The Illusion of Clarity: Thinking We Understand Change Before We’ve Actually Analyzed It

Every transformation starts with a clear promise: to improve performance, simplify processes, enhance collaboration, or enrich the customer experience.
From the simplest to the most complex, all transformations share the same challenge: adoption.

We now know that change doesn’t take hold naturally—or sustainably—just because it has been announced.
That’s why organizations call on Change Managers: professionals whose role is to make change livable, understandable, and actionable for those who experience it.

The work of a Change Manager typically unfolds in three key phases:

1. Analyze and understand what is changing — this first phase, the foundation of everything, is the impact analysis.
2. Implement, support, and follow up — by deploying tailored action plans for each audience.
3. Adjust, reinforce, and anchor — to transform initial adoption into long-term change.

It is within this first phase—impact analysis—that a large part of a transformation’s success is determined.

Impact analysis means understanding, both qualitatively and quantitatively, what is changing:

• Qualitatively: What is changing? For whom?
• Quantitatively: When, where, to what extent, and for how many people?

It allows us to map impacted groups—teams, departments, business units, or locations—and to understand the differences in how they will experience the change.

In many ways, impact analysis in Change Management is what functional analysis is in IT: a structured design process on which all subsequent actions are built.
Just as no system can be developed without clear requirements, no human transition can succeed without a deep understanding of its real impacts.

A Change Manager doesn’t apply ready-made recipes.
They observe, question, synthesize, and design tailored action plans adapted to each group affected by the change.
And this is where both the value and the illusions of this phase appear.

The Illusions

Impact analysis is one of the most critical and yet most misunderstood stages of change.
It requires time, clarity, and collaboration — three resources that are often stretched thin in modern organizations.
Over nearly two decades of practice, I’ve identified several recurring illusions that often undermine its potential.

1. The Illusion of Available Time

We often assume managers will “find some time” to contribute to the impact analysis.
In reality, especially in complex transformations, they’re already heavily engaged in their day-to-day operations, in functional analyses linked to system or process changes, and in conversations about the human side of transformation.

Why do I speak so often about managers?
Because they play a pivotal role in the success of any change.
When I say manager, I mean it in the broadest sense — anyone responsible for a team, from the CEO to the front-line team leader.
They are the Change Manager’s key partners: they know the realities of the field, they hold the legitimacy to act and to speak, and they carry the trust of their teams.
This is precisely why they’re essential contributors to the impact analysis — and why their availability (or lack thereof) has such a significant influence on its quality.

But this availability is often more theoretical than real. The accumulation of demands makes it difficult to take the necessary step back to reflect deeply on how change will affect their teams and activities. Yet this is a crucial moment—one that requires both perspective and mental space.

The first iterations of the analysis are therefore often, quite logically, partial. It usually takes several cycles of questioning, reframing, and alignment to reach a solid, complete understanding of the change impacts—just as a functional analysis takes time to mature.

And that’s the illusion: believing that human understanding of change takes less time than technical understanding.
In truth, designing, understanding, and implementing change often require just as much time as developing and deploying a technical solution.

That time spent on understanding and maturation isn’t lost time —
it’s what ultimately secures adoption.

And this leads directly to the next illusion: the idea that once we’ve done it once, we’ve done it well enough. The truth is, impact analysis is not a one-off exercise — it grows, evolves, and matures alongside the change itself.

2. The Illusion of Sufficiency

This illusion is closely linked to the previous one. Many believe that one or two rounds of impact analysis are enough to identify the main issues and define the right actions. In reality, understanding evolves as change unfolds.

Each return to the analysis helps refine it further: new details emerge, priorities shift, dependencies surface. It’s a living process where clarity grows as the organization and its people gradually make sense of what’s happening.

This dynamic can sometimes feel like rework—but it’s actually part of the process. Impact analysis isn’t a box to tick; it’s an ongoing exploration, one that evolves alongside the organization’s own maturity.

Each conversation, each update, each new perspective contributes to a deeper,
more accurate, and more shared understanding of what’s changing.

And the more collective that understanding becomes, the more effective and relevant the resulting actions will be. That’s how we move from a superficial adoption to a deep, sustainable transformation.

