Change Signal
Michael Bungay Stanier
If you’re leading change in organizations, this will be your favourite podcast.Change is harder than ever. Transformation is more complex, unpredictable and overwhelming than it’s ever been. Change Signal cuts through the noise to find the good stuff that works.Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit and organizational transformation student for thirty years, talks to the best thinkers, senior leaders, and experienced practitioners in the world of change, to find what works, what doesn’t, and what to try instead. With Change Signal as your guide, you’ll be more efficient and less overwhelmed, and your change projects will more likely succeed.Change Signal: Where we cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works. Sign up for weekly updates at TheChangeSignal.com
Episodes
Mentioned books
9 snips
Mar 25, 2026 • 28min
Where Should You Intervene? Dr. Leyla Acaroglu
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu, sustainability strategist and systems thinker who founded Disrupt Design, explains practical ways to map and work with complex systems. She discusses pen-and-paper cluster mapping, using tactile tools to surface hidden dynamics, and finding leverage points for real interventions. The conversation highlights iterative, grounded approaches to change in messy organizations.
21 snips
Mar 18, 2026 • 18min
Does Caring Less Help You Lead Better? Michael Bungay Stanier
A deep dive into the paradox of caring deeply while loosening your grip on results. A practical scale for how leaders relate to outcomes, from indifference to overattachment. Pitfalls of goal-checklist busyness and how to choose which outcomes to champion. Three drivers to navigate tension: ambition, embracing smallness, and steady daily practice.
21 snips
Mar 13, 2026 • 21min
How to Find the Next Wise Move: David Lancefield
David Lancefield, strategist and leadership advisor who coaches CEOs on systems leadership. He explores why all leaders must think in systems. He outlines five concentric systems to map blockers and unseen forces. He urges noticing complicity, listening for what’s missing, and choosing small, catalytic next moves that shift larger patterns.
29 snips
Mar 11, 2026 • 22min
Be A “Discovery-Driven” Change Leader: Rita McGrath
Rita McGrath, a strategy professor known for spotting business inflection points, discusses why change is constant and how leaders should treat disruption differently. She explains what true disruption looks like. Rita outlines discovery-driven leadership: listening for weak signals, engaging without micromanaging, and treating failures as testable hypotheses.
16 snips
Mar 4, 2026 • 21min
The Four Leadership Paradoxes: Michael Bungay Stanier
Explores how leadership is about who you are beneath the tools. Breaks down four core tensions: humble confidence, fierce love, light yet grounded process, and caring without controlling. Challenges leaders to hold paradox rather than solve it. Invites reflection on which tension to practice next.
23 snips
Feb 25, 2026 • 32min
The Environment Is Running the Show: Kristen Berman
Kristen Berman, CEO and co-founder of Irrational Labs and behavioral scientist focused on behavior design, explains how environments shape decisions more than persuasion. She explores why vague goals fail and urges defining exact behaviors. Tiny details like defaults, timing, and visibility drive change. Practical tactics include adding or removing friction and designing immediate benefits to make new behaviors stick.
32 snips
Feb 18, 2026 • 29min
What Really Moves/Changes a System? Helen Bevan
Helen Bevan, an NHS transformation leader who founded the School for Change Agents, shares fresh thinking from decades of system change. She probes belonging versus assimilation. She spotlights how social capital and relationships, not plans or resources, drive large-scale change. She discusses agency, small tests that seed movement, and how leaders need to let go to enable emergence.
23 snips
Feb 13, 2026 • 54min
Hard Questions About Change (With Answers). Michael Bungay Stanier
Susan Geller, executive director of a synagogue and longtime practitioner, joins to probe hard questions about leading change. She explores where leaders push on walls instead of leverage points. She reframes resistance as system feedback. She champions tiny, fast experiments and practical ways to influence without formal authority.
37 snips
Feb 11, 2026 • 35min
How to Be Unafraid of Data: Neil Hoyne
Neil Hoyne, author and former Chief Strategist at Google, explains why data often gets tangled in politics and how to use experiments to learn. He reframes intuition as compressed expertise worth testing. Short, practical ideas on tolerating uncertainty, surfacing quiet ideas, and running fast experiments to make organizations learn and move faster.
11 snips
Feb 4, 2026 • 31min
How an Engineer Would Map Your Org. Emily Moore
Emily Moore, engineering educator and leadership teacher at the University of Toronto, specializes in systems mapping and organizational change. She talks about why people get left off system maps. She walks through a hands-on post-it mapping exercise and why messy, iterative maps beat tidy diagrams. She reframes resistance as useful intelligence rather than mere obstruction.
