Last updated July 13, 2024
If you are looking to train managers and leaders on how to guide their employees through change successfully, here are some engaging free change management activities. You can use these activities to provide training both online or for face-to-face classroom-based training.
Change Management Activities for Leaders and Employees
1. Alien at Dinner
Aim of the Activity: This is one of the most fun and effective change management activities to help participants understand why it is important to see a situation from a different perspective and communicate effectively the reasons for change.
Quite often, change takes place for specific reasons and management often assumes that employees will automatically see the reasons in favour of change. However, when seen from a different perspective, the reasons are not always clear.
Also, this change management exercise can help participants develop their empathy towards people who are in a different position and see change differently from them, thus helping them better understand employees’ concerns.
Activity Guidance: After splitting participants into groups of 5 people, explain that 2 people in each group will act as the ‘aliens’ and the other 3 as the humans from Earth.
Instruct the aliens to imagine that, on their first arrival on Earth, they witness a group of people having a meal together. The aliens will have to imagine that they know nothing at all about human customs and that they find every behaviour during the meal baffling.
So, the aliens have to come up with a series of questions and start asking them to the humans. For example, “How do you decide the portion size for each meal?”, “Why do you sometimes compliment the cook?”, “Why do you use all those eating utensils (i.e. forks, spoons, etc.)?”
The humans will have to answer those questions.
This interaction should encourage participants to see a situation that is quite common for them with fresh eyes and start thinking about and trying to explain the reasons why they do certain things.
Allocate a set time for the exercise and then bring all the participants back together for a debrief and a discussion.
Materials Needed: No material is needed.
You can use this activity to teach online by employing an online video conferencing tool.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- How did it feel to view a situation that you take for granted from a different perspective?
- How can this shift in perspective be applied to change that you want to implement at work?
- Which insights did this activity give into why people may be resistant to change when they don’t know the reasons why it is happening?
2. Resistance Management
Aim of the Activity: This is one of the most useful change management activities to help your participants focus not only on how to counteract resistance to change but also on trying to understand why people might be against change or hesitant to accept it.
This is a role-play activity that can also enhance the participants’ ability to listen to their team members’ concerns, try to communicate to them a vision for the benefits that change can bring and embrace resistance to change as a form of feedback to take on board.
Activity Guidance: This activity can be done by asking participants to work in groups of three, with one person acting as the manager, one as the employee and one as the observer.
Prepare in advance a series of scenarios depicting a situation in which a manager has to implement some changes and one of their team members is resistant to it.
For example, in one scenario a manager might try to implement a change in shifts and work patterns; in another scenario employees might have to relocate to different premises, or new tools may have to be introduced that employees are not familiar with.
The person playing the part of the employee will come up with reasons why they are unhappy with the change.
The person who plays the part of the manager will have to listen to the employee’s concerns, try to understand where they are coming from, show empathy, try to inspire the employee to see the benefits of change and offer support.
For example, in the scenario in which new shifts are being implemented, the employee might be concerned about how the new shifts will impact their life outside work, such as taking the children to school in the mornings.
So, the manager will listen to the concerns of the employee, show understanding and highlight the benefits of the new shift. For instance, they may say that the new shifts will provide more consistency as they require employees to do the same rota for longer, rather than changing every week.
Finally, the manager will offer support to the employee. For example, they might offer some flexibility with the shifts or come up with other ideas to help the employee embrace the change.
The observer will watch, listen and take notes of how the conversation went. For instance, they will note if the manager listened to the employee without interrupting, if they took the employee’s concerns on board, if they showed empathy, if they managed to highlight the benefits of the change and if they tried to offer support.
Repeat the activity twice more to make sure that every participant has had the chance to cover every role.
Then, finish with a discussion on the most common reasons for people to resist change and how managers can deal with them and try to involve employees so that they take the changes on board rather than feeling resentful.
Materials Needed: You will need a few scenarios for participants to discuss.
