Method · Applied communication psychology
Systems don't fail on features. They fail on people.
Most rollouts don't collapse because the software is broken. They collapse because the people expected to use it feel threatened, overloaded or ignored — and quietly carry on the old way. I hold a degree in communication psychology and twenty years in the room. I don't just teach the system; I diagnose the human resistance and engineer the change that makes it stick.
Skim to what you need — you don't have to read all of it. It's set out in full on purpose: the substance is the part that doesn't show up in a polished interview.
The premise
What actually kills a rollout.
Threat, not difficulty
People reject a system when it threatens their competence, control or status — not because the buttons are hard.
Power, not the org chart
The person who can quietly kill adoption is rarely the one with the senior title. Miss them and the programme stalls.
Consent, not compliance
You can mandate attendance. You cannot mandate use. Real adoption is negotiated, one honest objection at a time.
The theory I actually apply
Named frameworks, used in the room.
This isn't decoration. Each of these drives a concrete decision about how a programme is designed, sequenced and delivered.
Find who really holds the power
The power to sink adoption often sits with no title at all — a long-serving administrator, a trusted SME, a shop steward, sometimes the person who's been there longest. I map the visible power, the agenda-setting power, and the hidden power that shapes what people even think is possible.
Treat adults like adults
Adults learn when it's relevant, self-directed and built on their own experience. Child-style mandatory training manufactures the exact resistance it's meant to remove. I design to how professionals actually take on new skills.
Make it safe to not know
In a hostile or high-stakes room, people won't admit they're lost — they disengage and nod along. I build sessions where not-knowing is safe, because silent confusion is what shows up as "failed adoption" three weeks later.
Protect working memory
Overload reads to the user as "this system is too hard" and hardens into resistance. Chunking and sequencing isn't a design nicety here — it's a behavioural intervention that keeps people from giving up.
Reframe the perceived loss
People fear what a change takes away far more than they value what it adds. I surface the unspoken loss — status, autonomy, a familiar shortcut — and reframe it, because you can't train past a grievance no one has named.
Design for the level that's needed
Not every user needs to "create" — some need to reliably "apply". Matching objectives to the real cognitive demand strips out wasted effort and needless intimidation, and it makes assessment defensible to an evaluator.
Give people back some control
Motivation runs on autonomy, competence and relatedness. A blunt mandate strips all three — so I build in real choices and early wins that hand people back a sense of control over the change being done to them.
Measure behaviour, not smile-sheets
A happy feedback form proves nothing. I evaluate at the level that matters — whether behaviour actually changed on the job, and whether it moved the result the programme was bought to fix.
The skill that sets the work apart
Reading the power in the room.
Identifying where power and resistance actually sit — before a single slide is built — is the part a standard trainer skips. Using Lukes' three dimensions, I read a rollout on three levels:
The visible
Who is openly in the decisions — the sponsors, the named leads, the people the org chart says matter.
The agenda
Who quietly keeps things off the table — who decides what never gets discussed, and what "isn't our problem".
The hidden
Who shapes what people believe is even possible — the informal influencer whose shrug can end adoption in a corridor.
Evidence, not theory
Where this has been used for real.
On a major NHS trust programme, I used stakeholder-power analysis and communication psychology to design an intervention the standard training approach couldn't — identifying the informal influencers, reframing the change for the people who felt they were losing, and building the material around the real resistance rather than the ideal user. [Chris: add the concrete outcome / result here — kept anonymised.]
Wider grounding
The canon behind the method.
Beyond the frameworks I apply directly, the approach is grounded in the developmental and learning-science tradition — the roots of how people build, retain and change understanding.
- Jean Piaget Cognitive development — how understanding is constructed in stages.
- Lev Vygotsky Zone of Proximal Development — learning through social scaffolding.
- Jerome Bruner Discovery learning and the spiral curriculum.
- David Kolb Experiential learning cycle — doing, then reflecting.
- Jack Mezirow Transformative learning — change through a disorienting dilemma.
- Learning science Retrieval practice, spacing and cognitive load — applied to real retention.
- ADDIE & SAM The design backbone — ADDIE (analyse, design, develop, implement, evaluate) as standard; SAM where an agile build fits. Full detail on the methodology page.
For the agencies who place me
I'm the safe bet.
Your risk is a contractor who needs managing, or who wobbles the moment the room turns. I'm the opposite. Put me in front of a difficult client, a hostile audience or a programme that's already drifting, and I come out making you look like you found exactly the right person.
Low management overhead
I read the situation, take control, and deliver. You don't get chased for hand-holding.
Safe in the hard briefs
The awkward rollout, the resistant workforce, the regulated environment — that's where I'm strongest, not where I fold.
Repeat commission
A placement that makes the client look good is a client who comes back to you. I protect the relationship you're paid to keep.
Get in touch
Got a rollout people are resisting?
Tell me where it's stuck. I'll tell you straight whether it's a training problem or a behaviour problem — and exactly how I'd fix it.