Rethinking Change Management in a High-Growth Organization: A Conversation with Nextech

Change may be a constant aspect of business transformation, but for employees it can often feel confusing, reactive, and exhausting, especially when organizations underestimate how much change is actually underway.

In Propeller’s People & Change Insights research, 86% of organizations reported experiencing significant change in the past 12 months. Yet even as change becomes more constant, leaders report ongoing execution challenges, with 54% citing training as the top barrier to implementing change effectively.

This disconnect doesn’t stop at the workforce. In industries where technology directly supports critical services, even small product or workflow changes can quickly shape how customers operate and deliver value.

This was the challenge and opportunity facing the Nextech leadership team. The award-winning healthcare technology company was growing fast, and executives needed to plan for the changes ahead to support this growth.

To do that, Nextech partnered with Propeller to better understand:

• How to manage change effectively through growth
• Where change was impacting both the business and its customers
• What framework to use to implement change consistently
• How to preserve culture amid company-wide transformation

Below, Robin Ntoh, Vice President of Aesthetics at Nextech, shares how Propeller’s Change Management Workshop helped the organization rethink its approach to change leadership.

# Why Change — And Why This Workshop

1. How did change typically show up at Nextech before the workshop?

“Disruptive. Uncomfortable. Surprising. We didn’t fully understand how a decision made at the leadership level actually showed up for individual contributors. So when people didn’t understand what a change meant for their role or how to interpret it, it came as an uncomfortable and unpleasant surprise.”

2. Why was this the right moment to invest in change leadership?

“We should’ve done this [workshop] five years ago. But we made the decision because we now have the right executives focused on culture. Our CEO often says, ‘Culture eats strategy for lunch,’ and that really shaped our thinking. We needed to be smarter about how we operationalize change and support our teams so we can build and sustain the culture we’re aiming for.”

3. Was there a moment in the workshop that shifted your perspective?

“Yes. The ‘aha moment’ for me was realizing that change management is not just something we need to think about for ourselves, but is something that our customers could also benefit from. For example, what impact could we have on our customer relationships if we introduced change management as part of how they think about change, too?

If we incorporated it into implementation, we wouldn’t just be changing software, we’d be giving them a philosophy and process that could create a much longer-lasting impact.”

4. How did it reshape your role as a leader during change?

“Too often, we do our job every day just focusing on what we have to do. But we don’t always think about the impact of our decisions. So, it was a reminder that what I say and do can impact the person next to me or even the person who may be five leagues away. That sensitivity there in and of itself is a whole new level of emotional intelligence.

# The Experience — What It Felt Like

# 5. What made this workshop different from others?

“It was more intentional. Instead of trying to solve for everything and ‘boil the ocean’, this one homed in on a single, high-impact capability for our company.”

Importantly, the content wasn’t abstract. It was tailored to real Nextech scenarios so leaders didn’t just learn concepts; they applied them in context. That specificity made it stick.

# 6. What was it like working across silos?

“I’ve learned that alignment is one of the most critical areas to have in place before you can actually facilitate changes. Leaders from different functions discovered how differently they approached change. And while that surfaced misalignments, it also built mutual understanding.

That was a really great feeling to have in the room, to see that people cared about working together and wanted to work together, especially if it was for a common goal.”

# 7. Did it surface any blind spots or tensions?

“Yes. We're all busy. We're all running in ten different directions, doing ten different things. So, of course, nobody wants to raise their hand and take on more responsibility. [But the workshop helped us] recognize that there has to be some level of ownership.”

The team learned that shared ownership doesn’t have to mean shared confusion. It means someone shepherds the process, while others commit to supporting it.

That mindset shift turned their initial reluctance into a shared willingness to help.

# 8. What was the energy in the room like?

“I conduct workshops a lot myself as a market owner in Nextech, so I'm familiar with how you need to read the room. The Propeller team did a great job of actually setting the right tone, engaging at the right pace, and facilitating without dominating, which encouraged open conversation.”

That approach invited vulnerability and sparked real dialogue.

“They stirred up the embers, and leaders started showcasing their expertise.”

# 9. Did executive sponsorship matter?

“Absolutely. We needed to understand at the leadership level how to keep our culture strong through change. That meant stepping back and looking at ourselves. Did we really understand what good change management looks like or what happens if you don’t manage it well?

The workshop helped us gain that perspective, create shared awareness, and start thinking differently about how we could manifest change across the organization.”

# The Impact — What Changed Since

# 10. What tools or frameworks have had a lasting impact?

“The workshop gave us a framework of how to actually manage change. Before, we would just adhoc it. The workshop gave us a really beautiful framework to work from. At our user conference this year, we’re even showcasing a leadership session that demonstrates how change management was built into implementation and the impact it had on a practice.”

# 11. What tells you it truly stuck?

“One of the clearest examples has been our implementation teams. They started looking more intentionally at how they manage change with customers, not just the operational steps. Because I’m closely involved in the customer experience, that shift really stood out to me.

We focused on one core specialty of the platform and used that team as a pilot to apply the change management framework in a more meaningful way. That focus allowed us to test where the framework had real substance and could make a tangible difference. We began measuring outcomes like customer adoption, how quickly customers moved through implementation phases, and whether they were getting stuck. As a result, we saw real improvements, including a reduction in the number of hours required to complete implementations.”

# 12. Would you recommend this type of workshop to other leadership teams?

“Absolutely. If you think change won’t touch your work, you’re fooling yourself. Change management is not going away. It's a framework that should always be part of your playbook. It should be part of what you constantly are referencing as you think about any type of new process or new product or anything that you commercialize within your business.”

This workshop was a shift in how leadership saw its role. For organizations navigating complexity, this type of intervention is key to building better capabilities.

# Turn Change into a Lasting Advantage

Explore how Propeller’s change leadership workshops can support your executive team. Reach out to our team today.

“We needed to understand at the leadership level how to keep our culture strong through change. The workshop helped us gain that perspective, create shared awareness, and start thinking differently about how we could manifest change across the organization. We should have done this five years ago.”