CIPD Change Management Conference: why leaders must ‘become comfortable with uncertainty’ – People Management
Speakers at the one-day event highlighted the importance of clear change signals and modelling calm leadership
13 February 2026
Businesses that want to become more agile and resilient must learn to embrace uncertainty. That was the central message from Ket Patel, founder of consultancy Change Agitators, speaking at the CIPD Change Management Conference 2026 yesterday (12 February), where panellists explored what it really takes to embed agility into business culture.
“We all know that we can’t predict how some things are going to unfold,” he said. “If we want to create agility, leaders have to become comfortable with uncertainty during organisation change.”
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To address this, he said organisations needed to rethink how they trained and supported managers.
But responsibility does not sit with managers alone. “This isn’t just about line managers, it’s about every employee,” he argued, adding that normalising discussion about uncertainty can strengthen resilience across the workforce.
Leadership behaviour is equally critical during periods of transformation, said Elizabeth Dunn, director of change at wagamama. “If you’re leading change, you have to project calmness and stability – the tone you set really matters.”
Dunn described culture as “intangible and complex”, noting that it can be difficult to define – but it is easier to recognise when it is not working. A lack of resilience and agility, she added, often showed up in sluggish decision making and slow delivery.
In those circumstances, leaders need to remain calm and do something that clearly “signals change”.
Dunn pointed to wagamama’s own three-year transformation programme as an example. While the restaurant chain already had a culture of kaizen – the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement – the scale of change required something more significant.
To signal that the organisation was entering a new phase, she said the company moved from kaizen to kaikaku – which means transformation.
“We needed to signal to people that this change in philosophy was different,” explained Dunn. “This wasn’t an incremental improvement. It was a step change.”
The company launched a full campaign around the change, hosting a major conference and focusing on what a more ambitious, lasting impact could look like.
While acknowledging that culture was hard to shift, Dunn said this change at the company “made things feel different” for employees.
Understanding whether a culture can sustain change also requires measurement, according to Blessing Enakimio, chartered change and culture consultant. “Culture is the biggest documentary system in any organisation,” she said. “The way to start is to document it.”
Her framework centres on five areas: work, workload, workflow, workplace and workforce.
‘Work’ requires leaders to redefine priorities clearly during periods of change. “Is work still the same? We need to define what work is,” she explained, across every role.
‘Workload’ tests sustainability. “Is everyone in overdrive? Do we know what people’s workload looks like?” she asked, warning that constant urgency can undermine resilience.
‘Workflow’ focuses on bottlenecks and decision-making speed. “How long does it take to make a decision?” Delays and duplicated processes can quickly stall change efforts,” she said.
‘Workplace’ examines whether employees have the right physical or virtual environment to perform effectively.
Finally, ‘workforce’ considers demographics, knowledge sharing and emerging capabilities, including AI. “Do our people know how to talk to our AI and vice versa?” she asked.
“We need to consider each of those five Ws to measure change, and measure what the culture looks like,” she added.
For more information, read the CIPD’s thought leadership article, Combining strategy with flexibility is essential through uncertainty and change
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