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Latest papers
AI Won't Replace Change Managers. The Role Is Changing.AI now writes the first communication, summarises the survey, builds the deck in the time it takes to make a coffee. Not one of those was ever the point. Why the machine has taken the mechanical half of change work, and handed us back the part that always mattered...Read more 
Redesigning Roles Around AI: Lessons from the 9% "Pacesetters"98% of executives plan organisational design changes within two years. Only 15% have reached the optimising stage of AI adoption, and 9% are capturing the value. What the pacesetters do first, and why role redesign stalls everywhere else...Read more 
Reskilling for AI: Build Change Capability Before the Tools Arrive55% of workers use AI regularly, yet only 33% have had employer-provided training and 28% receive none at all. CEOs expect more than four fifths of staff to need upskilling or reskilling by 2028. Why capability has to be built before the tools land...Read more 
Change Management for Agentic AI: Preparing Your Operating ModelGartner expects 40% of enterprise applications to embed task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, and more than 40% of agentic AI projects to be cancelled by 2027. Agents change who decides, who is accountable and what people are for. How to prepare the operating model...Read more 
AI Adoption Is a Culture Problem, Not a Technology ProblemWhen AI rollouts stall, leaders reach for a technical explanation. The data says otherwise: 63% of employees rate their AI proficiency as beginner or intermediate, and culture beats individual skill 2-to-1 on impact. Why adoption is really a culture challenge...Read more 
The AI Readiness Gap: Why Only 23% of Organisations Are ReadyJust 23% of organisations say their workforce is fully ready for AI, and 79% say AI is outpacing their operating model. How to assess and close the gap before it costs you the investment...Read more 
Why AI Investments Stall Without Change ManagementBoards approved record AI budgets in 2025 and 2026, yet returns disappoint. The reason is rarely the technology: Gartner reports 78% of CHROs say roles and workflows must change to realise AI value...Read more 
AI and the Future of Change ImplementationFor as long as organisations have tried to change, they have looked for better tools to help them do it: better diagnostics, better data, better ways of listening to the people living through the change. Artificial intelligence is the newest entry in that long history...Read more More from CCG
Corporate Wellness in a Time of ChangeSuccessful organisations build unique and targeted wellness programmes. They understand that taking care of the emotional and mental wellness of employees makes good business sense. This is particularly important in the context of large-scale change within an organisation...Read more 
Culture, mergers and acquisitionsAcademic research illustrates that half of all merger and acquisition (M&A) activities have failed to create lasting shareholder value. Studies on post-merger stock performance reveal that since 1990, in the two years after their deals closed, nearly 50 percent of...Read more 
Coaching for PerformanceCCG is very proud of the work done by our partner company, CCG Africa, and we are pleased to announce the launch of their latest and updated version of the Coaching for Performance workshop. This extraordinary product is now in its 12th year of delivery and continues...Read more Questions about change implementationDear friends and colleagues We are often asked ad hoc questions about change and strategy implementation, and we either cannot answer these in full, or our answers are not documented for the benefit of others. So we have decided to start a new programme on our blog...Read more The Complexity of ContractingHave you ever entered into consulting work without a contract? CCG stresses the importance of the contracting phase in any consulting engagement. This is important for three reasons: It helps to establish a relationship between the two parties; The experience provides...Read more 
Industrial Relations Conference Cape TownWe are proud to announce that Stephen Rothgiesser, Practice Lead: CCG Advisory is speaking on Stakeholder Management and Partnership Facilitation in the Context of a Complex South African Labour Environment at the Knowledge Resources Industrial Relations Conference in...Read more 
New CCG Learn Presentations!CCG Learn is proud to announce the addition of three new presentations to our learning portfolio. These have been offered as bespoke solutions for CCG clients previously (either as keynote presentations or internal learning experiences) and we have reworked the...Read more Doing Strategy Well in the Context of ChangeRecently CCG gave a keynote presentation to a group of senior executives who are struggling with the appropriate response to strategy implementation in their organisation. We were struck by the importance of three key change concepts that delegates repeatedly asked...Read more A Theory of Change and Strategy ImplementationIn last week's newsfeed, we proposed that a more sophisticated understanding of the strategy process was to separate strategy formulation from strategy implementation. In order to provide some initial thoughts and theory in this regard, we would like to share the...Read more 
The Change Review: McKinsey Interview and strategy implementationA key purpose of this newsfeed is to stimulate discussion and debate around some of the challenges associated with change and strategy implementation. Part of this process is about sharing our experiences and areas of concern with our listeners, and part of this...Read more 
Building internal change capability within organisations is HARD!In last week's blog, we promised to dive into more detail on why building internal change competence is so difficult, and, more to the point, why internal change agents often have such a challenging task. Building internal change capability is hard because: Good...Read more 
Change is Everywhere!!!We have noticed a significant increase in the interest in strategic change initiatives and the desire of clients to more deeply understand how they might do change better within their organisations and upskill line and support management with change awareness and...Read more 
Successful Strategy ImplementationFor over a decade, CCG has been driven to understand why up to 70% of change initiatives either fail entirely, or fail to deliver on their intended ROI (John Kotter, 1995; McKinsey & Company, 2006). We believe that there are three factors (Leadership, Programme...Read more 
Show me the Money!We noticed a growing trend by clients in the past four or five years to push back hard on consulting fees. We understand that most corporate clients are still fighting their way out of the financial crisis. The fact remains that negotiating a fair contract is...Read more 
Welcome to our new Website!We are incredibly excited to launch our new website! There are a number of reasons for this: 1. We have grown exponentially over the past 5 years and needed a more comprehensive portal to describe our offering and experience. 2. We...Read more Relationships that WorkAndy Phillips raised a very important point in a comment to our previous blog entry "Change Doesn't Work!!!". We really value Andy taking the time to respond and the valuable professional point that he raised, and promised to respond in our next blog post. CCG is...Read more 
Change Doesn’t Work!!!As we have blogged before, CCG is fascinated with why such a high percentage of change interventions fail. We believe there are two main reasons for this: 1. Clients don’t understand the complexity of introducing new strategy into their businesses, particularly large...Read more 
Of Titles and ProtocolsA skilled consultant can learn a great deal from the first interaction with a (potential) client. Sometimes subtle (and not so subtle!) signals* from a client can be very useful in building an understanding of the client system** and help to inform whether or...Read more 
“Change Management” a Misnomer!At CCG we believe that the term "change management" is a misnomer. As change and strategy consultants our assignment is to advise a client in identifying and engaging with complexity in their organisation. Change invariably arises as the result of seeking to...Read more 
Passion for complex organisational changeFor many years we have been fascinated with the fact that 70% of change initiatives either fail in total or fail to deliver the ROI expected (however that might be calibrated). CCG is the culmination of 23 years of work in the change space and this blog is our...Read more