Changing Organizations Starts with People

A discussion with Caroline Lai

In many transformation programs, the human dimension still too often comes at the end of the chain. Once the strategy has been defined, processes designed, and solutions selected, change management is then “addressed” as a phase in its own right—almost a mandatory step before go-live. As if adoption could be handled after the fact.

Yet on the ground, experience tells a very different story. Technically sound transformations fail—or struggle to take root over time—not because of a lack of methods or tools, but because they fail to sufficiently account for what is really happening on the human and collective side.

To explore this human-centered perspective on transformation, we wanted to give the floor to Caroline, a coach specializing in supporting individuals and teams. Her insights shed very concrete light on what is at stake, from a human standpoint, in the transformations organizations go through.

What has struck you most about the role of individuals and collectives?

The gap between the “technical” success of a program (processes, tools, governance, etc.) and the reality of its adoption.

I have seen outstanding programs derail because people forgot that organizations are not machines, but living organisms.

Success does not come from validating a milestone, but from people feeling sufficiently safe to dare to change. The collective can be a powerful accelerator—or an invisible brake—when fears are not brought to the surface and addressed.

In this context, the role of the sponsor and management is decisive: through their alignment and exemplarity, they are the ones who create the space of trust that is essential for change to become a shared reality.

When a transformation is launched, what is really at play in your view?

There is both a process of letting go and a search for meaning. Any transformation disrupts comfort zones and, more deeply, professional identities: people lose their old reference points while not yet fully mastering the new ones.

If leaders are not aligned between what they say and what they do, the collective disengages because trust erodes. Finally—and this is a major point—for people to truly take ownership of change, they need to feel that they are not subjected to it, but that they play a central role in it.

When did you realize that support had to go beyond traditional change management?

When I realized that “classic” change management is often perceived as a top-down approach: decisions are announced once they have already been made; training sessions, newsletters, and satisfaction surveys are rolled out… but people are not genuinely brought along on the journey.

We cannot speak of ownership if employees are not involved from the very beginning—with their fears, objections, but also their ideas—and if they do not feel like active contributors throughout the process.

This is also when I started integrating play and creativity. Play makes it possible to test, to fail without risk, and to uncover untapped resources.

You do not “drive” change the way you operate a machine: you create the conditions for it to emerge and take root sustainably.

How do you combine individual support with team-based work?

Individual support helps remove deeper blockages and work on leadership posture and clarity. It encourages perspective, awareness of blind spots, and safe experimentation.

Collective support makes it possible to work on the system: communication, interactions, and collective intelligence. The essential point is to create genuine psychological safety, without which it is pointless to try to address difficult topics, experiment, or learn together.

If I had to sum it up: one brings inner solidity, the other relational fluidity. These two dimensions are inseparable when it comes to successful transformation.

Your core belief for sustainable transformation?

Organizations cannot be transformed sustainably without working deeply with the people who carry them.

Any lasting transformation is built on leaders who are aligned and consistent over time, and on a collective that is listened to and able to question itself regularly within a psychologically safe framework. This is when organizational needs and individual needs begin to connect.

✨ Bonus question

In addition to the questions we asked Caroline, we invited her to choose the question she would have liked us to ask as part of this conversation.

What place do you give to pleasure and lightness in contexts that are often heavy and stressful?

A central one. Seriousness is not the enemy of pleasure. On the contrary, it is often by making room for playfulness and creativity that we unlock the most complex situations.

What Caroline describes here echoes an often-forgotten truth: transformation cannot be decreed—it must be lived. It is built over time, through engaged individuals, trusting collectives, and spaces where people can experiment, question, and sometimes slow down.

Putting people at the heart of transformation is not a “nice-to-have”—it is a condition for success.

---

✨ About Caroline

Caroline Lai supports individual, team, and organizational transformations by placing people at the heart of change. With nearly 20 years of experience leading transformation programs within large organizations such as L’Oréal and Sanofi, she chose to focus her practice on individual and team coaching.

Her approach is rooted in co-creation, psychological safety, and exploration—combining structure and creativity, depth and lightness. Caroline creates spaces of trust where individuals and collectives can step back, reveal their resources, and take ownership of change in a sustainable way.

👉 To learn more: https://carolinecoachconseil.fr/