You can run this activity if you are teaching online. You will need to use videoconferencing software such as Zoom or MS Teams with breakout rooms.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- What types of resistance to change did you encounter?
- How did you deal with them?
- What techniques did you use to overcome resistance?
- What insights did this activity give you to help you implement changes successfully with your team in the future?
3. Communication Planning for Change
Aim of the Activity: Clear and effective communication is vital to implementing change successfully.
This is one of the change management activities for leaders that focuses on communication.
The aim of this activity is to create a comprehensive communication plan to ensure transparency, consistency and goal alignment (between the company’s, the team’s and every employee’s objectives).
Activity Guidance: Create a few scenarios in which an imaginary organization is implementing a change initiative.
For example, in one scenario the organization might be planning to restructure or merge departments; in another scenario, they might be trying to implement a new customer service strategy to improve customer retention; another scenario still might be about introducing changes in the production line of a company.
In all the hypothetical scenarios, it is assumed that the changes will have an impact on some parts of the organization and on its employees.
Put participants together in groups of four or five. Then, give each group a scenario, some markers and flipcharts.
Instruct each group to design a communication strategy for the change.
The plan will include elements such as:
- The key messages to convey – the participants will need to decide what the core message is and the amount of information they want to include, i.e. not so much that the employees get confused, nor so little that it may come across as unsatisfactory for the audience.
- The target audience
- The channels to use – i.e., team meetings, one-to-ones, email, company’s intranet and newsletter, etc.
- Timelines – e.g., when to deliver the message in relation to how close they are to implementing the change, if they need to deliver the information in stages, etc.
Give groups a set time to draw their plans. Then, ask each group to present their plan with the communication strategy to the rest of the class, explaining what they would do and why.
Materials Needed:
- Scenarios (in printed handouts if you are teaching in person or delivered electronically if you are teaching online)
- Flipcharts and markers if you are teaching in a physical classroom, or virtual whiteboards for an online setting.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- How did you structure your communication plan?
- What were its key components?
- Why did you choose that specific strategy in terms of channels, timelines, etc?
- What challenges would you anticipate in real life when creating a communication plan for change?
- How can a well-planned communication strategy affect change management?
4. Action Planning for Change
Aim of the Activity: This is one of the fun change management activities that focus both on the management and the leadership aspects of change implementation.
The aim of this activity is for participants to create a plan for a hypothetical change.
The plan though needs to consider not only the logistical aspects of change, such as the actionable steps to take to implement change (the managerial aspect), but also what to do to empower and involve employees so they are motivated and inspired by the change (the leadership aspect).
Activity Guidance: For this activity, participants will work in small groups.
Give each group a scenario related to change that you will have written beforehand.
Ask each group to discuss the scenario and create an action plan for change implementation that includes elements such as:
- Communication strategy
- Training needs
- Timelines
- Support offered to employees
- How to celebrate small wins as employees work towards helping the change being implemented so that they feel engaged and motivated
Give groups a specific amount of time (15 to 30 minutes maybe, depending on how detailed you want the plan to be).
At the end of the allocated time, ask each group to present their plan in front of the rest of the class, explaining their thought processes and the rationale behind their plan.
Materials Needed: If you are teaching in a classroom setting, you will need printouts of the scenarios, flipcharts and markers.
If you are teaching online, you will need to share the scenarios electronically with your participants and use virtual whiteboards for the group activity.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- What were the key considerations in your plan?
- What approach did you use to draw your plan and to prioritise tasks?
- What challenges might you face in real life when trying to plan for change?
>> See the Change Management Training Course Materials
5. Communication of Change – Role-Play
Aim of the Activity: This is one of the change management activities that helps participants communicate change.
Communication when managing change is extremely important and it can be tricky to get the right balance.
This activity consists of a role-play in which one participant will need to communicate change to other people, making sure that they put across a clear vision, while taking feedback on board and allowing two-way communication.
Activity Guidance: For this exercise, you will need to prepare a set of hypothetical change scenarios. These need to involve significant changes.
