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by QT9 Software on January 27, 2026
Continuous improvement relies on more than good ideas and well-designed processes. It depends on an organization’s ability to turn improvement efforts into everyday practice, across teams and over time. Without that capability, even the strongest improvement initiatives tend to fade after initial enthusiasm wears off.
Change management, when done correctly, provides the structure and discipline needed to move improvements from proposal to practice, helping teams navigate uncertainty, align around goals and sustain new ways of working.
In quality-driven and regulated environments, that discipline becomes even more important, as improvement efforts often intersect directly with compliance, risk and operational performance.
Matt Kroll, President of Chalmers St. Consulting, has as a background in industrial engineering and is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Chalmers was a guest on a recent QT9 Q-Cast podcast about managing organizational change. Kroll discussed how effective change management supports continuous improvement and sustained quality outcomes. We summarize his thoughts here, with a link to the full podcast episode.
Contents
Why change management matters for continuous improvement
Where change efforts commonly break down
Common workplace change inhibitors
Role of middle management and front-line influencers
Appropriately train for change
Change management as a competitive advantage
What is change management?
Change management is the structured approach organizations use to prepare for and adopt change. It goes beyond project plans and timelines, also focusing on how individuals and teams move from current state to future state without losing momentum or affecting quality along the way.
Effective change management typically includes:
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Clear problem definition and business rationale
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Early stakeholder involvement
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Structured problem-solving and governance
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Ongoing communication and training
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Measurement of behavior change and results
Why change management matters for continuous improvement
Continuous improvement is a growing expectation for modern quality management systems. Regulatory bodies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), call on manufacturers to undertake ongoing efforts to enhance products, services and processes in order to boost efficiency and meet consumer needs.
Change management supports this by helping improvements move from intention to execution. Without a structured approach to managing change, continuous improvement efforts don’t always translate into consistent, successful change. Teams may interpret ideas differently, adopt them unevenly or revert to previous practices when priorities shift.
Change management helps close the gap, ensuring that improvements are clearly communicated, the right people are involved and expectations are understood across the organization. Most importantly, it helps reinforce new ways of working so they don’t fade after the initial rollout.
Where change efforts commonly break down
There are several areas where QMS and operational changes efforts often stall, including:
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SOPs and documentation
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Workflow handoffs
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Metrics and measurement
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Resource overload
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Underestimating required effort
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Resistance to change
One of the most common and less addressed of these challenges that Kroll sees is leadership misjudging what is required to successfully implement change.
“They underestimate the effort required and they overload the people that are trying to make the change,” he says. So it gets pushed “toward the bottom of their priority list.”
When change is deprioritized, it never fully takes hold. People get pulled into other projects. Meetings are skipped. Decisions are delayed. And eventually, momentum disappears.
Watch the QT9 Q-Cast podcast:
Common workplace change inhibitors
Research consistently shows how difficult organizational change can be. McKinsey reports that only about 30 percent of organizational change initiatives succeed, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support. Common barriers to change include:
1. Unclear purpose for the change
When people don’t understand the problem a change is meant to solve, they have little reason to support it. Change can feel abstract, theoretical or disconnected from real work.
“If people don’t see the problem, then they’re not going to get on board for trying things out,” notes Kroll.
Without a shared understanding of the issue, whether it’s quality risk, inefficiency or customer impact, change is easy to dismiss or delay.
2. Competing priorities and limited capacity
Change often stalls because individuals don’t have the time or space to focus on it.
Kroll frequently sees organizations underestimate the effort involved. “They underestimate the effort required and they overload the people that are trying to make the change,” he says. When change is treated as extra work instead of planned work, it gets pushed aside in favor of urgent and day-to-day demands.
3. Passive resistance
Not all resistance is visible. Some of the most damaging resistance happens quietly, notes Kroll.
“That passive resistance is insidious because you don’t know it’s there… the person that’s probably quiet, maybe smiling, but when they leave the room, isn’t really doing the things that you think they’re doing.”
This kind of resistance is especially common in process and system changes, where non-adoption may not be obvious until results fall short.
Kroll suggests keeping an eye out for lack of engagement, for example, not responding to emails, being late with deliverables, continual excuses.
4. Fear of loss or uncertainty
Change introduces uncertainty, even when the outcome will be positive. Employee uncertainty, such as lack of familiarity, fear of competence and losing control, can hinder progress.
