformation was led, what barriers emerged, what behaviors had to shift, and what results were achieved as a consequence.

When approving large transformations, boards should also test whether the organization has the leadership capability and discipline required to absorb the change. That means asking whether there is a strong executive sponsorship, whether people-readiness has been assessed, whether adoption metrics are defined, and whether the organization has explicit criteria for slowing down, sequencing differently, or pausing if readiness is insufficient. If boards assess only the financial logic and technical plan, they are effectively reviewing only part of the risk profile.

Q: What concrete governance checks would you recommend?

A: In practice, effective transformation governance requires a small number of disciplined checks that make people-readiness visible and actionable. These checks should be reviewed with the same seriousness as budget, milestones, delivery risks, and financial benefits.

The first is sponsor strength: whether there is a clearly accountable executive sponsor with both the authority and the expected behaviors to lead the change visibly. The second is people-readiness: whether the organization has assessed the readiness of key stakeholder groups and identified the most material barriers to adoption. The third is stakeholder alignment: whether the senior team is genuinely aligned around the change, including its implications and trade-offs, rather than appearing aligned only at a formal level. The fourth is adoption tracking: whether governance includes evidence that people are actually using the new processes, tools, and behaviors, not just that the technical solution has gone live. The fifth is change load: whether the organization is overloading the same populations with multiple competing initiatives, which can quietly erode adoption and execution quality.

These checks should not remain informal or dependent on individual vigilance. They are most effective when embedded in Steering Committee packs, stage-gate reviews, decision templates, and board reporting routines, so that people-related risk becomes a standard governance consideration rather than an optional discussion.

Q: Which metrics or evidence do you find most credible to boards and investors for proving CM's ROI, and what measurement pitfalls to avoid?

A: The most credible evidence of change management value combines business outcomes with adoption evidence. Boards and investors are more likely to view change management as strategic when its impact is linked directly to value realization, speed of adoption, retention of critical talent, and reduction of avoidable disruption.

In most cases, the strongest metrics fall into three categories:

1. Business outcome metrics, such as time-to-value, speed of productivity recovery, service stability, retention of critical roles, and avoidance of implementation delays or rework.
2. Adoption metrics, including actual usage of new systems or processes, compliance with new ways of working, leadership sponsorship strength, and stakeholder alignment.
3. Decision-quality evidence: concrete cases in which readiness insights improved sequencing, prevented premature go-live decisions, or reduced operational and people-related risk.

Q: Are there any common measurement pitfalls?

A: The most common one is confusing activity with impact. Communication volumes, training hours, or the number of workshops held may indicate effort, but they do not in themselves demonstrate value. Another frequent mistake is measuring sentiment without linking it to behavior or business outcomes. The most convincing evidence is not that the organization was informed about the change, but that people adopted it in a way that accelerated benefits and protected the business case.

Q: How do you recommend embedding CM as an internal capability across functions in large organizations - roles, training, incentives, and operating model changes? 

Embedding change management as an internal capability requires moving it from the margins of project delivery into the core of leadership, governance, and organizational routines. In large organizations, this means treating change not as a temporary intervention led by consultants, but as an enduring organizational capability that leaders across functions are expected to demonstrate.

There are four practical levers, that matter most:

1. Roles: change leadership should be made explicit in executive and managerial role profiles, especially in positions responsible for transformation, integration, or large-scale implementation.
2. Training: sponsors, line leaders, HR partners, and program leaders need practical capability-building in stakeholder engagement, readiness assessment, resistance management, sponsorship, and adoption planning.
3. Incentives: leaders should be recognized not only for hitting delivery milestones, but also for how effectively they build alignment, sustain adoption, and reduce unnecessary disruption.
4. The operating model itself: change impact assessment, readiness checkpoints, and adoption KPIs should be integrated into business case templates, governance mechanisms, and program scorecards.

Organizations also strengthen internal capability when they build communities of practice, sponsor development routines, and internal case studies that make good change leadership visible and repeatable. The goal is not to create permanent dependence on specialist support, but to make the whole leadership system more capable of delivering change with consistency and discipline.

Q: Can you share a brief example from your practice where early investment in CM materially changed the financial or risk outcome of a transformation – and what practical steps made the difference?

A: One example that illustrates this well is a multi-country transformation program involving a new ERP platform and a shared service operating model. The original program design was highly conventional: an extended technical build, a major go-live milestone, and most of the people-related work positioned close to launch. The critical shift came when change management was brought in early enough to influence sequencing, leadership alignment, and readiness management rather than simply supporting communications at the end.

Several practical interventions made the difference. First, the senior leadership team was aligned early around the case for change, the non-negotiables, and the expected sponsor role. Second, stakeholder impacts and readiness were assessed before final rollout choices were locked, allowing the program to sequence markets more intelligently. Third, an early pilot created real adoption data that could be used to improve subsequent waves. Finally, governance was adjusted so that readiness, adoption, and retention of critical talent were reviewed alongside cost, timeline, and technical milestones.

The result was not simply a better employee experience – it was a stronger business outcome. The transformation stabilized more quickly, reached service targets earlier, and materially reduced the risk of value leakage through delayed adoption or avoidable talent loss. That is why early investment in change management should be viewed not as an additional soft-cost layer, but as a practical means of protecting the financial and operational integrity of the transformation itself.