This Insight Report examines how change is experienced in organizations today and what this means for leadership and practice. It draws on recent academic work on collective agency and a digital ethnography of over 150 reflections from executives, consultants and academics on LinkedIn, offering a lens into real-time practitioner sensemaking about organizational change. The analysis tested the idea of collective agency (shared capacity for change) against practitioner experience. From this evidence, the report highlights four insights: Older models persist because they are simple, legitimate reference points that reassure decision makers, even if they fail in practice. Change is most difficult when it disrupts identity and resistance reflects these concerns rather than defiance. Leadership is experienced as enabling participation and ownership rather than enforcing compliance. Academic critique must be translated into methods leaders can use, supported by measures reflecting lived practice. These insights point to two practical directions: organizations need to embed collective agency by equipping leaders to engage identity concerns and building structures for participation, while the practice community must translate critique into approaches leaders can apply. In continuous change, adaptability depends on whether these directions are implemented. Without them, organizations risk producing compliance on paper and disengagement in reality.
