Year-End Briefing · 2026
What we saw across nine industries this year, and what it means for the work you're planning in 2027.
There's a decision your organization made months ago that everyone approved and no one has moved on. There's a leader who used to be the steadiest person in the room, and now people have quietly stopped bringing things to them. And there's the meeting after the meeting, which is where the real conversation is happening.
We've spent the last stretch in reflection on this year and planning for 2027, and we get asked a lot about what we're seeing out there. So we put it together to share.
What we saw this year
This year brought us into healthcare, manufacturing, technology, staffing, food and beverage, CPG, non-profit, government, and financial services. Regardless of industry, what we saw was the same:
Where the miss happens
We've all heard that what got you here won't get you there. As we look at the work we did this year and what we're gearing up to deliver in 2027, we keep landing back on that idea. Whether "there" means expanding into a new market, integrating an acquisition, redesigning how work gets done around AI, or something else entirely, every organization is having to grasp that reality fast.
The mistake we see most often is accounting for the technical and logistical parts while leaving the human part behind. The technology gets implemented. The structure gets designed. The processes get updated and the right words get used. But leaders are never equipped with what it actually takes to bring people through change of that scale.
People aren't the same during change, and the way leaders are managing people through change isn't working because they aren't adjusting their approach to that reality. Not because they don't care, but because no one ever showed them how. When nearly 11,000 leaders around the world were asked where they felt weakest, managing change landed in their top two, and only about one in five HR teams said they prioritize developing those skills in their leaders.
From our work this year
We worked with a leader this year whose situation will likely sound familiar.
Her company acquired a business that opened up an entirely new market, and a new unit had to be built across several existing business lines. She was asked to run it, and she was feeling real pressure from her CEO and board to start producing quickly, so she looped the other leaders in and jumped straight into the work.
These leaders were senior executives, long-standing in their roles. But when it comes to human nature, age and experience don't matter much, because we all still react emotionally. The reactions that followed are the ones we see most often when change hits an organization: negativity, constant push-back, agreeing upfront and then backchanneling conversations of dissent, withholding information.
What she missed, because she wasn't leading according to people's brains on change, was the fear of irrelevance the other leaders were sitting in. If this new business succeeded, what would that mean for theirs? Would they lose respect and influence? Would their stability and security be pulled out from under them?
This plays out anywhere people are being asked to do things differently, at every level and in every function.
The fear of irrelevance doesn't care about anyone's title.
The framework
Working with her, we expanded her approach to account for four things that happen to people during change.
What you see
People stop hearing anything past the first sentence, and what you explained last month lands as brand new, so the same questions keep coming back and nothing sticks.
What shifts it
A change-adept leader simplifies the message, repeats it far longer than feels necessary, and asks questions that pull people back into thinking rather than reacting.
What you see
Small things get big reactions, and those reactions travel. People go on guard, start managing around the person they're worried about setting off, and stop bringing forward the things you most need to hear.
What shifts it
A change-adept leader recognizes the emotion out loud instead of talking past it, and still holds a clear line on what's okay and what isn't.
What you see
Everything becomes a competition for headcount, budget, influence, and relevance, and people argue as though only one version of the future can be true, which turns colleagues into rivals.
What shifts it
A change-adept leader helps them hold more than one truth at once rather than forcing a single perspective.
What you see
People start making up stories about ordinary decisions, and the gaps get filled with the worst available version.
What shifts it
A change-adept leader takes the small opportunities, the ones that feel too small to matter, to be stable, present, and clear.
Slowing down wasn't easy under the pressure she was carrying. But once she saw that the shift was less about a grand gesture and more about small adaptations in her approach, the momentum picked up and the other leaders moved from criticism toward support.
Looking ahead
2027 will bring more large-scale change and more uncertainty, with answers that are less obvious and riskier to act on. Across more than 20 million employee survey responses, how well change is handled is now the strongest predictor of whether people stay engaged with their work.
Leaders having the skills to manage people through change is a business imperative that directly affects the bottom line.
We're encouraging all of our clients to look at what they'll be working on in 2027 and ask three questions:
These are difficult questions to answer from the inside, because the people who'd normally develop your leaders are living through the same change, and rarely does anyone have a confidential read on how those leaders are actually landing with their people.
An invitation
We use those three questions as a way into a real understanding of what's ahead for your organization, and we'll show you where the gaps are most likely to be and which ones are worth your attention first.
There's nothing to prepare or pull together beforehand, no commitments, and no pressure for anything more. Bring the situation as it is, and we'll start there.
Wishing you a steady close to the year.
Ashley