I’ve been trained in the Kotter method and have led change inside enterprises large and small. The pattern is remarkably consistent: the strategy is rarely the problem. The executive team agrees, the board signs off, the announcement lands. Then the change meets the middle of the organisation — and slows to a crawl.
Middle managers aren’t resisting change out of stubbornness. They’re resisting ambiguity. They’re the ones who have to answer their team’s questions on Tuesday morning: What does this mean for my targets? My territory? My job? If they can’t answer, they can’t lead it — so they wait, and waiting looks like resistance.
The fix is not more communication from the top. It’s equipping the middle. Give managers the honest story — including the uncomfortable parts — before the rumour mill does. Give them the questions their teams will actually ask, and real answers to them. And then listen back: the middle is your early-warning system for everything the plan got wrong.
Change doesn’t fail because people hate the future. It fails because we hand people a destination and no map, then call their hesitation a culture problem.