Are your people fully supported to adopt new tools, technologies and ways of working? How can you ensure change is not just a checkbox for transformation – but a measurable, meaningful and outcomes-focused process?
In a world of constant digital change, what’s often overlooked is also the most critical factor of transformation success: people. From adoption challenges to change fatigue, today’s transformation efforts depend on how organisations enable and support their people to adapt to change – not just the quality of the new technology, solution or process itself.
Our Business Consulting and Advisory leaders delve into why real, lasting transformation starts with people, and how value-driven change enablement strategies can make change measurable, meaningful and sustainable. We explore:
- Why people are the most powerful – and complex – part of any change journey
- The importance of human-centric, data-driven change strategies
- How clear behavioural outcomes drive adoption and business value
- Why trust, communication and leadership are key to embedding AI at scale
- How to avoid ‘change fatigue’ through enterprise-level planning.
This episode highlights why change management and enablement forms a core component of CGI’s Digital Backbone – a structured framework of 12 foundational capabilities that help organisations move from strategy to real transformation outcomes. Grounded in human insight and operational imperatives, then powered by technology, the Digital Backbone ensures that every change effort delivers measurable impact.
- Transcript
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Steve Evans: Hello, and welcome to the next in our podcast series, Strategy to Outcome. I'm delighted today to be joined by Laura Goff, a leader in our business consulting practice at CGI in the UK. Hello, Laura.
Laura Goff: Hi, Steve. How are you?
Steve: I'm very well and great to have you on today. We're going to be talking about organizations and people change.
Laura: We are indeed. Thank you for having me.
Steve: Great to have you on. Let's get straight into it then. Let's get rolling with why are we talking about business and people change today?
Laura: It's a great first question. I'll start with the fact that the world seems to be becoming ever more excited about the possibilities of the digital revolution, and AI is absolutely everywhere, as you know. I guess I'm here today to really talk about people because I believe that people are the most critical, exciting, and complicated component of any organization. People are what makes the magic happen, I believe. Successful transformation of any kind, I believe, really lies in harnessing the power of the people involved. You need to make sure they're brought in, engaged, involved, and part of the solution in order to realize value.
Steve: When you talk about the importance of people, I think few of us would disagree with that. How do we make sure we do it right?
Laura: The first thing really that business change is all about is just focusing on the human perspective. We talk about human centricity, people centricity. What does that really mean? It means understanding layers on layers of complexity because humans are complex. Think about culture, the mindset that drive our behaviours. If you think about the multiplying effect of having to then tailor any change approach to individuals, teams, departments, leadership styles, that complexity is quite staggering sometimes. Quite often, people forget about it or choose not to focus on that.
I believe business change is all about focusing, first and foremost, on that human perspective. The second thing I'll say is, really, you need to make the path to success clear. We talk about technology or AI or new tools or processes, but how do we really translate what that means from the new tool, the process, the function of the technology to the behaviour that needs to change in order to drive adoption? First and foremost, we see when technology doesn't work so well is when people fail to adopt it. Of course, if you don't get the adoption, you don't reach the business outcome.
If you can make that path to success clear, really telling the story around how people can use new tools, processes, functions within technology to do something differently that drives a better business outcome, a more compelling business benefit, and of course, get the value realized and measurable at the end of that, then that's the next real success factor, I believe, of business change. The next thing really is making it data-driven. One of my bugbears actually is when people refer to change management as the soft, fluffy stuff. It's not. We need to really listen to the organization to shape our approach, and we need to do that through powerful data insights.
Whether that's through readiness assessments or impact assessments or what surveys or focus groups, whatever that data source is, we need to be able to evidence our approach and focus attentions where it needs to be. Finally, I'll just mention, this is possibly the most important, actually, is you need to have that visible and active commitment from leaders. It's not just about sending a couple of communications. Leaders need to be really passionate and enthusiastic about change in order to help generate buy-in and demonstrate that commitment throughout.
Steve: Laura, that sounds like there's quite a lot involved in making sure this organizational and people change topic is done well and done correctly. You touched on a little bit there about some of the risks of it not working, but beyond the adoption point you mentioned, what other things are there that will come to the fore when things don't go quite right?
Laura: If you fail to focus on the human perspective, especially with technology change, we'll see resistance. I think that becomes quite clear, but sometimes it's less clear. Sometimes when solutions aren't adopted or people reject them, that might be because they feel that they haven't been heard or listened to, or they're just not fit for purpose. They don't meet real business needs. Of course, if we see any of that, then adoption won't be maximal, and we won't realize the value.
Either it'll be partially realized or the AI investment or digital investment just won't be met. Also, I just mentioned that technology leaders can sometimes struggle to translate the value of brilliant technology and make that relevant and meaningful for the rest of the business. Again, we talk about scaling brilliant technology. If we can't translate that value to the rest of the business, then benefits remain theoretical. Of course, change can't happen, it can't be scaled, and it can't be sustained.
