Beyond Frameworks: Traits of a Successful Change Manager
By Antje Helfrich and Carrie Mandak, Senior Consultants
Amid constant technological innovation, market shifts, and organizational transformation, the role of the change manager is more critical than ever. Tasked with guiding individuals and teams through complex transitions, a change manager serves as the bridge between strategy and execution—ensuring that change is not only implemented but truly adopted by the organization.
This article is the first in a series that examines organizational change management from multiple perspectives. In this article, we explore the traits and competencies that define successful change managers – and share best practice examples from our own work. In an upcoming article, we tackle common pitfalls and proven solutions. Finally, we will devote an article to comparing the unique challenges facing change managers in public versus private sectors.
Beyond Frameworks
While methodologies like PROSCI's ADKAR® model and Kotter's 8-Step Process provide valuable structure, true change management effectiveness stems from human-centered traits that cannot be found in any framework: empathy, curiosity, stakeholder engagement, and the courage to challenge assumptions. These competencies are honed through real-world experience across diverse organizational contexts.
Empathy and Curiosity: The Heart of Change Management
The most successful change managers are fundamentally empathetic, genuinely interested in understanding how people work and feel about their work. This curiosity is not superficial. It is about caring for people and setting them up for success.
In Practice: Forum Solutions Senior Consultant Ben Heege worked with a team following long-standing procedures for revising operating protocols. Rather than assuming the existing process worked, he recommended an anonymous survey to measure staff awareness and readiness for adopting procedural updates. The responses revealed significant opportunities to reinforce messaging with additional tools and in-person follow up to pursue a higher level of understanding and readiness within the team. Team leaders subsequently invested additional time to ensure frontline staff felt truly supported and decided to use survey tools again for future events to continue measuring progress.
When Forum Solutions Senior Consultant David Shin helped implement a new work scheduling system, the technology was straightforward, but the behavioral shift was significant. His team learned that training needed to be delivered by a "peer voice." He partnered with the employee union to create training videos featuring realistic scheduling scenarios that resonated with employees, dramatically improving learning and adoption. Read on for more about this particular engagement in our case study “Ready for Takeoff.”
Amplifying Stakeholder Engagement
When preparing the organization for a new system, operating model, or framework, a skilled change manager is deliberate about bringing stakeholders along from the very beginning. They create alignment around the need for the change by cultivating bi-directional, meaningful feedback throughout the planning and implementation stage, thus preparing the organization for adoption.
In Practice: To drive the adoption of new customer-focused practices at a software company, Forum Solutions Senior Consultant Antje Helfrich built a toolkit consisting of how-to-guides and templates, developed new training, and instituted a peer-support group to reinforce the new process. She spent time identifying and evangelizing best practices, showcasing teams who successfully implemented new practices and connecting them with others in the organization doing similar work. Antje’s efforts helped stakeholders see successful adoption in action, which increased their support for and participation in the program.
Stakeholders, especially end users, need to be included in all phases of a change initiative, from discovery to design to execution. By providing end users with a voice throughout the process, a change manager drives buy-in and a sense of ownership.
Raising Flags and Challenging Assumptions
Perhaps the most underappreciated trait is a change manager's willingness to challenge assumptions—about what stakeholders know, what employees think, and what will actually work. They serve as flag-raisers, prompting critical conversations that might otherwise be overlooked.
In Practice: Forum Solutions Senior Consultant, Emily Reitman relayed this example:
“We helped our client maximize value from their initial deployment by challenging early assumptions and engaging user groups to help mature the solution and ensure successful adoption in future release cycles.”
A major retailer launched an AI-powered tool to monitor transport estimated arrival times, but the initial scope was so limited that it did not replace existing tools for target users. Adopting the tool would add work for transportation managers without streamlining their existing operations. Initial plans assumed adoption would happen with basic training and no clear user goals or impact assessment. Recognizing this, Emily raised critical questions: What is the tool’s purpose in its current scope? What is the future vision for the tool? How will it help users? What defines success in the current implementation? This shift led to a new approach: focusing on user adoption among a small group of power users, rebranding the rollout as an innovation initiative, offering incentives, and building feedback loops so that power users understood that they were part of creating the future state. The early power users provided key insights and lent efforts to inform the solution, validate the data, and train the model. Over time and continued enhancements, the tool has matured and now supports transport operations across Europe.
Summary
The question is not whether your organization will face change, it is whether you have change managers equipped with the traits to guide you through it successfully. While frameworks provide structure, success comes from change managers who combine deep empathy with fearless curiosity, who engage stakeholders as partners rather than recipients, and who have the courage to challenge assumptions before they become costly mistakes.
In a world where the pace of change continues to accelerate, these human-centered skills are not just valuable, they are essential. The most successful organizations do not just implement change; they cultivate change managers who understand that transformation is fundamentally about people, not processes.
Whether you are guiding digital transformation, implementing new processes, or navigating a merger, understanding, and applying structured organization change management (OCM) practices can mean the difference between resistance and resilience. Our skilled and experienced change managers will help you ensure initiatives are not just implemented but embraced, leading to sustainable results. https://www.forumsolutionsllc.com/change-management.
About Antje Helfrich
Antje is a strategic transformation leader known for exceptional cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management across all levels of the organization. She has a proven track record helping clients in the Technology, Retail, Telecommunications, Utilities, Non-Profit and Public sectors develop and execute strategic initiatives and set their organizations up for success.
About Carrie Mandak
Carrie is a seasoned leader and team member with 10+ years’ experience in business transformation and large-scale software implementation. She has the ability to connect subject matter experts and executives to relevant information to facilitate decision making and help organizations realize their goals.
Forum Solutions is a management consulting company dedicated to crafting and delivering transformational outcomes for our clients, our colleagues, and our community. With our help, clients become more agile, resilient, and connected, bringing great ideas to fruition with brilliant results. From start-ups to the Fortune 50, business leaders rely on Forum Solutions to help them form and realize their strategies. Our company is a certified Woman Owned Business that believes in developing and growing our colleagues, company, and region in a socially conscious way.