For example, scenarios can involve restructuring, introducing new technologies or work processes, relocating into different work premises, targeting a different market, etc.
Participants should work together in groups of 4 to 5 people. For each group, one person will play the part of the manager who has to communicate the need for change and the plans to the team. The remaining participants will play the part of team members.
The manager communicates the change as best as they can, trying to be clear, to give space to the team to ask questions and to inspire the team to embrace change.
The team members ask questions for clarification and raise objections.
At the end of the exercise, reconvene all groups to have a discussion about the importance of communication in times of change.
Materials Needed:
- Handouts with scenarios (either printed or in electronic format depending on if you are teaching face-to-face or online)
- Flipcharts and markers (or virtual whiteboards for online teaching)
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- If you were playing the manager, what was the hardest thing for you in trying to communicate change?
- What strategies did you adopt to communicate clearly and to show empathy?
- If you were playing the part of a team member, what did it feel like being on the receiving end of communication?
- What did you learn from this activity that you can use in the future to communicate change to your team?
6. Ups and Downs of Change
Aim of the Activity: This is one of the most effective change management activities to help participants focus on the emotional aspects of change.
Reminding participants of the emotions involved in change is likely to help them develop empathy towards those experiencing it and understand the importance of offering support and celebrating successes along the way to increase motivation and lift morale.
Activity Guidance: Ask participants to work on their own and think about a time when they faced changes in the past.
Ask them to remember, if they can, what emotional trajectory they went through. It is possible that they might have been despondent at first, then in denial, then they might have felt a renewed enthusiasm, then enthusiasm might have disappeared and so on.
It is likely that they would have gone through different emotional phases until they finally accepted the change and it became part of their routine.
Give participants pen and paper so they can represent their emotional rollercoaster as a line and give names or labels to the different points of their emotional journey.
After they have had time to reflect individually and draw their line, ask participants to pair up or form groups of three to exchange thoughts.
End the activity by gathering all the participants together and initiating a discussion about how remembering their emotional journeys can help them relate to changes happening in the workplace.
Materials Needed: Pens and paper.
If you are using this activity for online training, participants can use their own pens and paper at home or word processing software.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- What emotions were mostly present in your experiences of change?
- How did these emotional ups and downs affect your behaviour and performance?
- How can understanding the emotional ups and downs of change help you better support your team?
- What strategies can you adopt to support your team emotionally in times of change?
7. Cross Your Arms the Other Way
Aim of the Activity: This is one of the most famous change management activities and one of the most effective at conveying the sense of confusion that even small changes can cause.
This activity is short and simple yet powerful, and you can use it at the start of a session on change management training or as a reinforcement during the session.
Activity Guidance: You can run this activity with the whole class at the same time.
Ask your participants to cross their arms as they usually do.
Then, ask them to notice which arm is on top and then to uncross their arms and recross them the other way (e.g., if they had the left arm on top, they will now cross their arms with the right arm on top instead).
Ask your participants what it feels like to have their arms crossed the ‘wrong’ way (i.e., the way that is not habitual for them).
Have a class discussion about the initial discomfort of change and how this can apply to bigger changes in life, including in the workplace.
Materials Needed: No materials are needed at all and you can run this activity in exactly the same way, whether you are teaching online or face-to-face.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- How did it feel to cross your arms in a way that you are not used to?
- What emotions and discomforts did you feel?
- How might this feeling apply to other areas of a person’s life?
- How can this activity help you understand how employees feel in times of change and how to support them?
8. Changing Places (or Change Your Seat)
Aim of the Activity: Like the previous activity (Cross Your Arms the Other Way), this is another one of those simple yet powerful change management activities for training that helps the participants tangibly feel the discomfort of change.
This activity can help enhance empathy and understanding of other people when they have to go through changes that are imposed on them.
Activity Guidance: Start your training session as normal and wait a short while but long enough until you see that your participants are nice and settled in their seats.
