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Last week, Part A separated the tools by what they measure: leadership capability, change leadership behaviours, transition phase, reaction patterns, change style, and concerns.
This week, Part B turns that into a selection guide. The goal is to
stay agnostic and practical: pick the right lens for the problem you're actually
facing.
The quickest way to choose: what's the constraint?
Most change programmes stall for one (or more) of these
reasons:
- Leaders
aren't driving change well (unclear direction, inconsistent follow-through)
- Change
champions aren't showing the right behaviours (poor comms, low involvement)
- People
are emotionally stuck (denial/resistance, low energy, cynicism)
- People
have specific concerns (impact, workload, competence, trust, personal risk)
- Different
change styles are clashing (pace, ambiguity tolerance, appetite for
experimentation)
Here's how the tools map.
1) If the constraint is: Our leaders aren't effective change drivers
Use Change Management Effectiveness (CME)
Use CME when you need to build the capability of managers
and leaders to drive change, not just communicate it.
Best-fit situations:
- you're
developing a cohort of managers who must deliver change as part of their role
- you're
building internal change leadership capability (beyond one programme)
- you want
a baseline for coaching and development planning
Why CME is the right lens: it focuses on the manager as a
change driver and assesses competence across seven change management
competencies.
Where CME isn't enough on its own: when adoption is blocked
by employee concerns or transition fatigue. In that case, pair it with a
people-side tool (see below).
2) If the constraint is: We need change leadership behaviours at every level
Use Leading Change at Every Level (LCEL)
Use LCEL when you want people throughout the organisation to
lead change through visible behaviours
not just support it.
Best-fit situations:
- you're
building a network of change champions
- supervisors
and team leads are the real make or break for adoption
- you want
a shared behavioural standard for what good looks like
Why LCEL is the right lens: it measures five behaviours
(modelling, communicating, involving, helping people break from the past,
creating a supportive environment). Its a clean bridge to action planning.
Common pairing: LCEL + Change Abilitator (behaviours +
concerns) when you want champions to respond to what people are actually
worried about.
3) If the constraint is: People are stuck emotionally in the change
Use Mastering the Change Curve (MCC)
Use MCC when the organisation needs a shared map of
transition and a way to normalise and move through the emotional phases of
change.
Best-fit situations:
- change
was imposed (people didn't initiate it)
- you're
seeing cynicism, withdrawal, rumour, or passive resistance
- you need
a language for where are we right now?
Why MCC is the right lens: its explicitly built on Jaffe
& Scotts four phases (Denial, Resistance, Exploration, Commitment) and
treats negative reactions as normal and adaptive.
Where MCC can be misused: when the real issue is poor
planning, unclear decisions, or lack of resources. Don't use a transition model
to compensate for weak execution.
4) If the constraint is: We need to understand peoples reactions to organisational change
Use Change Reaction (CR)
Use CR when you want individuals (and groups) to recognise
their approach to organisational change and plan more effective behaviour and when you want to examine organisational
support systems.
Best-fit situations:
- you're
running a change programme and want a structured diagnostic discussion
- you want
to surface patterns across teams (OD lens)
- you want
to help people plan coping behaviours and support needs
- MCC is a
phase journey model (where am I on the curve?)
- CR is a
reaction pattern model (how do I tend to respond?)
5) If the constraint is: Different change styles are clashing
Use Change Management Predictor (CMP)
Use CMP early in a programme when you want to reduce
judgement and help teams understand that different people have different
preferred styles when confronted with change.
Best-fit situations:
- teams are
arguing about pace (move faster vs be cautious)
- leaders
assume resistance is attitude rather than style difference
- you want
managers to tailor how they involve and support different people
CMP is especially useful as a softener: it creates empathy
and stops people pathologising each other.
6) If the constraint is: We need to know what people are worried about
Use Change Abilitator (CA)
Use Change Abilitator when you need to identify the concerns
that will block adoption including
concerns people may not say out loud.
Best-fit situations:
- you're
planning a change and want to anticipate obstacles
- you're
mid-change and adoption is uneven across teams
- you need
to target comms and manager actions to what people actually care about
This tool is most powerful when you commit to action. If you
ask people about concerns and then ignore them, you'll create a trust problem.
Without turning it into tool soup;
Sequence A: Capability first (leaders), then people-side
Change Management Effectiveness to
build leader change-driver capability
Change Abilitator to surface employee concerns
Leading Change at Every Level to
build champion behaviours that address those concerns
Sequence B: People are stuck (transition), then rebuild
momentum
Mastering the Change Curve to
locate people on the curve and normalise reactions
Leading Change at Every Level to
equip local leaders with behaviours to move people forward
Change Abilitator to target the specific blockers
Sequence C: Style clashes are the issue
Change Management Predictor to
reduce judgement and improve tailoring
Change Reaction to
discuss reactions and support systems
Leading Change at Every Level to
create consistent change leadership behaviours