Becoming Nomadic: Change Management in an Age of Flux

Organizational Change Management (OCM) and Emergency Management (EM) employ different methods, strategies, and professional standards; however, they share several foundational principles. This series explores how drawing parallels between OCM and EM can empower leaders to guide their organizations through change with greater resilience and confidence.

In an article I had written nearly two years ago, I argued that organizational change, understood as mapping a planned progression toward stability, is methodologically similar to emergency or crisis management which is a discipline oriented around preparedness, coordination, and learning rather than any final resolution. Through my change management work at Veolia these past couple of years, that framing has deepened into a recognition that the continuous state of flux we collectively experience, both in and away from work, is no longer the exception to organizational life but has become its generative environment, shaping how work, risk, learning, life, and leadership actually unfold.

In retrospect, I admit the parallel I'd made to emergency management seems somewhat tenuous. But, after operating within sustained, high-risk programs where preparedness looks less like a checklist and more like clarity around decision rights, realistic assumptions about readiness, and shared agreement on what “good” looks like under pressure, the analogy actually feels more palpable.

Coherence in Motion

This orientation has continued to reshape how I approach OCM, shifting from linear roadmaps toward a focus on developing patterns that can endure across initiatives. Things like portfolio-level sensemaking, visible leadership alignment, and mechanisms that help surface misalignment early, contribute to develop repeatable patterns that can enable an organization to absorb disruption without panic, coordinate across boundaries, and continue improving without needing to wait for the storm to pass. Instead of running for high ground, we'd be better served by learning to be better swimmers.

Sure, we will still talk about future states, stabilization, and “getting through” change, but in my experience there is rarely a clean after. When portfolio-level cybersecurity programs, identity and access transformations, M&A integration, infrastructure modernization, and cultural shifts all overlap, each reshaping the context for the next like a serpent eating its own tail, the best we should hope for is the relative stability of a "new normal" while we anticipate the next phase of transformation.

This reality has shifted my approach to managing change to one that places emphasis on building organizational capacity for adaptability amid ongoing volatility. As I've come to see it, the work is less about reaching a fixed endpoint and more about strengthening our collective ability to respond, learn, and adjust as conditions continue to evolve.

The implication for change leaders is that the goal can no longer be simply to control outcomes, but rather it must be to steward emergence while helping others navigate uncertainty with clarity, care, and intention. Adoption remains an important goal, but navigability and sense-making are the more powerful indications of whether change efforts are actually working.

To recognize our reality as perpetual flux is neither to surrender to chaos, nor to romanticize instability. It is, rather, to acknowledge the fluid nature of the environment we are already living in, and to accept that the work of change management today is less about shepherding organizations toward idyllic green pastures, and more about helping them learn how to become more nomadic; developing the shared practices, signals, and relationships that allow people to stay oriented, connected, and capable of learning while on the move

Matthew Baker is a Change Management and Learning & Development professional with over a decade of experience delivering user-centered graphic, audio, and instructional design, as well as project management. He holds degrees in Instructional Design, Applied Physics, and Organizational Management.