At that point, without giving any reason why, ask participants to move to a different seat and observe their reactions.
Once everyone has taken their new seat, ask how it felt to be asked to change seats so suddenly and start a discussion about the discomfort involved in sudden change and how to ease the transition.
Materials Needed: You won’t need any materials apart from the seats that participants normally use.
If you are teaching online, maybe you can ask participants to change something in their environment, such as the virtual background they use (if they use one); or they might change their chair or their seating location in the room, or stand up instead of sitting down.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- How did it feel to have to change seats so suddenly and without a reason given?
- What were your initial thoughts?
- How can you relate this exercise to changes that happen at work?
- What insights did you gain from this exercise that can help you support your team to adapt to changes at work?
9. Force-Field Analysis
Aim of the Activity: This is one of the most strategic change management activities to understand what might drive or impede changes.
It can help managers take into consideration employees’ and other stakeholders’ concerns when trying to implement changes.
Activity Guidance: Start by explaining what a force-field analysis entails (i.e., it is a framework to look at all the factors that might influence change, either positively or negatively).
Ask participants to work in groups and give them a scenario that describes a situation in which an organization is planning to implement change.
For example, a scenario might describe a factory that is planning to change all its manufacturing processes and office policies in order to comply with new environmental legislation. In the scenario, you might want to describe the changes and who will feel the impact and how.
Ask each group to do a force-field analysis in which they identify the driving forces that may facilitate change and the restraining forces that may hinder it (all these may involve, for instance, the reactions of customers and staff who may be either in favour of the change or against it, depending on how they may be impacted by it).
Also, ask each group to think about how they might try to strengthen the driving forces and reduce the restraining forces.
After the groups have finished working on their force-field analysis within an allocated time, ask them to give a presentation to the rest of the participants to show their analysis and discuss.
Materials Needed: You will need pre-prepared scenarios (either printed out or shared electronically for online teaching), pens and flipcharts (or a virtual whiteboard for participants to collaborate in groups if the training is online).
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- What forces did you identify in your analysis?
- How can you prioritise them?
- How can doing a force-field analysis help you with effective change management?
10. Analyse Results of Change Management
Aim of the Activity: This is one of my favourite change management activities to encourage participants to have a big-picture view of all the elements that can be involved in change management and leadership.
The idea is to ask participants to analyse a change management scenario and pinpoint what were the reasons why some things did not go well as a result of the change.
Activity Guidance: Prepare one or more change management scenarios, although maybe one will be enough as you want to make it quite detailed.
So, think about a scenario such as a company having to move premises. Then, imagine that employees are not happy about the move and list all the problems of this change and the negative feedback given by staff members.
On the day of the training, ask participants to work in small groups to examine the scenario. Ask groups to try and identify what they think the negative outcomes were due to in terms of how leaders managed the change process and what they could have done better.
So, for example, imagine a midsized company that decided to relocate from an old building in the city centre to a new state-of-the-art office in the suburbs.
Management thought it was a good idea as the company needed more space, modern facilities and better amenities for employees.
However, in spite of all the good intentions, some employees were not happy about the change and their morale and productivity went down.
So, participants might identify the reasons for this as being poor communication and failure to ask for feedback before and during the change.
Lack of communication might have meant that management did not share their vision with the rest of the workforce who then did not embrace the positive aspects of it.
Also, failing to gather early feedback meant that management did not realise that many employees liked working in the city centre as they could travel by public transport and they had a lot of facilities within easy reach.
If they had realised that, they might have planned for shuttles for staff or a car-sharing programme for commuting. In addition, maybe they would have had one more cafeteria on site and other facilities for employees to use during their breaks.
At the end of the activity, have each group show their conclusions to the rest of the class and discuss.
Materials Needed: You will need one or more scenarios, plus markers and flipcharts (if you are teaching in person; otherwise you can use virtual whiteboard software).
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- What do you think are the main things to take into consideration when managing and leading change?
- What do you need to be mindful of when planning for change?
