EXECUTIVE ADVISORY
Structured change management for system rollouts, M&A integration, leadership transitions, and organizational shifts. Most mid-market companies don’t plan for the people side of change — they announce it and wonder why adoption stalls, key people leave, and productivity drops for months longer than expected.
The change isn’t the problem — the rollout is
The new system is the right call. The restructure makes strategic sense. The acquisition creates real value. But none of that matters if your people don’t come along. When organizations skip the people side of change, predictable things happen: your best performers update their resumes because nobody explained what the change means for them. Managers get blindsided by questions they can’t answer. Adoption stalls because the training covered the “how” but not the “why.” Six months in, you’re still fighting resistance that could have been addressed in the first two weeks.
Who This Is For
- Organizations rolling out new systems (HRIS, ERP, CRM) that need adoption, not just installation
- Post-acquisition teams managing cultural integration and organizational alignment
- Companies navigating executive leadership transitions where the ripple effects reach deep into the organization
- Organizations restructuring, merging departments, or making strategic pivots that change how people work
- Any company where a previous change initiative failed, stalled, or produced more cynicism than results
- PE portfolio companies driving operational changes across acquisitions where speed and people retention both matter
Our Approach
We draw on two proven methodologies — Prosci (ADKAR) and Blanchard’s Leading People Through Change — and adapt the approach to your specific change. No two changes are the same, but the reasons they fail are remarkably consistent: lack of sponsorship, poor communication, no plan for resistance, and managers who aren’t equipped to lead their teams through the transition.
We address all four. Every engagement includes stakeholder analysis, a structured communication approach, resistance planning, and manager enablement — scaled to the size and complexity of your change.
Packages
Change Readiness Assessment — $7,500–$12,000
A diagnostic engagement before a major change — or after a change has stalled. Best for organizations that want to understand their readiness before committing to a full change management plan.
What you get: Stakeholder analysis and influence mapping, organizational readiness evaluation, resistance risk assessment, change impact analysis (who is affected, how much, and in what ways), sponsor assessment and recommendations, and a findings report with a prioritized change strategy — whether you engage us for implementation or handle it internally.
Timeline: 2–4 weeks typical.
Change Management Support — $20,000–$35,000
Full change management plan development and implementation support for a defined change initiative. Best for system rollouts, restructures, process changes, or policy shifts that affect a significant portion of the workforce.
What you get: Everything in the Change Readiness Assessment, plus: full change management plan aligned to your implementation timeline, stakeholder engagement strategy with sponsor coaching, multi-channel communication plan (what to say, when, to whom, and through which channel), manager enablement toolkit (talking points, FAQ documents, conversation guides), training coordination plan, resistance management strategy, and a measurement framework to track adoption and course-correct.
Timeline: 4–8 weeks for plan development, then aligned to your implementation timeline.
Embedded Change Lead — $10,000–$15,000/month
Ongoing change management leadership embedded in a major initiative over multiple months. Best for large-scale transformations, multi-phase system implementations, or post-acquisition integrations where sustained change support is needed — not just a plan.
What you get: Dedicated change management leadership integrated with your project team, ongoing stakeholder management and sponsor coaching, real-time communication development and deployment, training design and delivery coordination, resistance monitoring and intervention, adoption tracking with regular reporting to leadership, and course corrections as the change evolves.
Timeline: 3–12 months typical, depending on the scope and phases of the initiative.
How It Works
Discovery Call
A free 30-minute conversation to understand the change you’re navigating — what’s driving it, where you are in the process, who’s affected, and what keeps you up at night about the people side. We’ll recommend the right package and scope.
Stakeholder & Impact Analysis
We map who’s affected, how significantly, and where the resistance risks are. We assess sponsor readiness and identify the managers who will make or break adoption. This analysis shapes every deliverable that follows.
Plan Development
We build the change management plan — communication strategy, stakeholder engagement, manager enablement, training coordination, and resistance management — all sequenced to your implementation timeline so the people-side work keeps pace with the technical or operational work.
Implementation & Measurement
We support execution, track adoption, and course-correct as needed. For Embedded Change Lead engagements, we’re in the room — attending project meetings, coaching sponsors, adjusting communications, and monitoring the pulse of the organization throughout the change.
Frequently Combined With
Change management often intersects with other organizational needs:
- Organizational Design & Restructuring — When the change involves structural shifts — new reporting lines, role changes, or department mergers — org design and change management work hand in hand.
- Fractional CPO & HR Advisory — When the change is one of several people-strategy priorities and you need ongoing strategic HR leadership to manage all of them.
- Facilitation & Workshops — When leaders need to be equipped to lead their teams through the change. We can deliver Blanchard’s Leading People Through Change as a workshop for your management team as part of the change initiative.
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Common Questions
We already have a project manager for the implementation. Do we still need change management?
Yes — and this is the most common gap we see. Project management handles the technical side: timelines, milestones, deliverables. Change management handles the people side: awareness, buy-in, adoption, resistance. A system can go live on time and on budget and still fail if nobody uses it. We work alongside your project team, not in place of it.
Our change is already underway and not going well. Is it too late?
No. We frequently engage mid-change when things have stalled or resistance has surfaced. A Change Readiness Assessment can diagnose what’s gone wrong and what needs to shift. It’s more expensive to fix than to prevent — but it’s far more expensive to let a failed change erode trust across the organization.
What does “resistance management” actually mean?
It means anticipating where pushback will come from, understanding why it’s happening, and addressing it proactively rather than reactively. Resistance isn’t a problem to overcome — it’s information about what people need in order to move forward. Sometimes it’s about communication. Sometimes it’s about capability. Sometimes it’s about legitimate concerns that should change the plan. We help you tell the difference and respond appropriately.
How do you measure whether the change is working?
We build a measurement framework specific to your change — typically tracking awareness (do people know about the change?), understanding (do they know why and what it means for them?), adoption (are they using the new system/process?), and proficiency (are they using it correctly?). We establish baselines, set milestones, and report to leadership regularly so you can course-correct before small adoption gaps become organizational problems.