Adoption Insurance: How to Ensure that Organisational Change Actually Happens
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Adoption fails when programmes treat it as a post-implementation afterthought rather than the point where change actually takes hold in daily operations.
- Involving frontline teams in designing how change works day-to-day builds ownership, whereas PwC found 45% of leaders blamed excluding frontline leaders for failed AI initiatives.
- Leaders need constant, honest feedback loops with their teams (through 'walking the halls' and regular 'vision pulse' check-ins) to spot early signs that adoption isn't working
- AI adoption raises the stakes rather than lowering them, so leaders must introduce it as a tool that strengthens work, with teams involved in shaping its use, rather than as a threat.
3 MIN READ
"
You need to be the architect of that change as well."
— Ruth Redding
Introduction
Many transformation programmes experience what we might call the 'adoption problem'. For organisational changes to become a habit for the people within them, there needs to be a successful phase of adoption throughout the company, and most programme timelines to not include enough space for this transition. As such, faced with new systems, teams may often find workarounds or simply default to old ways.
In other words, a programme can be technically complete and still fail commercially if the people affected do not trust it, understand it, or see where they fit.
This is the barrier that Ruth Redding, Leadership & Team Development Specialist, is trying to solve with what she calls ‘Adoption Insurance’. Her argument is straightforward: adoption is not the softer work that happens after the technology has been implemented, it is the point at which change becomes real in day-to-day operations.
In this article, Ruth emphasises how protecting your ROI is not about explaining change more clearly from the centre. It is about giving the people affected a meaningful role in designing how that change will improve their day-to-day operations.
Why Teams Need to Design the Change
In this shift, from passive subject to co-creating the change, leaders set the goals while the people closest to the work help shape the workflows, behaviours, and practical decisions that will make the new model work day to day.
This shift is crucial because it changes the emotional contract. When people feel change is being done to them, they tend to protect themselves from it. When they can help shape how it lands, they are far more likely to invest in making it work. PwC found that 45% of leaders cited the exclusion of frontline leaders in the design and rollout as a significant contributor to unsuccessful AI initiatives.
For leaders worried that deeper involvement will slow things down, the harder truth is often the reverse. Excluding teams can make rollout look faster at the start, but it usually stores up drag for later – resistance, workarounds, weak usage, and limited follow-through once the dashboard has already gone green.
Leaders Must Walk the Halls
Leaders fulfil a vital feedback loop between strategy and the actual reality in day-to-day operations. They can see with their own eyes and ears what is and isn't working, and this can be communicated back up to leadership for an agile response.
Ruth explains that there are some common signs that adoption is not working: 'A lack of curiosity from the people, and a lack of people talking positively about the change. When you are walking the halls, when you're engaging with individuals in your organisation, it's really important to be curious with them — to have conversations about how it's going for them, what the roadblocks are, what the barriers are. You will get a sense of how they're feeling not just from what they say, but from their body language as well.'
Leaders must be engaged at all times, and communication is the glue that can make or break a project. Ruth uses something called a 'vision pulse' to get a quick signal on how things are going. Rather than having a big announcement and then going quiet, you keep the 'why we're doing this' alive through regular short updates and feedback sessions. It is really important that people feel they can give real-time, honest feedback during those sessions. And, once you've shifted the responsibility for how the change happens onto the team, they will feel empowered to give you their honest feedback.
AI Makes the Adoption Problem More Urgent, Not Less
Artificial Intelligence offers a prime example of a technology which often struggles at the adoption stage. Despite its growing prevalence and usage, AI's integration into companies is often inhibited or delayed by a lack of experience, understanding, or trust in its applications. Resistance to AI programmes is likely to be much stronger and, in some cases, more emotional. The fight or flight response will be more prevalent and leaders will need to come prepared.
Ruth is confident that AI will enhance most people's jobs, making teams more productive rather than leading to widespread cuts, despite popular opinion. Observing its difficulty to implement, Ruth believes that the climate around AI is more negative than it needs to be: ‘I think a common assumption that’s completely wrong is that it’s AI versus human,’ she says.
The lesson here is not that organisations should wait until every concern disappears. It is that leaders cannot treat adoption as a training task when this technology is rapidly reshaping judgement, confidence, and role identity. If AI is introduced as a threat, people will respond defensively. If it is introduced as a tool that strengthens work – and teams are involved in deciding how it should be used in practice – the chances of building trust and performance improve materially.
What Leaders Should Do in the First 48 Hours to 90 Days
Though it may seem like a granular, arbitrary scale, the first 48 hours are really important because, while people need time to absorb the news, they also need early contact. Leaders should expect uncertainty, look for signs that people are withdrawing or questioning their place in the organisation, and make it clear that they still have value in the future state.
The next 90 days are crucial for proving this momentum. Ruth’s benchmark is to aim for results within three months, while reflecting on even small wins within the first one to two weeks. This gives leaders early signals on whether adoption is taking hold and gives teams evidence that the new way of working is more than another abstract programme promise.
There is a final test in all of this. Ruth argues that leaders themselves cannot behave as passive recipients of change. ‘You need to be the architect of that change as well,’ she says. If leaders do not believe they have agency in the change, they are unlikely to help their teams build any either.
For CIOs, COOs and transformation leaders, that is the final test of adoption. Do they believe that the change has benefitted their role as well as the team?
How Cambridge MC Can Help
Cambridge MC helps leaders turn change into something teams can adopt, not simply receive. That includes shaping the change story before launch, testing how messages will land, designing the right co-creation points with teams, and putting practical governance, feedback loops and adoption milestones around technology, operating model and AI-enabled change. If the aim is to realise value rather than assume it, adoption needs to be designed in from the start.
Get in touch with Ruth and her team using the contact form below to find out more.
About the Author
About Us
Cambridge Management Consulting (Cambridge MC) is an international consulting firm that helps companies of all sizes have a better impact on the world. Founded in Cambridge, UK, initially to help the start-up community, Cambridge MC has grown to over 200 consultants working on projects in 25 countries. Our capabilities focus on supporting the private and public sector with their people, process and digital technology challenges.
What makes Cambridge Management Consulting unique is that it doesn’t employ consultants – only senior executives with real industry or government experience and the skills to advise their clients from a place of true credibility. Our team strives to have a highly positive impact on all the organisations they serve. We are confident there is no business or enterprise that we cannot help transform for the better.
Cambridge Management Consulting has offices or legal entities in Cambridge, London, New York, Paris, Dubai, Singapore and Helsinki, with further expansion planned in future.
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