208 Transition

Building on the talent management theme in my last post, I revisited Dave Ulrich’s work on Talent Management. It raises a useful question: what is actually required from a Change Lead to build and manage talent across an enterprise-level change? So much is asked of leaders during change—yet what can a Change Lead do to ensure a major transformation builds enduring change capability, both within and beyond the project?

Part of early sensemaking should include an assessment of the talent at the disposal of the change. What resources already exist? What is the capability and capacity of the HR business partners? Where are the gaps? Is there funding for training—either for the change team or for HR Business Partners who support the project?

Ulrich provides a simple but powerful model: Buy, Build, Borrow, Bind and Bounce.

Buy refers to attracting change management talent from outside the organisation. Effective Change Leads make a quick assessment of internal gaps and select external talent accordingly—whether long-term or short-term. Often the real value is in bringing in a “friendly outsider” who offers fresh perspective. A core capability for Change Leads is understanding the skills required and being able to represent the role clearly and credibly in the market.

This is why collaboration with leadership and talent acquisition is essential. A Change Lead should be involved at every stage of recruitment and orientation—articulating expectations, shaping the role, and setting clear 30-, 60- and 90-day milestones.

Too often, change and transition work is constrained by closed-system thinking. In a previous role, I was once told by an HR Business Partner—who had been in the organisation for nearly 30 years—that change would “always be delivered a certain way,” despite low employee satisfaction with how change had been managed. The organisation desperately needed broader perspectives, whether through strategic recruitment or short-term contracting.

The Change Lead can also borrow resources—either from elsewhere in the organisation or from other organisations. Change careers are often seen as static rather than experience-driven, yet short-term secondments or assignments can significantly broaden a practitioner’s experience and “story book.” Maintaining a well-developed network of change managers is therefore a key capability for a Change Lead.

It is also common to join a project where individuals are working in developmental roles. Many practitioners step into change management as a temporary assignment on their pathway to full professionalism. Not enough attention is given to the developmental and capability-building opportunities available in large-scale change projects. The speed and chaos of implementation can overshadow the longer-term value of building a resilient, capable change community. The result is an erosion of capability for future work.

Change Leads should therefore take a deliberate, developmental approach: understanding the aspirations of team members, identifying growth opportunities, and designing work in a way that motivates and builds capability. Much of that capability will outlast both the Change Lead and the project itself. Performance development planning and group learning should be considered essentials, not luxuries.

The Change Lead should also influence investment in training and certification. In many of my projects, organisations have invested heavily in accreditation, but decisions about who receives training often fail to consider long-term capability needs. The Change Lead should guide these decisions with a view to future organisational benefit. Credentials should go to those who will apply them and critically reflect on their use.

Despite this, Change Leads are often confined to offering subject matter expertise, when the role should extend further—towards shaping identity, belonging and community within the change team. This is the bind element: role clarity, performance expectations, learning, rewards, and developmental pathways.

Finally, bounce. Limiting the Change Lead to subject matter expertise also robs them of the ability to address underperformance. In resource-constrained environments, underperformance affects the wellbeing of other team members and can damage the reputation of the profession. Effective Change Leads manage performance proactively and compassionately. Learning and growth remain central, but accountability is essential.

In the end, the Change Lead’s role is far broader than coordinating activities or supplying subject matter expertise. It is a leadership role in its own right — one that shapes capability, sets standards, protects the profession and creates the conditions for people to grow.

When done well, the benefits outlast the program, the project and even the individuals involved. This is where change leadership becomes a form of enterprise stewardship: using the opportunity of a major transformation to strengthen the organisation’s talent, resilience and future capacity. That is the work that truly separates a Change Lead from a Change Manager.