Who is looking across the whole?

I’ve sat in a lot of change / transformation program meetings that go the same way. One program is behind on adoption and the reason given is manager buy-in. The next one is behind as well, but it’s due to change fatigue and another may need a better narrative. And to be honest, most leaders and sponsors accept those explanations because they are only looking at their own program numbers, so from that height it all sounds reasonable.

When you take a closer look though, you realize its change applied in the same quarter with the same people. Yet, nobody is putting the picture side by because that isn’t anyone’s job.

The challenges get identified, then passed along to comms or L&D for manager cascades and training. Theoretically, both can help each individual program, but neither can fix a portfolio that was never designed as one.

The harder question is the one nobody owns. Who is looking across the whole?

In a lot of organizations, no one is. In the better ones somebody is, and even that isn’t enough.

What I could see

For a couple of years, I ran internal communications at an AI database company, and I built the view myself every quarter. I’d start with the recurring annual programs, the planning cycles, and the total rewards calendar, the things that arrive on the same dates every year and that everyone forgets are already sitting there. Then I’d overlay whatever else was coming, the transformations and the system rollouts.

It was a useful picture. I could see which groups were about to get hit the hardest and when, if I wanted to argue for moving something, I had something to point at.

What I couldn’t see

Everything happening one layer down.

I had a good view of our enterprise changes and almost none of what departments were doing to their own people. A function quietly redesigning how it worked. A business unit swapping out a tool used by 40 people daily. I knew what was coming in a couple of departments/teams because I was close to them. But everywhere else I was guessing.

The map that I was proud of fell a bit short and yours probably does too. To be fair, these views get built out from whatever is visible at the center and local changes don’t necessarily travel upward. That info just sits in their own authority, and no one asks them about it.

The employees on the receiving end of these changes don’t sort it out by who approved it. A tool migration in their function takes the same attention as an enterprise transformation, sometimes more, because it actually changes what they do on a daily basis.

Two things worth changing and one thing to remember

Overload is the real enemy. Build the overlay around people and teams rather than functions. Recurring programs first, planned change on top, mapped out against the groups absorbing both.

Then ask every business unit to tell you each quarter what they’re changing for their own people. You don’t need a business case, but an executive summary or even one line is enough. And remind people that no change is too small to matter because that’s where the overload can sneak in.

Change is not going to slow down. Someone needs to own the total, and they need to be able to see it.