Interim change & adoption manager

Most change programmes are managed in full view, and fail out of sight.

Plans, targets, systems and dashboards are the easy part. What decides is whether people do something differently on an ordinary Tuesday. That is what I manage.

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25+ years of experience40+ organisations20+ countries4 working languages

Filip Geuens working thoughtfully at his laptop by a window
Filip Geuens, change & adoption management

Sound familiar?

The SaaS licences are paid for, but half the work still lives in notebooks.

Everyone nodded in the meeting, and afterwards nothing changed.

The third change programme in five years, and nobody on the floor believes in it any more.

None of these situations is a people problem. It is what any organisation does when change is rolled out over people instead of with them.

My starting point is simple: people do not change because you convince them. They change because they convince themselves. My work is building the process that makes that possible.

Three warehouse workers consulting together around a tablet on the work floor
Change lands on the shop floor, or it does not land at all.

Proof in practice

Two programmes, twenty years apart. The same discipline.

Umicore, global EHS transformation

One group standard, the EHS platform Intelex, had to be not just installed but actually used. On every site, in every language, in every culture. What worked in Germany did not automatically work in Korea or the US.

As Change and Communication Lead I carried the entire change layer: governance, ADKAR-driven adoption, communication per target group and per phase, training development, train-the-trainer into an ambassador network across 50+ sites, and a support structure on ServiceNow that keeps running after go-live. Measurement determined the action: if a group was stuck in awareness, explanation followed. If it was stuck in ability, training followed.

Result: adoption measured instead of assumed, and EHS positioned as a business partner instead of a cost centre.

The facts

  • Employees11,000+
  • Locations50+
  • Countries25
  • PlatformsIntelex, ServiceNow
  • PeriodQ4 2025-Q1 2026

Belgacom, behavioural change in the retail channel

A former state-owned company with a behind-the-counter culture had to structurally raise both customer experience and revenue at the same time. I built the approach to fit that culture: first the rational foundation, with the why communicated openly, performance management, structured team meetings, training and coaching where needed and useful, revenue and CX measurement. Then the human energy, with gamification on behaviour instead of on results alone.

The training I developed then remained the standard for newcomers for years.

The facts

  • Period2004
  • ChannelRetail, national
  • GoalCX and revenue
  • ResultStructural increase

Change starts on one of these three paths. I walk it with you

Change processes have different starting points. Sometimes you walk one path, sometimes several.

Aerial view of a road winding through a green mountain landscape
Three starting points, three sequences of work.

1 · Something new must land

Your new AI, CRM, EHS or ERP, the new machine or production line. Technically it will be fine. The investment only pays off when people use it every day.

The test sentence

If we do this project, our people will be able to do this, or we will achieve that.

What this path asks of you

Daily actions on the shop floor, and blockers that are named and answered.

2 · Something hit the organisation

A merger, a reorganisation, new leadership. Nothing has to go wrong; the balance simply shifts, and everyone feels it.

The test sentence

It happened on that date, and since then there has been a clear before and after.

What this path asks of you

Protection of what must move forward, and repair of what was left behind.

3 · Something is off

Absenteeism, silence, turnover, numbers slipping away. You feel something is wrong, but you cannot name it. Like fever in a body, it is a symptom: the organisation is repairing itself.

The test sentence

It keeps coming back, in different forms, and the usual fixes no longer hold.

What this path asks of you

A search for the need underneath, with the symptom in sight, but never as a target.

Yes, data reflect the organisation. But an organisation is also a living system.

A tree does not grow because someone tells it to. It grows when its needs are met, and it shows you, honestly and in order, when they are not. An organisation is the same kind of thing. Read it from the ground up.

