Why Change Fails—And What to Do After the Consultants Leave
If you're leading a business with 100–500 employees, you've likely lived this story before: a strategic shift gets announced, leaders are energized, consultants are brought in, slide decks are shared—and then… nothing changes.
Despite your best intentions and resources, the change initiatives stalls out within months. Why? Because they ignore the second wave: the moment when people have to adopt new behaviors, not just new ideas. Only 25% of organizations report that managing change is a major strength of senior leaders, suggesting a need for stronger leadership training in guiding change initiatives.
At Second Wave Learning, we specialize in change management, and what the company should do when the data-driven change has done its job, but cultural inertia kicks in–and holds change back. We're here to help your organization embed change, not just announce it.
Why does change management fail after launch?
According to McKinsey’s research, large-scale transformation efforts fail 70 percent of the time. And in mid-sized companies—those with between 100 and 500 employees—the failure rate can be even higher. These organizations are often:
Too large for informal, “walk-the-halls” leadership.
Too lean to afford drawn-out, enterprise-scale programs.
Too busy to measure success beyond anecdotal feedback.
The result? Leaders don’t know what’s working, and teams return to business as usual.
Learning isn’t about content anymore—it’s about momentum. If you don’t keep energy high after a change initiative, the culture can snap back to old habits.
So what’s the solution?
The Measurable Advantage: Change Management Metrics That Move the Needle
When helping organizations sustain change, Second Wave Learning focuses on contextual, microlearning programs that drive behavior, not just awareness. Our approach is rooted in adult learning psychology, data analytics, and the real-world demands of growing businesses with a multi-generational workforce.
For growing companies—especially those under 500 employees—change management often stalls in the “initiative fatigue” zone. You’ve launched strategies, hosted training, and sent out the memos. But behavior hasn’t budged, and the ROI of your change management team feels… theoretical.
This is where many companies falter: change management is treated as a communication strategy rather than a measurable, people-powered transformation process. If you’re serious about seeing results, it’s time to treat change management like a performance function—with metrics, coaching, and behavior reinforcement built in.
“Second Wave Learning was started to humanize the workplace so every person feels they have value. We do this by building a strong foundation of generational inclusion through workshops, storytelling, coaching circles, and teaching. Millennials and Gen Z were born into a world of crisis and uncertainty. Given the opportunity to lead, they will help us build solutions. They are uniquely qualified to solve tomorrow's problems. Too few people are aware of the incredible influence that a generation can have on the workplace, society, the economy, the culture.”
-Warren Wright
Founder & CEO at Second Wave Learning / Author, Keynote Speaker on Generational Inclusion, Global Culture Shifts, and Workplace Trends
How to shift the approach:
1. Activate Middle Managers as Change Multipliers
Your middle managers are your most underutilized change asset. Instead of expecting HR or senior leadership to carry the entire initiative, empower managers to coach change on the ground. This doesn't mean giving them another presentation to repeat. It means enabling them with tools and micro-practices that help teams apply the strategy in real-world moments. Think “managers as multipliers”—not messengers.
2. Reinforce Strategy with Habit-Based Learning
Often, change efforts rely on one-and-done training or town halls. But real transformation happens when new behaviors are practiced and reinforced over time. Look for change programs that treat learning as a daily micro-intervention, building habits that stick. When teams rehearse new mindsets and behaviors weekly (or even daily), their strategic priorities stop being theoretical and start becoming operational.
3. Measure What Actually Changes—Behavior, Not Just Attendance
Organizations with high change effectiveness are effective at assessing their culture and readiness to change, which is crucial for successful implementation. If your change dashboards track completion rates but not behavior adoption, you’re not really measuring impact. The most forward-thinking companies are implementing smart dashboards that provide real-time visibility into behavioral shifts, at the team, manager, and division level. These dashboards don’t just show if people are engaging; they help you pinpoint where momentum is building—and where it's stuck.
4. Elevate the ROI of Your Change Management Team
Executives want results, and the only way to deliver is to connect the dots between change management activities and business outcomes. When your team can show that behavior change is happening, productivity is rising, or team engagement is improving, your change management team stops being a “nice-to-have” and starts becoming a strategic force multiplier. That’s the power of data-driven change leadership.
Second Wave Learning’s model is designed for that moment when the consultants leave and the playbooks are forgotten. We help teams go beyond remembering the training. We empower teams to own the process and become change champions.
How Second Wave Learning Supports Your Change Management Metrics
Your data-driven change team worked hard to design the rollout. Now it’s time to measure what matters. We integrate with your existing systems and help you measure change with metrics such as engagement by department or role, behavior adoption over time, leadership alignment and reinforcement, or leading indicators of business impact.
Whether you're measuring the ROI of a change management team or need evidence to support future investments, we work with your goals in order to provide clear, actionable data.
Why It Works: Best Practices for Driving Measurable Change
Lasting change doesn't come from more information—it comes from a cultural shift where behaviors align with the desired transformation. Achieving this requires relevance, repetition, and reinforcement to embed new patterns that sustain change over time. The most effective change management strategies today are grounded in behavioral science and supported by real-time data. Here’s what to look for if you want a change initiative that truly sticks:
Microlearning at the Moment of Need
Skip the bloated workshops and all-day sessions. Instead, deliver short, targeted learning nudges aligned with your change goals. Weekly or biweekly learning drops—tied to specific behaviors—keep momentum high and make learning part of the workflow, not an interruption.
Contextual Customization
Generic training falls flat. Your teams respond better when examples, language, and tools are tailored to your unique environment. Change programs should reflect your culture, systems, and day-to-day challenges, not someone else’s template.
Behavior-First Measurement
Satisfaction surveys and attendance rates don’t tell you if change is happening. Leading organizations are tracking actual behavior change, before and after engagement, at the individual and team levels. This helps you see what’s working, where support is needed, and how to adjust course in real time.
Leadership Lift
Managers play a critical role in embedding change. Equip them with lightweight tools and prompts to coach their teams, reinforce learning, and model new behaviors. When managers are engaged and empowered, they become force multipliers—creating a flywheel of change across your division.
Ready to Make Change Stick?
If your team is launching a transformation—or if your last one didn’t go the distance—now’s the time to build your second wave. Don’t let your investment in consultants, software, or training go to waste.
Let’s chat about how Second Wave Learning can help your organization embed behavioral change, track change management metrics, and increase the ROI of your change management team.