Driving organisational change

Your organisation is going through a significant change - a transformation programme, a merger, a strategic pivot, a fundamental shift in how you work. And your team is responsible for making it happen.

Leading change at the organisational level is fundamentally different from leading change in a single team. You are working across boundaries, managing stakeholders with competing interests, and trying to keep momentum in a system that is designed to resist disruption. The challenge is not just planning - it is understanding how the whole organisation will respond and designing your approach accordingly.

This two-day course gives programme and transformation teams a structured, systems-informed approach to leading large-scale change. You will work on your real programme throughout, and leave with a practical framework you can use to guide your work.

What you will work on

Over two days, you will build a comprehensive approach to your specific change programme, working through four connected areas:

Reading the system - Before you can change an organisation, you need to understand how it actually works - not how the org chart says it works. You will map the real dynamics at play: where power sits, how decisions actually get made, which parts of the system are ready for change and which will resist. We use tools like systems mapping and stakeholder analysis to build a picture that goes beyond surface-level assumptions.

Designing your change approach - Armed with a realistic picture of your organisation, you will design an approach that works with the system rather than against it. This means thinking about sequencing - what needs to happen first to create the conditions for what comes next. It means identifying where small shifts can create ripple effects across the wider organisation. And it means building flexibility into your plan, because no change programme survives first contact with reality unchanged.

Building a coalition - Large-scale change does not succeed through project management alone. It succeeds when enough people across the organisation understand what is happening, believe in where it is going, and are actively contributing to making it work. You will identify who you need on your side, understand what matters to them, and develop practical strategies for building genuine support - not just compliance.

Sustaining momentum - Many change programmes start well but lose energy. You will develop an approach for maintaining momentum over months and years - including how to track progress in ways that go beyond RAG ratings, how to adapt your approach as the organisation responds, and how to build capability so the change outlasts your programme.

Who this is for

Programme teams, transformation leads, and change teams responsible for organisation-wide change. This course works best when attended by the core team together - so you build your approach collaboratively and leave with shared understanding.

It is also valuable for senior leaders sponsoring a major change who want a deeper understanding of what it takes to make transformation succeed at a systems level. We run a dedicated session for change sponsors if that is the primary need.

What you will take away

Your team will leave with a systems map of your organisation showing the real dynamics that will shape your change. A sequenced change approach designed around how your specific organisation works. A stakeholder strategy with practical actions for building support where it matters most. A momentum framework for tracking and sustaining progress over the life of your programme. And shared language across your team about how you will approach the work.

How the two days work

Day one focuses on understanding your organisation as a system and designing your change approach. Day two focuses on building your coalition and planning for sustained momentum. Throughout both days, you will alternate between frameworks, facilitated exercises, and working sessions where you apply everything directly to your programme.

We typically run this for groups of eight to twenty people. If your change team is larger, we can adapt the format.

What makes this different

This course takes a systems thinking approach to change - which means looking at how your organisation actually works as a connected whole, not treating it as a collection of separate departments to be managed independently. Most change methodologies focus on process. This one focuses on the system the process is trying to change. That is a fundamentally different starting point, and it leads to better outcomes.

If your organisation needs ongoing support with the transformation - beyond what training can provide - our change management consultancy and organisational development consultancy work alongside leadership teams to design and deliver change that lasts.