As Kroll explains, “People generally want certainty and they generally seek comfort … [change] creates discomfort. People don’t like it.”
This discomfort often shows up emotionally before it becomes rationalized as practical objections.
5. Inadequate communication
One-way communication or infrequent updates leave people guessing. When expectations aren’t clear, individuals interpret change differently.
Kroll emphasizes that communication isn’t optional: “Change management is heavily, heavily based on communication. It’s a people discipline, it’s a communication discipline.”
6. Insufficient training and support
Even motivated employees struggle when they don’t feel capable of working in a new way.
Kroll challenges the common approach to training. “Good training is a coach-mentor relationship, not a lecture,” he says. When training focuses only on explaining a change rather than building the skills required to perform differently, adoption suffers.
7. Excluding the people most affected
When changes are designed without input from those doing the work, practical issues may emerge late, eroding motivation.
Early involvement builds ownership and surfaces details that would otherwise be missed.
8. Over-reliance on tools instead of behaviors
New systems, workflows or documentation alone don’t create change. If expectations around behavior aren’t clear, tools become underused or misused.
Change requires shifts in how people think and act, not just what they use.
9. No reinforcement or follow-up
Sustained change requires visible follow-through and accountability. Without reinforcement, people naturally revert to familiar habits, especially under pressure. If leaders stop paying attention after rollout, the change can slowly fade.
Role of middle management and front-line influencers
Research has found that change initiatives are significantly more successful when middle managers are actively involved in design and execution, not just communication.
Kroll stresses the necessity of engaging middle managers in change decisions and continuing to check for follow-through. Middle managers “are the ones providing direction. If they’re not aligned with the executive vision… you’re going to have passive resistance,” he says.
What’s more, middle managers hold critical business knowledge that executives may not understand, such as about customers, processes and situations that fall outside standard workflows.
Often middle management knows how a particular change is going to affect products and clients better than anybody else in the company. “There is local knowledge inside of that middle management,” says Kroll. They may have knowledge that other change leaders don’t, which could influence results of change efforts.
Involving front-line employees
Though change leaders may realize the importance of communication to the process, Kroll notes that many don’t put enough effort into it. He proposes the “slow down to go faster” approach.
Consider the following:
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Who is impacted by the change?
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Who is the customer of the change?
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Who is touching different parts of the change?
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Who is the supplier of the change?
Make a list of people and determine the type and level of communication that will work best. “Think about who needs to be involved in the ideation,” says Kroll. Who are the influencers in the company and tap them to communicate change initiatives at the appropriate level.
“That’s the beauty of change management," he says. "If I involve the right folks, it’s not my solution, it’s not my idea, it’s theirs.”
Appropriately train for change
Major corporations often cited as operational leaders, such as Toyota and McDonald’s, invest heavily in hands-on training and coaching, an approach that directly supports sustained behavior change.
“Most organizations don’t train enough” he says. “They don’t invest. … I believe it’s because we talk about it in terms of training. It’s not. It’s what skill is lacking and what is the best way to teach someone that skill.”
Kroll suggests that effective training isn’t about “a bunch of people sitting in a room getting lectured at.” It should be hands on so that people really understand. “Good training is a coach-mentor relationship, not a lecture.”
Change management as a competitive advantage
While successful change must show up in results: financials, quality, on-time delivery, Kroll also looks for cultural indicators: collaboration, constructive feedback and shared ownership.
“If I see good collaboration… I know I’ve got an organization that can drive change.”
Organizations that manage change well reduce risk, protect quality and turn improvement initiatives into lasting performance gains. Those that don’t often find themselves repeating the same projects, fixing the same issues and wondering why progress never sticks.
Continuous improvement only delivers value when improvements are adopted, reinforced and sustained. Change management provides the structure that allows organizations to do that consistently. When improvement becomes part of how work is actually done, rather than a series of isolated initiatives, organizations are better positioned to maintain quality, meet regulatory expectations and continue improving with confidence.
QT9 helps continuous improvement become practice
QT9 software supports continuous improvement by giving organizations a structured way to manage change, not just document it. By connecting CAPA, audits, document control, training and performance data within a single system, QT9 helps ensure that improvement efforts are clearly communicated, properly implemented and sustained over time.
Instead of relying on disconnected tools or manual follow-up, teams gain visibility into how changes are adopted and where additional support or reinforcement is needed. The result is a quality system that not only identifies opportunities for improvement, but helps organizations carry them through into consistent, everyday practice.