5 Hard Truths Of Change Management
CIO, Tuesday, August 25th, 2026
Change management has become continuous rather than finite, straining organizational capacity and requiring built-in trust.
Stephanie Overby identifies five truths reshaping change management:
transformation no longer has an endpoint, so strategies must build adaptability rather than aim for one destination; organizations have finite bandwidth as AI initiatives, restructuring, M&A, and skills gaps compete for attention;
unsanctioned 'shadow AI' use should be read as intelligence about unmet needs rather than purely a security risk;
systems requiring autonomous decisions need built-in trust through explainability and oversight;
and change fatigue reflects genuine capacity limits, not simple resistance, with agile organizations reporting far less of it.