People don't resist change. They resist bullshit.

“Change resistance” is the most overused excuse in leadership bingo. The truth? Humans don’t resist change, they just prefer certainty. What they resist is being manipulated, confused, used, rushed, and treated like pawns in some game they don't fully understand.

You say they’re not “on board”? I say they are insulted. Maybe because nobody is telling the full truth and nothing makes sense.

Here’s how “change” often starts:

The CEO gets heat → pressure flows downward → panic kicks in → someone announces a “Transformation Journey.”

After complete radio silence, suddenly people are receiving announcements of:

“We’re building a high-performing innovation hub to scale delivery, accelerate growth, delight customers, and ensure sustainability.”

Excuse me—what?

It's not just the complete lack of clarity in that message, it's the fact that it comes out of nowhere, there was no discourse, there is no context, no reason why we are doing anything at all, and worst of all: the expectation of instant enthusiasm.

Let me give you a quick and very much simplified example of how this should look like:

STEP1: Identify the problem and diagnose your situation. E.g.: Our clients are dissatisfied with our customer service. Some of them are threatening to leave us.

STEP2: Understand why is that the situation. Ideally look into your data. E.g.: Our response time is insanely long, and our customer service guys are not helpful.

STEP3: Go to your customer service leaders, share with them the facts, ask them what they think about this. Explain that you want to find a solution that is rooted in their reality, ask them to go back to their teams, and give them a week to come back with possible solutions. Then you take it from there, and build a project with them, based on their input.

Boom. Your change story emerged by itself. No convincing or buy-in triggering needed. Just transparency, respect and involvement. Magic.

When people understand and they are involved, they don’t need to be engaged. They engage themselves.

Stop strategizing your story. Start talking with your people and fixing your shit.