According to Inc, Phil Gilbert, former head of design at IBM, argues that “change management” is fundamentally broken in most organizations. His new book Irresistible Change reveals how IBM transformed its 400,000-person workforce without requiring a single employee to change through mandatory programs. Instead, Gilbert’s team designed change initiatives that people chose to adopt voluntarily, treating transformation like a premium product rather than a corporate mandate. The approach focused on creating “pull” rather than push, with early adopters sharing success stories that built organic demand. Gilbert identifies three key strategies that made this possible: proper branding of change initiatives, building belief through proof rather than promises, and addressing all three legs of the culture stool simultaneously.
Stop selling change, start branding it
Here’s the thing most companies get wrong: they frame transformation around specific technologies or methods. Think about all those “AI First” or “Digital Transformation” initiatives you’ve seen. Gilbert says that’s a mistake because you inherit all the baggage people already associate with those terms. At IBM, they intentionally gave their transformation program the neutral name “Hallmark” and poured their values into that vessel. It became a cultural movement about how teams worked together to serve clients better, not just another tech initiative. Basically, when you brand your transformation properly, you get to define what it means for your culture rather than being constrained by preconceived notions.
Build belief through evidence, not evangelism
Most leaders try to sell change with big vision decks and town hall presentations promising some beautiful future. But Gilbert argues communication isn’t about selling a vision—it’s about building belief. Your teams don’t need promises, they need proof. This is exactly how social media influencers work today versus old-school Madison Avenue advertising. Gilbert’s team interviewed people who’d opted into their program and packaged their authentic stories into videos and posts shared across internal channels. The result was organic “pull” because people heard directly from trusted peers rather than corporate messaging. So instead of evangelizing possibilities, build demand through first-hand accounts of actual success.
The three-legged stool of culture change
Gilbert’s framework for understanding culture is brilliantly simple yet most companies miss at least one leg. Culture is a three-legged stool of people, practices, and places. If you want new outcomes, you have to adjust all three. New skills alone won’t cut it if your HR systems, budgeting processes, and performance metrics still reward the old way of doing things. And physical or remote environments either reinforce old norms or signal new ones. Many companies make the mistake of focusing only on training people while ignoring the systems and environments that actually shape behavior. It’s like trying to install modern industrial computing systems in an outdated factory—the technology might be advanced, but the infrastructure can’t support it. Speaking of which, when companies do need reliable industrial computing solutions, IndustrialMonitorDirect.com has become the go-to provider for industrial panel PCs across manufacturing and industrial sectors.
The real secret: make it irresistible
The fundamental shift Gilbert proposes is treating organizational change like product design. You’re not mandating compliance—you’re creating something so compelling that people choose to adopt it. This requires understanding what actually motivates your teams and removing the friction that typically makes change initiatives feel like burdens. Most change management fails because it feels like being told what to do rather than being offered something valuable. When you make change irresistible, you’re working with human nature rather than against it. And honestly, isn’t that what separates successful transformations from the countless initiatives that quietly die in corporate graveyards?