11. Encourage Feedback in Times of Change
Aim of the Activity: This change management exercise focuses on the importance of gathering feedback during a change process.
This activity can be run as a brainstorming session on ways to gather feedback from employees about the change.
Gathering feedback in times of change is important not only because it can give management new and useful ideas but also because it makes employees feel valued and involved (as long as you implement that feedback or give good reasons as to why, for the time being, you cannot apply it).
Activity Guidance: For this activity, you can either create a hypothetical scenario in which a company needs to implement some significant change (if you want more focused answers), or just ask participants to brainstorm ideas in general on how to gather feedback (if you want to give participants more freedom to think about their own situations).
So, ask participants to work in small groups (4 or 5 people per group) and ask them to brainstorm in their groups to generate ideas on ways to gather feedback from staff about a proposed change.
After each group has finished brainstorming, gather all the participants together again for a discussion.
Materials Needed: Scenarios (optional), flipcharts and markers.
If you are teaching online, use video conferencing software with breakout rooms and virtual whiteboards.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- What are the most creative ideas you had during the brainstorming sessions?
- How could you use these ideas in real life to gather feedback from your employees?
- How can gathering feedback in times of change help you lead change more effectively?
12. New Company
Aim of the Activity: This activity requires participants to change roles and groups a few times.
As a result, it is one of those change management activities that can be used to train either team members or leaders and each should gain a new perspective from this activity.
Leaders should understand what it feels like to be required to change roles and be expected to adapt quickly every time. So, they should understand the impact that change can have on morale, especially when it happens too frequently.
On the other hand, team members should appreciate the importance of being adaptable and also how change is not necessarily bad as it can foster creativity and lead to improvements.
Activity Guidance: Have participants work in groups (of about 4 to 6 people per group).
Ask each group to elect a leader and to work together to create a new fictional company. Each one of the other group members will be assigned a role in the new company (for example, marketing manager, sales rep, etc.).
Have each company prepare a short presentation that includes a basic business plan, a description of the product or service they offer and an introduction of each team member and their role.
After the groups have done this, ask group members to shuffle around between different groups so you mix up different team members and ask them to produce a new presentation.
However, the manager of each company stays the same all the time, but the other team members will be different. So, the new presentation will receive input from different people.
Repeat this process once more.
By the third attempt, the last presentation will be the final one and should look different from the original one.
Now get each group to do a presentation in front of the class and to then have a discussion about the pros and cons of change.
Materials Needed: You will need flipcharts and markers.
You can do this activity if you teach online, but it might depend on you. If you think that creating new breakout rooms or moving participants between different breakout rooms might be too awkward, then it may not be suitable.
What You Can Ask to Stimulate Reflection and Discussions:
- What were the biggest challenges of having to change roles and companies during the activity?
- What were the positives of changing?
- How did the initial presentation change and what was the impact of new members?
- If you were the manager, what were the challenges of managing different people all the time and keeping them engaged?
Benefits of Change Management Activities
Learning how to manage and lead change is one of the hardest to develop but one of the most important skills that a leader can have.
Guiding your team through change successfully is not just a matter of planning, distributing tasks and organizing logistics and timescales, but also of inspiring your employees to embrace change.
You need to sell your employees the benefits of change and support them, so that they will in turn support you in delivering and implementing change successfully.
Change management and leadership involve a variety of skills that are invaluable for leaders.
This is why running workshops for leaders that include change management team building activities can help them develop a set of other skills too that include:
Change Management Teaching Materials
We also have some more organizational change management activities inside the training course materials. Please do take a look if you are a training facilitator, corporate or freelance trainer.
Owner at Symonds Research Training Materials
Valeria has a PhD in Sociology, has 25 years+ working in education, has taught at the University of Bath &Cardiff Metropolitan University, & Hankuk University (Korea) & worked as a researcher for Exeter University, & has many years of industry experience including with Cardiff University in management roles. She now creates training course materials courseware.