Steve: Yes, it makes sense. Of course, people change in its own right, often sits in a broader transformation effort in the wider context in which our clients, public and private sector operate in. As we've talked about before on this podcast series, as many others have been exploring this topic of AI, when we think about topics like that, what are some of the implications for people and how people operate?
Laura: Yes, of course, AI is super exciting right now. Fundamentally, we believe it can accelerate our return investment, it can drive efficiencies, it can make our working lives easier. We're all starting to dabble to various degrees in that front. Also, it can give us creative time. It can actually give us time away from some of the more mundane tasks to think about what's possible that wasn't possible before. It's obviously really exciting. At the organizational level, we're starting to see really compelling use cases across different areas of businesses and organizations.
Some organizations are getting to the point of proof of concept, but also, it's difficult to scale beyond that. Let's focus again on the people side. Really, I believe that in order to get people alongside with this, beyond the big headlines, is it's about building trust. We need to listen to the needs of people and teams first. We need to understand where the role of human specialism. AI can't replace everything. Especially in matters of confidence or specific specialisms that humans bring, we need to work out how humans and AI can work together on those things. Operational complexity is a massive thing as well. It's really important to understand what AI means in the real world.
Again, just going into the trust part, I think choice of language is really key. Being able to be really sensitive and anticipate fear and some of the resistant behaviours that are only natural when people start talking about changes to jobs and roles and the way things work. Also, the spectrum of learning and cultural needs. From people coming out of university to later in career, the spectrum of learning and how easy it is for people just to grab a new solution or a new AI opportunity and run with it, that varies hugely. We need to really plan for that.
Finally, just around, as I mentioned about real-world impact, to be able to scale AI successfully from proof of concept, we need to just take time to plan the change properly. That means understanding what it means from a people perspective, a process perspective, technology as well, but then also things like governance, ethics, sustainability, and what it means to really embed AI into real business operations. It's worth investing a little bit of time just to fully scope that out and get different perspectives of different areas of the business before embarking on a broad implementation of something that you think is going to be quite simple. I can guarantee it won't be.
Steve: Laura, that's great. You've made the case tremendously well, I think, here for not forgetting about people in all of the raft of change that you've described, which we all feel, I know, is ever quick as time goes on. If we come to the last question, if I may, and just look at organizations as you're seeing them today in the market where you're working and your teams are working, what should some of the key items that our leaders should be thinking about from a people and change perspective?
Laura: Your point there, Steve, around the landscape of change becoming more and more complex, that is so true. We're seeing that across public and private sector. Organizations, they don't have the luxury of time to just focus on one thing at a time anymore. They need to remain agile and change continuously. What that means for people is they're often impacted by multiple things continually. Messaging, communications, training demands on time to get involved or attend focus groups or provide SME insights to projects that is ramping up, and we're only capable of so much, of course. This is when leaders will start to hear complaints of things like change fatigue. It's difficult to be able to balance that demand on people and teams, especially when they have business as usual and day jobs to focus on. I believe in answer to this, it's really best to integrate business change across your whole portfolio.
You've got that departmental view, but you've also got that helicopter view of what change means for the people that are impacted, the teams and departments involved across the whole view, the whole landscape. When it gets cluttered or complex, or people start to talk about change fatigue, I think the best thing leaders can do is bring it up to the enterprise level. Enterprise change also has huge benefits. At the organization level, it means that you can easily see and remove duplication. It means that you can better align all your projects and programmes for strategic impact.
Of course, it means that you're getting better cost and resource efficiency, which is huge, of course. From a people's perspective, you're actually getting a smoother experience of change. We can improve sequencing and when things go live, so that it's more logical. We can consolidate communication and learning efforts so things feel more cohesive. All in all, it means that people are less bombarded, and it's easier for people to see the view ahead and get on board.
Steve: Well, Laura, that's great. You've certainly made a compelling case for us focusing on and not forgetting the importance of people in organizational change and that broader technology transformation that we see so frequently. For those that are on this podcast and would like to listen to other podcasts that we've done as part of this or the broader series, please access that via your normal channels, or alternatively, of course, via our CGI website. If you'd like to connect with us specifically on the topics that we've been discussing today, please feel free to reach out to us directly on LinkedIn. With that, many thanks. We'll catch up with you on the next one.
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If you want to hear more about our end-to-end Digital Backbone approach, listen to the related podcast episode: surviving today, thriving tomorrow: how a digital backbone enables future-fit organisations.
Listen now to explore how you can build a change management and enablement culture fit for the challenges of the modern world – and explore our related content:
Discover how CGI’s Digital Backbone framework helps enable outcomes-focused transformation
