How to Start a Change Initiative | Bryan Walker | Modern Change Management & Leading Change

Here are three questions that sit at the heart of this Change Signal conversation with Bryan Walker:

What are you changing too early?

Where are you too far away?

And what real issue are you avoiding?

Bryan Walker, longtime IDEO partner, joins me to explore a different way of thinking about change and transformation in large organizations. We talk about why so many change efforts stall—not because of bad strategy, but because they’re designed too linearly, too distantly, and too separate from the work itself.

Bryan challenges the instinct to start with structure and big plans. Instead, he makes the case for starting small, learning through action, and letting the work itself reveal what needs to shift. It’s a move from abstract programs to practical experimentation—and it changes how leaders show up.

We also explore what it takes to make change actually land. Not just belief in the idea, but confidence in the doing, and ultimately a shift in identity: this is who we are now.

If you lead change in a complex organization, this is a grounded, human, and quietly challenging conversation about what it really takes to make transformation stick.

Change Signal. Where transformational change leaders seek and find modern change wisdom. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works.

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