Stop Blaming Resistance: What Actually Kills Organizational Change | Jeff Wetherhold

About this episode

Jeff Wetherhold discusses the critical role of communication in successful organizational change and the common misconceptions about employee resistance.

Seven out of eight organizational changes fail. Not because the strategy was wrong. Not because the timeline was unrealistic. Not because the employees were difficult. Because nobody on the leadership team knew how to have the real conversation that change requires. Not the announcement. Not the update. The one where you sit with someone's ambivalence, listen to what's underneath the pushback, and help them find their own reasons to move forward. Jeff Wetherhold has spent over 20 years studying exactly this gap. As a Harvard-trained behavioral science researcher, certified change practitioner, and founder of Change with Dignity, he has trained thousands of leaders across healthcare, government, and organizations including MIT on what genuinely moves people through change — without losing them in the process. His argument is direct and backed by data: disengagement and turnover are not the inevitable price of change. They are the price of communication left to chance. And until organizations treat change as a communication problem first — not a planning problem, not a framework problem — the 88% failure rate isn't going anywhere. In this conversation with Ivan Palomino, Jeff…

People in this episode

Host: Ivan Palomino

Guest: Jeff Wetherhold

Topics covered

• organizational change
• communication
• leadership
• behavioral science
• employee engagement
• resistance to change

Keywords

• organizational change
• leadership communication
• employee resistance
• behavioral science
• change management
• motivational interviewing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Change with Dignity, MIT, Harvard, healthcare, government

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