Established change management models still have real value. Their core ideas—creating a compelling vision, building dissatisfaction with the status quo, planning the work, empowering people, and consolidating gains—haven’t suddenly become irrelevant.

What has changed is the context.

Leaders today are dealing with unprecedented speed, simultaneity, and complexity. Multiple transformations run in parallel. Technologies, markets, and stakeholder expectations shift faster than most organizations can absorb. Under these conditions, the way we apply traditional models has to evolve. They can’t just be sequential recipes for one-and-done change; they need to become scaffolds for continuous reinvention and faster, more disciplined execution.

Modern Challenges

Speed and Simultaneity
Unlike previous eras, change rarely arrives one initiative at a time. Leaders are navigating overlapping digital, structural, cultural, and regulatory changes—often on global timelines. The pace and interconnectedness of these shifts multiply the complexity of even “simple” projects.

Radical Transformation
Because the environment moves so quickly, incremental fine-tuning is not enough. Leaders are aiming for frame-bending change—organizational transformation that reshapes strategy, structure, processes, and culture. That kind of transformation demands continual learning and rapid reinvention, not a single pass through a checklist.

Immediate Response
Real-time communication and global transparency mean leaders now operate on two clocks at once: the long-term horizon (10–20 years) and the next 15 minutes. They must make visible decisions quickly while still steering toward a coherent, long-term direction. That requires deeper contingency planning and far greater resilience than many traditional models assumed.

Unprecedented Variables
Leaders confront change that is unprecedented in type, quantity, speed, reach, and expectations for performance. They must plan for “the abnormal” as a matter of course—including intentional disruption and malicious acts—areas where conventional management methods often feel underpowered.

“But I Love This Model!”

So many models, so little time. And yes, at some level they are saying similar things. Underneath the different labels, most frameworks share a common backbone:

Vision
Kotter’s Eight-Step Model calls for a clear vision and strategies for achieving it. Jick emphasizes defining desired results and creating a shared direction. The message is consistent: people need to know what “better” looks like and why it matters.

Dissatisfaction with the Status Quo
Schein’s extension of Lewin’s model reminds us that unfreezing requires a felt need for change. People must experience dissatisfaction with the current state before they will move. Transformational leaders help articulate that need in a way that generates energy rather than defensiveness.

The Plan and Its Execution
Nearly all models assume leaders will design and execute a coherent plan. Mento, Jones, and Dirndorfer’s Twelve-Step Model, Kotter’s consolidation steps, and similar approaches all stress the discipline of moving from design to deployment to reinforcement. Speed and quality of execution increasingly differentiate success from failure.

Empowerment and Psychological Safety
Kotter highlights empowering others to act on the vision by removing barriers and encouraging creative problem solving. Schein’s “moving” stage hinges on psychological safety: people must believe that experimenting with new behaviors will not cost them status, credibility, or self-esteem.

Refreezing and Institutionalization
Lewin’s original Three-Step Model and Kotter’s institutionalization step both emphasize making change stick—embedding new practices into culture, systems, and identity so they survive leadership transitions and the next wave of disruption.

In other words, the classic models broadly agree on what needs to happen. The gap today is more about how fast, how often, and under what conditions those steps must be repeated.

It’s (Still) About Leadership – But Not Only Leadership

The models are right: leadership is essential. Without credible leaders who can hold a strategic vision and drive disciplined execution, large-scale change rarely takes root. But in today’s environment, “good leadership” has to mean more than a compelling speech and a project plan.

Leaders must:

Align words and actions – Any gap between the stated vision (“Our people are our greatest asset”) and daily behavior (ignoring employee input, tolerating toxic performers) destroys trust. People believe what leaders do more than what they say.

Model the change they want to see – Transformational leaders make the vision tangible in their own calendars, decisions, trade-offs, and learning behaviors. They invite feedback, surface inconvenient truths, and reward experimentation.

Create conditions for continuous change – Conviction is not just personal passion; it shows up in how leaders shape structures, incentives, and norms to keep change moving when they are not in the room. This is where Daryl Conner’s emphasis on truly committed leadership, and what Irrational Change calls “conviction,” becomes critical. Leaders with conviction don’t just react; they proactively shape the future of their organizations and industries.

Those who anticipate and invent the future tend to define the game others have to play. But they don’t do it alone. In high-velocity environments, the most effective leaders spread leadership, building the capabilities, safety, and discipline that allow the organization to adapt again and again.

The takeaway isn’t that our favorite models are wrong. It’s that they were built for a world where you could freeze, change, and refreeze. Today, leadership means using those models as evolving scaffolds for continuous reinvention, anchored in vision, powered by conviction, and proven in execution.