Introduction: why this action matters for adoption
Managers are often the place where a change either becomes real or remains a slide deck. Employees usually experience change through local priorities, team routines, workload trade-offs, coaching, and reinforcement. Prosci identifies five manager roles in change: communicator, liaison, advocate, resistance manager, and coach; PMI similarly describes middle managers as a link between executive intent and employee adoption [Prosci, 2023; PMI, 2009]. (prosci.com) Gallup’s workplace research also estimates that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement, which reinforces why the manager layer is a high-leverage adoption channel, even though engagement is not the same as adoption [Gallup, 2015]. (news.gallup.com)
What this action is and when to use it
This action is a capability-building and coaching intervention. The change manager helps managers understand their role, prepare for real team situations, and carry out specific behaviors that support adoption. Coaching and mentoring are development approaches based on one-to-one conversations to improve skills, knowledge, or work performance, and CIPD explicitly includes preparing and supporting people through change as an objective of workplace coaching and mentoring [CIPD, 2025]. (cipd.org)
Use this action when managers are expected to translate a change into daily work, when frontline resistance is likely, when adoption depends on repeated behavior rather than one-time training, or when go-live is approaching but managers are unclear about what to do. It is also useful after launch when usage data, workarounds, or employee questions show that implementation has occurred but adoption is incomplete. PMI emphasizes that change management should start before project launch and continue after project closure, with reinforcement and measurement in the application phase [PMI, 2013]. (pmi.org)
Preparation: inputs, stakeholders, materials, timing, and decisions needed
Before coaching managers, clarify the change in “people terms”: who must do what differently, what old behavior must stop, what new behavior matters most, and what benefits should appear. PMI recommends stakeholder readiness assessment and change impact analysis, including what each stakeholder group must do differently and how they should be prepared [PMI, 2013]. (pmi.org)
The core stakeholders are the sponsor, change manager, project lead, HR or L&D partner, impacted managers, and any super users or champions. Materials should include a one-page manager role guide, talking points, a resistance triage guide, a feedback log, adoption indicators, and example team scenarios. Decide whether the first intervention is a manager briefing, small-group clinic, one-to-one coaching, peer circle, or mentor pairing. Use the lightest format that gives managers enough practice, not just information.
Timing matters. Coach managers before broad employee engagement if they will be expected to answer questions. Repeat the coaching before go-live, immediately after go-live, and again when adoption data becomes available. For high-resistance groups, start earlier and include one-to-one preparation before managers are asked to advocate publicly.
Step-by-step facilitation guide
Frame the manager’s adoption role. Explain that their job is not to “cascade comms” but to help people understand, try, use, and sustain the new way of working. Link this to the Prosci manager roles of communicator, liaison, advocate, resistance manager, and coach [Prosci, 2023]. (prosci.com)
Diagnose manager readiness. Ask: “What do you understand?”, “What concerns you?”, “What will be hardest for your team?”, and “What support do you need before you can lead this?” CIPD cautions that coaching is not a universal solution and should consider readiness and motivation [CIPD, 2025]. (cipd.org)
Translate the change into local behaviors. Work with each manager to name two or three observable behaviors. For example: “All customer exceptions are logged in the new workflow by Friday” is more useful than “support the CRM rollout.”
Prepare the conversation. Give managers a simple structure: why the change is happening, what changes for this team, what is not changing, what support is available, what is expected this week, and how feedback will be escalated.
Practice real resistance scenarios. Role-play the skeptical expert, the overloaded supervisor, the silent team, and the employee who agrees publicly but keeps the old process. Prosci and PMI both treat resistance as expected and something to diagnose rather than dismiss [Prosci, 2023; PMI, 2013]. (prosci.com)
Assign concrete weekly activities. Ask managers to hold a short team huddle, complete two one-to-one check-ins, observe the new behavior once, capture three issues, recognize one example of adoption, and escalate one barrier they cannot remove.
Create the feedback loop. Managers should know what to do with questions, defects, policy conflicts, and resistance signals. Their liaison role is to feed implementation reality back to the project and sponsor, not absorb every issue locally [Prosci, 2023]. (prosci.com)
Reinforce and adjust. Bring managers back together after launch to compare patterns, identify fixes, and agree the next adoption focus. PMI recommends collecting feedback, measuring adoption, closing gaps, and embedding changes into systems and processes [PMI, 2013]. (pmi.org)
Example: how this could be applied in a real change initiative
In a finance system implementation, frontline supervisors are expected to move teams from spreadsheet-based purchase tracking to a new approval workflow. The change manager runs a 75-minute manager clinic two weeks before go-live. Each supervisor maps the old workaround their team is most likely to keep, practices a conversation with a frustrated employee, and commits to three activities: a Monday huddle, daily review of incomplete workflow items, and a Friday feedback summary to the project team.