3. The Illusion of Managerial Obviousness

Managers are the Change Manager’s key partners, but that doesn’t mean that leading change comes naturally, or that they’re always equipped to do it in a structured way.

In my work, I’ve often partnered with managers conducting impact analyses for the first time. It’s always a valuable learning moment: together we explore the right questions, identify direct and indirect impacts, and connect the change to the day-to-day reality of their teams.

Yet this exercise requires a specific mindset — the ability to look not only at what is changing, but also at what that change means for people, processes, and interactions. That kind of reflection isn’t part of most managers’ daily routines. It needs guidance, structure, and time to develop.

That’s why impact analysis is also a collective learning moment —
for managers, project teams, and the Change Manager alike.

It’s where perceptions meet, global and local visions align, and shared meaning takes shape.

The illusion here is thinking that this capability is innate. In reality, it grows through experience, through dialogue, through trust — and that’s exactly what makes impact analysis so valuable. Beyond data and plans, it creates a shared understanding of change.

4. The Illusion of a Shared Big Picture

Another, more subtle illusion is believing that everyone in the organization shares a clear and unified understanding of what’s being transformed. In truth, each actor holds a different piece of the puzzle. IT, Finance, HR, Operations, Sales — every function works within its own lens, which is normal and necessary for performance.

But in a cross-functional transformation, these partial views quickly show their limits. A process change in one area ripples into others; a new technology reshapes collaboration; a new structure redefines roles and responsibilities.

Without a systemic view of impacts, these connections are often discovered too late — during rollout, when it’s already costly to adjust. That’s when the frictions appear: misalignments, redundancies, conflicting priorities, or rework.

The Change Manager, much like an information architect, acts as a conductor of collective understanding. They don’t hold all the answers, but they connect the dots, challenge assumptions, and help each part of the system see beyond its immediate scope.

The illusion of a shared big picture is believing that
this understanding already exists.

In reality, it must be built — through dialogue, confrontation of perspectives, and shared analysis. That’s how an organization develops a collective intelligence of change — instead of simply reacting to it.

5. The Illusion of the Change Manager as a “Silver Bullet”

Some organizations still assume that simply hiring a Change Manager will “fix” the human side of change. As if their arrival alone could remove resistance, speed up adoption, and simplify the journey.

It’s an understandable illusion. Because Change Managers bring structure, method, and perspective, they’re sometimes expected to “do the change” for everyone else. But their role isn’t to carry change alone — it’s to enable everyone to carry it together, while also contributing actively to making it happen.

A seasoned Change Manager isn’t just an orchestrator — they act, design, and support in practice.
They train managers in change leadership, facilitate impact analysis workshops, lead discussions around resistance or fears, design training programs, craft communication materials, and even engage in process reviews when needed.
In short, they bridge strategy and execution.

Their effectiveness lies in this dual capability:

• the ability to question, frame, and structure understanding,
• and the ability to act, mobilize, and translate that understanding into tangible results.

Successful change rests on a complete ecosystem:

• committed sponsors who set the vision and sustain momentum,
• engaged managers who embody and relay that vision,
• project teams who translate technical impacts into human ones,
• and Change Managers who connect it all — through insight, method, and action.

The illusion of the “Change Manager silver bullet” is thinking they can act alone.

The reality is that they act with — and often for — others, to give change its best chance to succeed.

Conclusion

Underestimating impact analysis is like discarding the compass that guides every transformation. It’s believing we can act before we truly understand.

A well-led impact analysis does the opposite: it helps the organization understand before acting, structure before transforming, and adjust before deploying. It bridges strategy and operations, intentions and actions, tools and people.

The Change Manager plays a crucial role here — as a complete practitioner, able to question, design, train, facilitate, and mobilize. Their goal isn’t to make change easy, but to make it possible — and sustainable.

Because in the end, successful transformation doesn’t depend on speed, but on the quality of understanding we share, and the relationships we build around that understanding.

And it’s precisely that relational, collective dimension that connects to the next part of this series — how we support managers, teams, and users to deeply anchor change in everyday reality.

✳️ Let’s Talk

Do these illusions sound familiar?
Have you experienced moments when everything seemed clear — until reality told a different story?

If you’d like to explore these challenges, share your experiences, or discuss how to strengthen impact analysis in your organization, I’d be delighted to connect and continue the conversation.