SHRM26 Debrief · Strategic HR, Organizational Design & Change Management · #1753

Energizing Change: How to Build a Culture of Adaptability, Trust, and Transformation

with Andrew Fockler

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~82 min, distilled

change managementpsychological safetytrust building

"As a leader, the first 90 days, you should not be creating change in the workplace because your employees do not trust you yet."

What it was about

Change itself is constant, but the energy people bring to it is not. HR leaders need a deliberate framework (LEAD: Listen, Explore, Act, Develop), built on trust and psychological safety, to convert resistance into feedback and turn change fatigue into sustainable, energized transformation.

By the numbers

Trust rose by 19% in eight months

Result from the Meridian Financial case study after implementing listening sessions and management coaching around change

Turnover decreased by 12%

Result from the same Meridian Financial case study following the trust-building intervention

More than 15% of routine duties

Threshold the speaker cites (Canadian employment context) for when 'other duties as assigned' must be formally added to a job description and pay structure reviewed

Key notes

Use the LEAD framework: Listen (logic), Explore (emotion), Act (micro-steps), Develop (direction), to structure any change initiative instead of pushing changes through all at once.
Wait at least the first 90 days before making major changes when a new leader or manager is onboarded, since employees have not yet built the know-like-trust needed to accept change from them.
Treat resistance as feedback, not pushback: acknowledge the emotional root (fear, confusion, misalignment) before trying to move people forward.

The contrarian takeNew leaders should deliberately make no changes at all in their first 90 days, even if things are visibly not working. Employees haven't yet built trust in them, and moving faster than that timeline breeds fear rather than buy-in.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

Run a listening session before rolling out your next change, and hold off on any new-hire-manager changes until day 90.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

Resistance isn't opposition, it's feedback — treating it that way is how one company cut turnover 12% while raising trust 19%.

Watch out for

Rolling out drastic changes immediately after a high-stress period (e.g., right after the holiday season for a retail team) without giving people time to recover.
Letting leadership's urgency ('we need this done yesterday') override the natural, slower pace at which employees actually process change.
Making big changes within a new leader's first 90 days, before employees trust them, which breeds fear instead of buy-in.

Fun fact · Andrew Fockler

He's authored an entire book series, The Intuitive Series, including titles like The Intuitive CEO and The Intuitive Entrepreneur.

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperFrom Resistance to Readiness: Motivational Interviewing for Workplace TransformationTurns 'resistance as feedback' into an actual technique for getting people to talk themselves into change.⇄ The counterpointChange-Ready or Change-Resistant? How to Assess and Elevate the Mindsets That Drive AgilityLEAD walks people through change steps, but this session says readiness is a mindset shift steps can't force.✦ The unexpected oneFrom Termination to Transformation: The New HR Playbook for a Recovery-Friendly WorkforceSame swap of punishment for empathy, applied to substance recovery instead of change resistance.