Change Signal: Modern Change Management that Works

Where is change already happening without you? Are you selling ideas before they’ve been tested? And what are we losing as AI makes work more efficient?

Michael Arena is a network scientist, former Chief Talent Officer at General Motors, and author of Adaptive Space and co-author of The New Social Code. We talk about what actually helps change and transformation take hold inside large organizations, and why so much of it happens outside the formal change process.

Michael argues that change is largely emergent: small groups experiment, build trust, find allies, and create enough momentum for leaders to notice. His advice for change leaders is wonderfully practical: don’t rush to pitch a promising idea upstairs. Find a friend, pressure-test it, and make it work before you try to sell it.

We also explore the changing role of human networks in the age of AI, why trusted relationships help bold ideas travel, and how leaders can balance exploration, execution, influence, and connection without becoming hostage to their own networks.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change. If you’re a transformational leader seeking modern change mastery, you’re in exactly the right place.

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Here are three provocative questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Damon Centola: What are you mistaking for adoption? Who actually makes change feel normal? And are your change agents too scattered?

Damon Centola is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Network Dynamics Group, and author of Change: How to Make Big Things Happen and Goodthink: The New Science of Collective Intelligence. His research into networks reveals why information can spread quickly while actual behaviour stubbornly refuses to follow. Damon has spent years studying how change actually spreads through networks, and his work challenges some familiar assumptions about change leadership and transformation. Awareness is not adoption, influential people are often less important than the everyday networks around us, and behaviour change depends on repeated social reinforcement.

We talk about why complex change behaves differently from information, why a critical mass matters, and why that critical mass has to be connected rather than scattered across the organization. Damon also explains why change agents may be more effective clustered together, and why scaling change across silos requires “wide bridges” — multiple reinforcing relationships between groups.

If you lead change in a large organization, this conversation offers a practical way to think about where change really starts, how it spreads, and why communication alone so often fails.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change. If you’re a transformational leader seeking modern change mastery, you’re in exactly the right place.

***

WHEN YOU’RE READY

🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)

The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly

***

CONNECT

💼Connect on LinkedIn

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SAY THANKS

💜Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

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Here are three questions that arise from this Change Signal conversation with Amy Edmondson: Are we learning — or just performing success? When should a change project be allowed to fail? And what are we afraid to say when the stakes get high?

Amy Edmondson is best known for her work on psychological safety, and here she connects it directly to change leadership, experimentation, and the realities of transformation inside large organizations.

We talk about why psychological safety isn’t about making people comfortable — it’s about making learning possible when the work is uncertain, awkward, and risky. We explore her distinction between mistakes and intelligent failure, and why trying to eliminate failure can make meaningful change harder.

Amy also challenges the way organizations run pilots. A pilot designed to succeed may teach you almost nothing; a useful experiment should expose the edges before you scale.

Along the way, we cover hierarchy, false agreement, courage, cross-functional collaboration, and a useful idea for anyone leading change without a reliable playbook: treat change less like implementation and more like research.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change. If you’re a transformational leader seeking modern change mastery, you’re in exactly the right place.

***

WHEN YOU’RE READY

🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)

The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly

***

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💜Leave a review on Apple Podc

Here are three questions this Change Signal conversation asks:

Are you designing behaviour, or just explaining the change?

Where does resistance actually come from?

What small nudge might make the right action easier?

In this episode, I talk with Phill Agnew, host of the marketing podcast Nudge, about what change leaders can learn from behavioural science — and why people are so much less rational than our change plans assume.

We get into choice overload, loss aversion, social proof, defaults, friction, and reactance — the very human pushback that happens when people feel their autonomy is being squeezed. Phill brings terrific stories and studies, from jam counters to organ donation to bus stops in France, all pointing to a useful truth: if you want people to change, don’t just make the case harder. Design the conditions better.

For senior leaders working on transformation, change management, or culture change, this is a practical conversation about influence without the ick. Less “roll it out and hope.” More “make it easier, wiser, and more human to move.”

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change. If you’re a transformational leader seeking modern change mastery, you’re in exactly the right place.

***

WHEN YOU’RE READY

🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)

The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly

***

CONNECT

💼Connect on LinkedIn

***

SAY THANKS

💜Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

💚Leave a review on Spotify

Here’s the revised version with an opening sentence and the three questions bulleted.

This Change Signal conversation with Aidan McCullen asks three practical questions for anyone leading change in a large organization:

What if change isn’t an event?

Where does power really live?

Who needs to win before transformation can move?

Aidan McCullen, host of The Innovation Show and author of Undisruptable, joins me to talk about what it really takes to lead change when reinvention is no longer occasional but permanent.

Aidan brings a useful dose of realism to change management, transformation, and innovation. He argues that the “change muscle” has atrophied, partly because many organizations still treat change like a project with a finish line rather than a capability to build.

We get into the unglamorous but essential work of change leadership: mapping power, understanding resisters, creating small wins, giving other people credit, and getting enough air cover to survive the corporate maze.

There’s also a memorable warning about chasing “chocolate teapots” — the easy wins that look like progress but don’t really move the dial.

For senior leaders responsible for transformation, this is a conversation about stamina, politics, allies, and the quiet discipline of making change real.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change. If you’re a transformational leader seeking modern change mastery, you’re in exactly the right place.

***

WHEN YOU’RE READY

🎧 A new episode every week (and sometimes two!)

The Change Signal newsletter. Short, practical, weekly

***

CONNECT

💼Connect on LinkedIn

***

SAY THANKS

💜Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

💚Leave a review on Spotify