  • The ground · Origin. Why this organisation exists at all. The soil everything above still draws from.
  • The roots · History. Everything that happened since, seen and acknowledged. The door to the future opens through the past.
  • The trunk · Belonging. Everything and everyone that belongs has a clear place in the whole.
  • The branches · Ordering. Each branch its own place: every part, every function and every person in the right position.
  • The flow · Balance. The nourishing exchange through every layer, like the sap stream in a tree: a fair give and take, inside and with the outside world. Trouble shows here first.
  • The crown · Room for something new. The last thing the tree produces, and the first thing it loses.
A mature oak in a rolling meadow
From ground to crown: each layer feeds the one above.

When a need is ignored, the system does not sit still. It starts repairing itself. That is self-regulation, and you already know its face: people leaving, burnout, energy draining away, agreements not kept. These are not defects. It is the organisation regulating itself, and every signal points to the need underneath.

That is why a symptom never gets a target with me: put a target on absenteeism or turnover, and you teach the organisation to hide it instead of healing it. And that is why repair starts low and works upward: each layer feeds the one above. So whoever repairs "low" repairs more than whoever patches "high".

The validated base

The reading of the tree is phenomenological: it reads what people show and say. Underneath lies a validated measurement base: COPSOQ III, the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, the international standard for the psychosocial conditions people work under. Validated where it can be, phenomenological where it adds.

COPSOQ III is validated in more than 30 countries, available in more than 25 languages, and used under the licence of the international COPSOQ network.

How I go about it

I work strategically and conceptually, and just as much hands-on and operationally.

My approach, five layers

  1. 1 · Determining the starting position. Which of the three paths is it, or which combination, how is each layer of the living system doing, and where does each group stand today. The reading determines the approach, not the other way round.
  2. 2 · Direction and governance. A clear change strategy, yet pragmatic and adaptable, with roles and decision lines connecting the group and the shop floor.
  3. 3 · People on board. Working with those who are positive, always respecting the others and giving them the chance to come on board, everyone in the right role and place, communication, training, ...
  4. 4 · Making movement visible. Each group compared with its own beginning, not with a norm. Where it stalls, a Moving Question follows that brings movement back.
  5. 5 · The new normal. Success is not the end of the project, but the moment behaviour holds without me, and newcomers learn it as a matter of course.

Models as tools

The methodology follows the organisation, not the other way round. I work just as well within a tightly defined framework, such as ADKAR, as with an appreciative or systemic approach. What fits the assignment is what counts.

What others say

"Very systematic and strategic co-thinker. Really integrates very well in the team and immediately puts on the hat of the company he is servicing. A very good understanding of what makes strong impactful business processes."

Bie Lambert, Global Group Safety and EHS Excellence Lead, Umicore

"He managed to make a quick analysis and translate it into a strategic action plan. He uses open communication with both colleagues and customers and works goal-oriented."

Christophe Bouvry, CEO Magis Pharma, former managing director Isomasters

"Strong in analysing and improving processes and in distinguishing between main and side issues. Someone who also dares to make decisions and who can think two steps ahead."

Philippe Stulens, Senior Director Global Brand, Randstad Northern Europe

A selection of organisations I have worked for

UmicoreJohnson & JohnsonBelgacomBATKingspanBarcoAgristoFCAVoka LimburgEngieSuzuki

Boardroom in the morning, operations in the afternoon

Portrait of Filip Geuens

I am Filip Geuens, Master in Economics (KU Leuven), and my whole career has been about one question: how do you truly get people on board with change.

In 2000 I founded a consultancy with one starting point: how to raise revenue and profit in companies through change and adoption programmes. I built it into a Salesforce partner (acquired by IBM in 2021, after my departure). I have kept working as an independent change and adoption manager, for organisations from Umicore to Voka, nationally and internationally in Dutch, French, German and English.

What drives me is respect for the individual within the team they work in. Change that lacks that respect does not last. I learned this the long way: through 25 years of programmes, and through my own mistakes. That maturity is what I bring. Sometimes grey hair is the USP.

Let's talk

A first conversation is without obligation: you put your situation on the table, I listen, and you get an honest answer to whether I can help. Sometimes that answer is no. That, too, is change management.

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