The Illusions of Change Management (1/3)
The Illusions of Change Management (1/3) – the time
Every year, organisations invest millions in transformation projects. New structures are deployed. Manufacturing processes are redesigned. New products are launched. ERP systems, AI solutions and other digital tools are implemented. Companies merge and reorganise.
The forms of change are countless — yet many of these initiatives fail to deliver the expected benefits within the planned timeframe.
Why? Because even today, organisations continue to underestimate the human dimension of change.
The illusion
The illusion in many organisations is that human change
can be compressed just like a project timeline.
As if people could absorb a new model, a new system or a new way of working at the same speed as a technical rollout.
I’ve often witnessed this tendency to “go faster than the music”: because everything looks clear on paper, because the project plan is structured and the milestones are defined, organisations convince themselves that a transformation which would naturally require one hundred units of time can be achieved in eighty.
It’s an illusion: human time cannot be compressed — even when everything appears ready.
Every transformation involves an irreducible human lead time — the time each individual needs to understand, accept and internalise the change, which is the essential condition for sustainable performance in the new reality. This time varies according to the complexity of the change, the organisation’s culture and maturity, the emotional legacy of past transformations and the number of concurrent initiatives underway.
In practice, teams rarely face a single change at a time. They manage several transformations simultaneously while trying to maintain business performance.
This human time is not a luxury. Nor is it a weakness. It is a structural variable, as real as budgetary or technical constraints. Ignoring it distorts planning, undermines performance and delays return on investment.Conversely, the Change Manager’s role is not to slow down the business, nor to invent excuses to extend deadlines. Change must happen — and it must happen within the business rhythm.
But that rhythm needs to integrate the human reality.
And here lies another common misconception:
“If a Change Manager is involved, people will adopt faster.”
This is both true and false.
- True, because a professional Change Manager does far more than “support”.
They measure, qualify and make visible the impacts of change.
They help executives make informed decisions, guide managers in translating strategy into day-to-day realities, and remove the obstacles that hinder performance.
In other words, they secure the time factor — enabling the organisation to move as fast as possible without compromising quality of adoption or long-term success. - False, because even with the best support, human time remains incompressible.
It can be structured, streamlined, integrated into the strategy — but never erased.
This is where business time and human time collide. And it is precisely here that the Change Manager adds value: by aligning the two, with no complacency, but with lucidity.
Why it happens ?
Different stakeholders experience change through different timelines:
- Executives and decision-makers often have months, sometimes years, to prepare before a change is announced.
By the time deployment begins, they are ready to accelerate — and for budgetary reasons, timelines are compressed.
Yet the time invested in preparation should at least match, and often exceed, the time devoted to adoption. You cannot expect an organisation to internalise in a few weeks what leadership teams have spent months designing.
That balance is essential to secure success and return on investment. - Project teams operate under intense delivery pressure.
In today’s corporate environment, projects are measured in months, not years.
The focus too often remains on the technical go-live — not on human integration. - People managers live in another reality: maintaining business-as-usual while navigating multiple simultaneous transformations.
To prepare their teams, they would need time to pause, reflect and contextualise — a luxury they rarely have.
For them, the Change Manager acts as a true partner, helping to translate each transformation — strategic or operational — into tangible impacts and realistic action plans tailored to their teams. - Employees experience change in their own way.
Senior staff may need more time to let go of the past — and sometimes of their professional identity — to regain confidence with new tools or processes.
Younger staff tend to learn faster technically, but disengage quickly when change lacks purpose or meaning.
Adoption is never uniform: it depends on individual experience, team dynamics and organisational complexity.
On top of this, external pressures — competition, regulation, market volatility — accelerate the business clock, while the human clock remains non-compressible.
How to address it?
The role of Change Management is not to remove time as a constraint, but to make it visible, measurable and manageable.
Three levers are key:
- Integrate human time into project planning
A technology can be deployed in weeks, but adoption often takes months.
Project plans must reflect both timelines. - Qualify and quantify the impacts
Impact analysis is the cornerstone of any change effort. It must be systematic, precise and above all iterative. As understanding evolves, so must the change journey and the associated actions. - Work with people — at every level
A Change Manager doesn’t apply “recipes”.
With experience comes a versatile toolbox that adapts to context. They run workshops, test with employees, coach managers in their daily communication and provide hands-on support on the ground (managing resistance, productivity dips, etc.).
In parallel, they act as a sparring partner for executives — offering an external, unfiltered perspective, identifying potential blockers and ensuring that decisions and communication remain aligned with reality.
The Change Manager therefore stands at the centre of a triangle of collaboration:
- Project teams, delivering the solution,
- Managers, guiding their people,
- Executives, setting the direction.
At the centre, the Change Manager connects these layers, ensuring coherence across decisions, timelines and actions.
Conclusion
Change Management does not remove time.
It helps organisations see it, respect it and work with it.
That is what turns the illusion of a “fast change” into the reality of a solid and lasting adoption.
What about you ?
Have you ever faced this illusion of “faster change”?
How does your organisation balance business and human timelines?
If this resonates with you, let’s connect.
I’d be glad to exchange insights — whether you’d like to share your experience, discuss your current transformation challenges or explore how to make adoption truly sustainable.