For a highly supportive team, the manager focuses on skill practice and early wins. For a resistant team, the manager begins with listening and impact clarification before pushing compliance. In design, the coaching emphasizes impact discovery; in readiness, it emphasizes role practice; during go-live, it emphasizes barrier removal; after go-live, it emphasizes reinforcement and sustainment.
Roles and responsibilities
Role | Responsibility |
Sponsor | Clarifies why the change matters, resolves cross-functional barriers, and reinforces manager accountability. |
Change manager | Designs the coaching approach, equips managers, facilitates practice, tracks adoption signals, and escalates systemic issues. |
Project lead | Provides accurate process, system, and timing information. |
Managers/team leaders | Hold local conversations, coach employees, observe adoption, address resistance, and report barriers. |
HR/L&D | Supports coaching quality, capability development, and alignment with performance or learning systems. |
Champions/super users | Provide peer help, workflow tips, and early issue detection. |
Common mistakes to avoid
Avoid treating manager coaching as a one-time briefing. Coaching should involve practice, feedback, and follow-up, not just a slide deck. Avoid asking managers to advocate before their own questions are answered. Avoid measuring success by attendance alone. Avoid bypassing managers with central communications and then expecting them to own adoption. Avoid declaring victory at go-live; public-sector guidance also identifies under-communicating the vision, weak role modeling, and declaring success too soon as common change obstacles [Government of Western Australia, 2025]. (wa.gov.au)
Measures of success or adoption indicators
Use a mix of manager capability indicators and adoption indicators. Manager indicators include confidence scores before and after coaching, completion of planned huddles and one-to-ones, number and quality of issues escalated, and observed use of coaching behaviors. Adoption indicators include uptake, correct use, workaround reduction, issue resolution time, and sustained use after launch. Implementation science distinguishes outcomes such as acceptability, adoption, appropriateness, feasibility, fidelity, penetration, cost, and sustainability; these are useful prompts for measuring whether implementation is actually taking hold [McHugh et al., 2023; Implementation Outcomes Repository]. (link.springer.com)
Checklist for the change manager
Confirm the specific behavior changes expected from each impacted group.
Identify which managers are critical to adoption and which need extra support.
Prepare role guides, talking points, practice scenarios, and escalation routes.
Brief sponsors before coaching managers.
Run coaching close enough to implementation that managers can apply it.
Include practice, not just explanation.
Track manager actions and adoption indicators after launch.
Use manager feedback to adjust training, process design, communications, and reinforcement.
Optional reusable manager coaching worksheet
Change:
Impacted team:
Top three behavior changes:
What employees are likely to ask or resist:
Manager’s answer to “why this, why now?”
This week’s manager activities: team huddle; one-to-one check-ins; observation; recognition; barrier escalation.
Support needed from sponsor/project/change team:
Adoption evidence to review next week:
Issues to escalate:
Recognition or reinforcement message:
Suggested opening script: “I want to talk about what this change means for our team in practical terms. I’ll explain what is changing, what is still unclear, what support is available, and what I need each of us to try this week. I also want to hear what might get in the way so we can solve the right problems early.”
References
Prosci. “5 Key Roles of People Managers in Leading Change.” Published March 29, 2023; updated August 7, 2025. https://www.prosci.com/blog/5-key-roles-of-people-managers-in-leading-change
CIPD. “Coaching and mentoring.” August 11, 2025. https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/factsheets/coaching-mentoring-factsheet/
CIPD. “Change management: A guide for people professionals.” December 11, 2024. https://www.cipd.org/en/knowledge/guides/change-management/
Project Management Institute. Markus F. Wanner, “Integrated change management.” April 24, 2013. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/integrated-change-management-5815
Project Management Institute. Jonathan Gilbert, “The sandwich generation: the emerging role of middle managers in organizational change.” October 13, 2009. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/emerging-role-middle-managers-organizational-change-6743
Gallup. Randall Beck and Jim Harter, “Managers Account for 70% of Variance in Employee Engagement.” April 21, 2015. https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance-employee-engagement.aspx
McHugh, S. et al. “Ten years of implementation outcomes research: a scoping review.” Implementation Science, 2023. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13012-023-01286-z
Government of Western Australia. “Structural change management.” Last updated September 9, 2025. https://www.wa.gov.au/government/document-collections/structural-change-management