S05 E04: Turning complex change into human-centric, data-driven journeys
In S05 E04 of CultureClub X powered by CultureMonkey, host Jodie O’Brien speaks with Chris Manning (Experience HR), an independent HR and workforce transformation consultant, about why transformation breaks when exec goals don’t match employee reality and what it takes to design change people actually adopt.
About Chris
Chris Manning is an independent HR and workforce transformation consultant and the founder of Experience HR. With close to two decades across HR, workforce management, managed services, and consulting, his work spans recruitment transformation, people and change functions, talent frameworks, and large-scale employee experience design for multinational organizations.
In recent years, Chris has focused on bridging executive strategy with operational reality through experience-led, techno-functional design, including HR design assurance for complex ERP implementations. His perspective on leadership and transformation is shaped by hands-on delivery in high-complexity environments, with a strong bias toward empathy, pragmatism, and progress over rigid process or perfection.
Here’s the gist of what Chris covers in this video
- The biggest gap in transformation is missing the “conditions” employees feel: friction, blockers, clunky systems, duplicated effort.
- Empathy is the bridge between exec outcomes and day-to-day experience, and “moments that matter” reveal what to fix.
- When change becomes too process-driven: too much artifact creation, governance, and outputs that don’t create real insight.
- Why static personas can dehumanize at scale, and why data signals beat PowerPoint profiles.
- Adoption works when change starts early through co-design and change champion networks, not post-announcement training.
- Practical frameworks leaders can use: ADKAR and COM-B to map what must be true before expecting behavior change.
- Why mapping the journey (service blueprints, frontstage vs backstage) clarifies ownership, sources of truth, and better handoffs.
- Progress over perfection: MVP thinking, designing for edge cases, and not letting compliance block workable experiences.
Catch all this and more with Chris Manning in S05 E04 of CultureClub X.
