What Exactly is Business Change and Business Change Management?
Business Change is the catch-all term for moving from a current state to a desired future state.
That makes it sound simple, but it’s anything but. It involves:
Disruption of norms — breaking habits, routines, and assumptions
Uncertainty and resistance — people don’t fear change, they fear loss and frankly, they loathe the extra cognitive effort required to understand and learn the new thing.
Adaptation and learning — new skills, new mindsets, new ways of working
Change can be at different levels.
First-order change: Incremental improvements. These are optimisations within the current model - faster, cheaper, smoother. Useful, but not transformative.
Second-order change: Transformational shifts. These challenge assumptions, redesign processes, or reposition the business. They require new thinking and often new behaviours.
Third-order change: Deep innovation. These redefine what the business is - entirely new business models, new markets, new identities. They’re rare, but catalytic.
Change Management is the art of helping people let go of the old, make sense of the new, and move forward with purpose. It’s not just about managing emotions — it’s about leading transformation.
Why Is It a Distinct Discipline?
Business change is a discipline that deals with the human, structural, and strategic dynamics of shifting from one state to another.
Business management is about maintaining performance, managing resources, and delivering outcomes. Change management is about navigating transitions — helping people, processes, and systems move from the current state to a desired future state.
Change management demands a psychological lens — understanding motivation, identity, and group dynamics. It’s about narrative and meaning, not just metrics.
We look at adoption and engagement.
We foster empathy, communication, influence, self-awareness, resilience, collaboration.
We use stakeholder maps, change impact analysis, storytelling, and coaching as some of our tools.
Change often cuts across departments, hierarchies, and functions. It requires coordination, alignment, and shared understanding, which means change managers often operate horizontally, not vertically.
While it often supports specific initiatives (like digital transformation or M&A), change management also plays a strategic role in shaping how the business evolves - aligning change with purpose, values, and long-term vision.
What Makes It So Challenging?
Invisible forces. Organisational culture, power dynamics, and emotional undercurrents aren’t always visible but deeply affect outcomes.
Non-linear progress. Change rarely follows a straight path. It loops, stalls, accelerates, and regresses.
Human resistance. Even the most rational people resist change if it threatens their sense of competence, control, or belonging.
Emotional & Cognitive Labour. Change is not just technical — it’s psychological. It asks people to let go of what’s familiar, navigate uncertainty, and reimagine their role. That’s emotionally demanding, and it needs to be acknowledged and supported.
Competing Priorities. Change rarely happens in isolation. It competes with business-as-usual, short-term targets, and other initiatives. People need to do all this labour as well as keeping the lights on.
Misalignment. When strategy, structure, and culture are in a state of flux, people often get mixed messages, and momentum stalls. Alignment isn’t automatic — it has to be designed and maintained.
Unique Techniques & Viewpoints
Change practitioners often draw from:
Behavioural science (e.g. nudge theory, habit formation)
Systems thinking (seeing interdependencies)
Narrative strategy (crafting compelling visions of the future)
Coaching, mentoring and facilitation (unlocking individual and team potential)
Organisational psychology (understanding group behaviour)