Can Less Persuasion Create More Change? | Phill Agnew | Modern Change Management & Leading Change

Here are three questions this Change Signal conversation asks:

Are you designing behaviour, or just explaining the change? 

Where does resistance actually come from? 

What small nudge might make the right action easier?

In this episode, I talk with Phill Agnew, host of the marketing podcast Nudge, about what change leaders can learn from behavioural science — and why people are so much less rational than our change plans assume.

We get into choice overload, loss aversion, social proof, defaults, friction, and reactance — the very human pushback that happens when people feel their autonomy is being squeezed. Phill brings terrific stories and studies, from jam counters to organ donation to bus stops in France, all pointing to a useful truth: if you want people to change, don’t just make the case harder. Design the conditions better.

For senior leaders working on transformation, change management, or culture change, this is a practical conversation about influence without the ick. Less “roll it out and hope.” More “make it easier, wiser, and more human to move.”

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change. If you’re a transformational leader seeking modern change mastery, you’re in exactly the right place.

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