Managers are the practical bridge between a change strategy and daily work. They interpret what the change means for their teams, surface operational barriers, coach people through new behaviors, and signal whether the change is worth taking seriously. Prosci describes five manager roles in change—communicator, liaison, advocate, resistance manager, and coach—which makes manager involvement a core adoption activity rather than a courtesy meeting [Prosci, 2023]. Gallup’s workplace research also underscores why this matters: managers account for a large share of variation in team engagement, which is closely related to whether people have the energy, clarity, and trust to adopt new ways of working [Gallup, 2015]. (prosci.com)

This action sits in the stakeholder engagement and commitment category of change management. Its purpose is to involve managers early enough that they can shape the solution, identify barriers, and commit to next steps before they are asked to “cascade” messages to their teams.

Engaging managers in the design process means creating structured opportunities for managers and team leaders to review proposed changes, test assumptions, raise concerns, and co-design implementation details. It can take the form of interviews, listening sessions, workshops, pilot reviews, impact mapping, readiness discussions, or issue-resolution forums.

Use it when the change affects team routines, roles, workload, customer interactions, performance expectations, systems, or decision rights. It is especially important when resistance is emerging because managers feel excluded or when local work realities are not yet reflected in the design. PMI summarizes participation and involvement as an appropriate response when stakeholders feel marginalized or excluded from the change process [PMI, 2015]. (pmi.org)

Start by clarifying what is still open to influence. Participation loses credibility when people are asked for input after decisions are fixed. CIPD’s employee voice guidance emphasizes that effective voice requires managers to listen and act on feedback, not simply collect comments [CIPD, 2026]. Sahay and Goldthwaite’s research also warns that participatory processes can create contradictions and frustration when participants experience them as controlled or performative [Sahay & Goldthwaite, 2024]. (cipd.org)

Before facilitating, prepare the change case, impacted groups, draft process or role changes, known constraints, decision log, risk list, and adoption outcomes. Identify which managers should be included: formal people managers, frontline supervisors, influential team leads, union or employee representatives where relevant, and managers of highly impacted or high-resistance groups. Schedule engagement early in design, again before pilot or launch, and regularly through implementation.

A company is implementing a new case-management system for customer service teams. The project team initially designs standard workflows centrally. Before final configuration, the change manager runs three manager workshops: one with frontline supervisors, one with regional managers, and one with managers from high-volume teams.

Managers identify that the proposed workflow adds duplicate data entry during peak hours, that two customer exception types are missing, and that supervisors need a dashboard to coach agents. The project team adjusts the workflow, adds exception guidance, and creates a supervisor coaching guide. Managers then brief their teams using consistent messages but local examples. This improves credibility because managers can say, “Here is what changed because of our input.”

Avoid inviting managers too late, using workshops to sell decisions already made, ignoring negative feedback, or treating all managers as one audience. Do not ask managers to advocate before their own questions are answered. Prosci’s manager model includes advocacy, but also liaison and resistance management; managers need a feedback route upward as well as messages to cascade downward [Prosci, 2023]. (prosci.com)

Another common mistake is confusing attendance with commitment. A manager can attend a design session and still leave unclear, overloaded, or unconvinced. Watch for passive compliance, unresolved workload concerns, and managers who avoid discussing the change with their teams.

Useful indicators include manager participation rate, quality and volume of actionable input, number of design changes made from manager feedback, closure rate for manager concerns, manager readiness scores, confidence to explain the change, and reduction in repeated objections. During rollout, track whether teams are using the new process or tool, whether managers are holding coaching conversations, and whether adoption barriers are declining.

PMI recommends revisiting stakeholder plans throughout the project and using stakeholder input to identify risks, communications needs, and mitigations [PMI, 2015]. CIPD also emphasizes follow-up so people can see how voice influenced decisions [CIPD, 2026]. (pmi.org)

Manager design input worksheet

For senior managers, focus on decision rights, resourcing, risk, and cross-functional alignment. For frontline supervisors, focus on workload, customer impact, scripts, job aids, and coaching routines. For skeptical managers, use smaller listening sessions before large workshops and address their personal concerns before asking them to advocate. For early design, emphasize discovery and options; before launch, emphasize readiness and issue closure; after launch, emphasize adoption data, reinforcement, and continuous improvement.