Author: emilymercier
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Some knots are load-bearing
We are optimizing away some of the most important work in our organizations. Not on purpose. The efficiency gains are real, the tools are remarkable, and the impulse to reduce effort is completely rational. But there’s a category of friction — the hard conversation, the failed experiment, the resistance that won’t resolve — that isn’t…
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Why I Learned to Love the Knot
My path to becoming a change leader was organic and appropriately messy. I didn’t fall into this work to justify a newly minted MBA. It wasn’t a second-choice consulting career or a “safe” place to land. The honest truth is that if someone had explained to me 20 years ago that “change management” was a…
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The question isn’t whether to slow down or speed up. It’s whether you can tell the difference.
Everyone is exhausted by change right now. But I don’t think exhaustion is the real problem. The real problem is that we can’t yet tell the difference between change that builds capacity and change that just consumes it. That distinction is where discernment actually lives.
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I bought the binder anyway
I spent two weeks making a visual narrative to help my father understand what was happening to him in the hospital. I never got to show it to him, but I bought the binder anyway. That experience, and what it taught me about how people process difficult things, is the subject of my latest post.…
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AI Is Changing What Effective Change Champions Actually Do
Why the advocate model isn’t enough — and what to do instead In 2022, a global financial services firm launched an enterprise AI program. They followed the established playbook and trained 200 change champions, built a community of super-users, cascaded communications and measured adoption through completion rates. Twelve months later, adoption metrics looked strong. But…
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We Built Our Careers on Endings. What Happens When There Aren’t Any?
A follow-up to Change Management Isn’t a Project Anymore. This time: the practical reality. How the work shifts, why the identity transition underneath it is harder than any skill gap, what we should be measuring instead of adoption rates, and an honest look at why continuous change is as exhausting as it is necessary.
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Change Management isn’t a Project Anymore. AI is Why
Artificial intelligence won’t just make change management faster — it will force us to rethink what change management actually is. For decades, change management has followed a familiar rhythm. Leaders identify a transformation need, bring in change leads, run a diagnosis, design a program and then mobilize the team or organization through a cascade of…
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AI Adoption Isn’t a Tech Problem
This article explores why AI adoption stalls despite sound strategy, arguing transformation is fundamentally human. Drawing on Stoic principles, it examines identity, fear, grief, and resistance at work, clarifies what meeting people where they are truly requires, and offers practical guidance for leaders pursuing ethical, durable, human-centered AI change efforts.
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What Stuttering Taught Me About Change Leadership
For most of my life, stuttering was something I managed quietly. I learned how to work around words, how to anticipate moments of friction, how to prepare for conversations other people took for granted. For a long time, that experience lived in a separate mental box—personal, not professional. It turns out that box was artificial.…
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The Obstacle Is the Dataset: Stoic Lessons for AI Transformation
Stoic philosophy offers practical guidance for leaders navigating AI transformation. This article explores control, resistance, and virtue to help change leaders communicate clearly, meet people where they are, and guide adoption with wisdom, courage, justice, and restraint amid uncertainty in complex organizations facing rapid technological disruption and cultural change today.
Emily Mercier | Transformational Change Strategist 