When change becomes real.
By François Landriau
Director of Cofomo’s Change Management Centre of Excellence
In today’s digital and organizational transformation landscape, change management is a critical driver of success. Yet despite mature methodologies, polished templates, and carefully crafted communication plans, too many initiatives still fail to generate genuine buy-in. The reason is simple: change management is too often treated as a conceptual exercise focused on deliverables rather than on the people who must embrace the change.
It’s time to bring change management back to its true purpose: enabling employees, managers, partners, and all stakeholders not only to understand change, but to meaningfully integrate it into their day-to-day realities.
Too many deliverables, not enough meaning.
In many organizations, change management has been reduced to a checklist of outputs: communication plans, impact assessments, training strategies, stakeholder matrices, and so on. These tools matter, but they frequently become an end in themselves. Constrained by rigid methodologies, change practitioners often end up completing templates to “tick the box,” rather than mobilizing people around a shared transformation.
This disconnect creates distance between the project and its intended beneficiaries. Communications become generic, training focuses on features instead of value, and impact assessments rarely translate into concrete actions. The result: stakeholders feel uninvolved, unheard, and at times overlooked.
A recipient-centric approach.
At Cofomo, our Change Management Centre of Excellence promotes a fundamentally different approach: operationalizing change by and for the people who will experience it. Every change management action is designed with a clear understanding of its real impact on individuals and teams.
Our approach begins on the ground: understanding operational constraints, team dynamics, cultural resistance, and absorption capacity. We then co-design adoption strategies with stakeholders, involving them early and often.
This creates fertile ground for engagement, alignment, and performance. It empowers internal change ambassadors, strengthens internal support networks, and fosters learning communities that support transformation in a sustainable, organic manner.
A recipient centred posture isn’t just ethical or relational, it’s strategic. Early mobilization strengthens alignment between project goals and on-the-ground realities. It embeds transformation into organizational culture, improves coherence between practices and values, and elevates overall performance.
When change is embodied, it becomes a source of meaning and long-term value; not a disruption to endure.
From strategy to action.
Operationalizing change rests on three core principles:
1. Gathering and addressing concerns: Being present where change happens. This includes field engagement, participatory workshops, targeted pulse surveys, and continuous feedback loops.
2. Personalization: Tailoring messages, tools, and interventions to the diverse profiles of stakeholders is essential for driving sustainable adoption. Concerns are never uniform; they vary by role, responsibility, work environment, and by the nature of the transformation itself.
Consider the contrasts:
- Implementing an AI-driven solution raises questions about automation and job redesign.
- Migrating to the cloud brings security and accessibility concerns.
- Deploying an ERP redefines business processes.
- Introducing new technology changes everyday work routines.
A manager’s expectations differ from those of a frontline employee. Operations teams react differently than technical experts.
At Cofomo, personalization is not cosmetic, it is a strategic discipline grounded in a nuanced understanding of contexts, impacts, and engagement levers unique to each stakeholder group.
3. Measurability: Defining clear adoption indicators and monitoring them regularly to adjust strategies in real time. The goal is not to deliver a plan; it is to drive behaviour change that lasts.
“To transform is to mobilize. And mobilizing means recognizing that change isn’t decreed; it’s built, with and for people.”
The evolving role of the change management advisor.
In this approach, the advisor’s role shifts significantly. It is no longer about producing deliverables, but about enabling adoption, building bridges between project teams and stakeholders, and fostering meaningful dialogue.
This requires strong relational skills, active listening, and a collaborative posture. The advisor becomes a connector, translating technical requirements into human impacts and helping teams co-create solutions that fit their reality.
Tangible value for organizations.
Our operational approach to change management enables organizations to:
- Actively mobilize stakeholders.
- Strengthen engagement and ownership.
- Accelerate adoption by embedding new practices into existing routines.
- Enhance organizational cohesion by valuing stakeholder contributions.
- Reduce resistance early through better understanding and clarity.
- Maximize return on investment for transformation initiatives.
Putting people back at the centre of change.
Change management should never be an abstract discipline reserved for specialists. It must be lived, felt, and grounded in human experience. By prioritizing an operational, people-centred approach, Cofomo brings change closer to the field, closer to concerns, and closer to what truly drives project success.
This posture helps teams navigate transformation with confidence, embed new ways of working more effectively, and create an environment conducive to long-term evolution.
With more than 30 years of expertise in digital and business transformation, our Change Management Centre of Excellence offers committed experts, proven tools, and a clear vision: change that is lived, not imposed.
