About this course
The change was decided upstairs. It will be lived on your floor. This course is for the manager who has to lead a change they did not choose: a new system, a merger, a restructure, an AI rollout, a round of cuts. It runs in two halves and six sections. The first half comes before anyone hears the news: the date and the distance, what a change takes from people and which objections carry a missing fact, and what to say when you cannot say everything, in the right order. The second half carries people through it: the first ten minutes of the conversation when someone's role changes, the AI pilot run with the team rather than on it, and the people who stay after a cut. Module E asks who carries the heavy end of a change. It closes with one change, read through the whole course, and the eight questions managers bring with them.
Along the way you learn the models Duane uses: the Date and the Distance, the Learning Dip, the Five Losses, Fact or Loss?, Can, Can't, Won't, the Order of Telling, the First Ten Minutes, the Fair Pilot, and the Ones Who Stay (The Load, The Names, The Next Question, The Strong Ones). Five full cases let you make the call before you hear how Duane would read it.
Who it is for
- Managers and supervisors leading a change they did not design.
- Team leads who will deliver news about roles, systems or structure.
- Directors and senior managers whose teams are living through an AI rollout, a merger or a cut.
Learning objectives and outcomes
By the end of the course you will be able to:
- Lead past the go-live date. Place each person on Lose, Learn or Trust, and put the Learning Dip in writing to your own boss before it arrives.
- Read what an objection protects. Name the Five Losses, and use Fact or Loss? to catch the objection that is right.
- Say what you can. Use Can, Can't, Won't when you cannot say everything, and design the Order of Telling before anyone is told.
- Hold the first ten minutes. Put the news in the first minute of the conversation, let the person react, and keep every follow-up you promise.
- Run a fair AI pilot. Ask who learns it first, whose know-how trains it, who checks its work, and where the freed hours go.
- Hold up the ones who stay. Rebuild the load, say the names, answer the next question, and talk to your strongest people first.
- Find the heavy end. Read your own decisions inside a change across ENRICH, and see who is standing under them.
What is included
The Participant Booklet draws every model, adds new scenarios and private self-checks, and ends with a quick reference. The Participant Workbook is where you do the practice, one step per section, ending with one change read through the whole course and a date to re-read it. The videos tell you when to pause and turn to a page. Nothing you write is collected.
Chapters
30 chapters, 2 h 59 min of video.
- 00Welcome5:38
The change was decided upstairs. It will be lived on your floor.
- 01Your Change, in One Line3:52
Two sentences, one date, before any model.
- 02Live on the Date, Not in the Team5:34
The go-live is a date. Getting each person there is a distance.
- 03Where Everyone Really Is4:03
Arrival shows in what people do, not in a report.
- 04The Learning Dip7:46
Every change costs output. Say how much, in advance.
- 05Case: Live in Week One10:32
A printing plant, eight weeks after go-live.
- 06Everyone Pushes Back3:17
Most of the reasons people give are true.
- 07The Five Losses5:12
What a change takes from people.
- 08Fact or Loss?4:12
Some objections carry a missing fact.
- 09Name the Loss4:54
Eight objections, one company.
- 10Case: Three Objections10:33
A newsroom merger, and one fact nobody read.
- 11The Easy Lines, and Can, Can't, Won't5:47
Honest when you can't say it all.
- 12The Order of Telling7:00
Who hears first, and never through a system.
- 13Put Them in Order4:31
Design the first day before anyone is told.
- 14Why Managers Soften the News3:19
The second half opens.
- 15The First Ten Minutes4:41
Five moves on one dial.
- 16In the Room, and After4:01
Four things that undo it, the page, and two working days.
- 17The Ten Minutes, Out Loud4:08
Two cards, one clock.
- 18Case: We're Exploring Options10:05
A director softens it for the man who taught her.
- 19When the Change Is AI3:05
The new work lands on the manager first.
- 20The Fair Pilot4:17
Four boxes ticked before it starts.
- 21Score the Pilot4:07
The jobs question, and a plan that sounds efficient.
- 22Case: The Easy Jobs9:42
A sixty percent result that was true, and still wrong.
- 23The Ones Who Stay4:12
Three weights, four supports.
- 24The Load and The Names4:07
Rebuild the work, and say what they built.
- 25The Next Question and The Strong Ones5:57
Am I next, and who you can't afford to lose.
- 26Case: Same Targets9:04
Three weeks after a nonprofit lost fourteen people.
- 27Who Carries the Change10:17
Optional module: the heavy end, read through ENRICH.
- 28Who Carries It?7:57
Six decisions, Case 5 read twice, and a page only you will read.
- 29One Change, Through the Whole Course6:45
The road, your page, and the eight questions.