As the most trusted link between leaders and employees, managers play a critical role in translating executive vision into meaningful understanding and day-to-day execution – or they should. Here are four of the major missteps I see leaders make with managers when it comes to enabling and empowering them to communicate change, and what to do instead.

What people think will work to change behavior, doesn’t. It’s not about changing the hearts and minds of stakeholders. Yet so many leaders and their organizations continue running these plays, despite evidence to the contrary. So what works?

If you’re in the business of trying to solve the world’s most wicked problems, is there any way to get curious and ask, “Where might I be able to simplify?”

To figure out the best way to make decisions at your organization, you first have to diagnose what kind of decision-making culture you have right now. Once you define the problem, then you can begin to solve it. So what kind of decision-making culture do you have?

When I design strategies with clients, I don't just build whatever I think is best on top of what is already there. First, I explore. What already exists just below the surface that can be used to shape the strategy going forward? And where can it be found? Here are a few places to look.

Employees should never have to learn to live with change fatigue or “cope” with the impacts long-term. The only reason they would have to is because leaders and consultants misdiagnose the actual cause of change fatigue. And, in turn, they decide on the wrong solution to "cure" it.

Sympathy, empathy, and compassion are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. Compassion goes beyond mere emotion to include the active intention to help others and it’s one of the most valuable and underutilized qualities in leadership – here’s how to leverage it to design better strategies.

Most leaders consider change communication too late in the game. But change communication isn’t an announcement, a press release, or even a campaign to convince people to do something. Change communication is the change strategy, so when does it begin?

When leaders say “we’re too small for change management,” what I hear is “we’re too small to be strategic.” But if that doesn’t apply to other areas of your business, then why should it apply to change?