Do not ‘sell’ change to people as a way of accelerating ‘agreement’ and implementation. ‘Selling’ change to people is not a sustainable strategy for success, unless your aim is to be bitten on the backside at some time in the future when you least expect it. When people listen to a management high-up ‘selling’ them a change, decent diligent folk will generally smile and appear to accede, but quietly to themselves, they’re thinking, “No chance mate, if you think I’m standing for that load of old rubbish you’ve another think coming…” (And that’s just the amenable types – the other more recalcitrant types will be well on the way to making their own particular transition from gamekeepers to poachers.)

Instead, change needs to be understood and managed in a way that people can cope effectively with it. Change can be unsettling, so the manager logically needs to be a settling influence.