Driving Lasting Change in Engineering Organizations

A Conversation with Manju Abraham by Slava Imeshev and Adam Axelrod

Introduction

With over 30 years leading engineering organizations at NetApp, Delphix, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Manju Abraham has seen the best – and the worst – of change initiatives. Her experience spans pulling siloed teams together, stabilizing legacy systems, and launching entirely new enterprise products under budget and resource constraints.

In this conversation, she shares what most leaders get wrong about change, the methods that actually work, and a practical playbook engineering managers can use to create lasting transformation.

Click here if you prefer to listen to the podcast episode this article is based on.

Why Most Change Efforts Fail

  • Nearly 70% of change efforts stall or fail. They either meet resistance, look good on a slide deck but never reach the habits of the people doing the work, or collapse under their own weight.
    Leaders often underestimate the emotional side of transformation.
  • Failed change is expensive. It costs time, trust, and momentum. Teams lose faith in leadership, morale drops, and organizations spend months or years without meaningful progress.
  • The world is shifting faster than organizations are adapting.  Hybrid work, AI, shrinking budgets, and shifting customer expectations require engineering organizations to change faster than ever.
  • Treating change as a side project dooms it to fail.  Manju stresses that transformation must be treated as a full system rewiring of how goals, culture, and operations work together. Anything less fades quickly.

The Biggest Misconception: Change Is About Data

Many leaders believe that if they present the right data and make a strong business case, people will follow.

  • In reality, change doesn’t happen because people understand the logic – it happens because they believe in the leader and trust the vision. Without emotional safety, no one takes risks, experiments, or adopts new ways of working.
  • Transformation is not just process design – it’s emotional design.  Leaders must reshape beliefs, not just tasks.

A Practical Playbook for Driving Change

Manju blends lessons from Kotter’s 8 Steps, the ADKAR model, SMART goals, and Chris Voss’s tactical empathy. Over the years, she’s developed her own repeatable approach:

“The frameworks matter, but you have to put your own touch into them. That’s what makes the change authentic and lasting.”

1. Assess Readiness and Context

  • Begin with a listening tour. Ask: What’s hard about this? Where do we keep getting stuck?  This surfaces invisible tensions, fatigue from past failed initiatives, and blockers like budget constraints.
  • Leaders often rush into solutions. Instead, listen deeply to uncover what the team is already struggling with.  Teams feel heard and are more willing to engage.

2. Create Urgency Without Pressure

  • Establish urgency by showing why the change matters now, but avoid burning people out. People aren’t afraid of hard work – they fear a lack of autonomy.
  • Authenticity is critical. If leaders are inconsistent, trust collapses immediately. Teams align faster when they believe in the purpose and the leader’s intent.

3. Build Coalitions and Identify Champions

  • Look for formal leaders (directors, senior managers) and informal influencers (respected ICs, skeptics who ask tough questions). Involve them early and let them help shape the message.
  • Their belief becomes your amplifier.  Once champions own the message, momentum spreads far beyond what top-down commands can achieve.

4. Co-Create the Vision and SMART Goals

  • A vision written on a slide deck isn’t enough. Co-create it with your team. Teams that help shape the vision will defend and drive it. Define SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) together. The process of debating and clarifying goals creates alignment and ownership.
  • The “That’s Right” Moment. Inspired by Chris Voss, look for the moment when someone says: “Yes, that’s exactly the issue we’ve been facing.”  That’s when belief shifts and buy-in begins.

5. Make Ownership Visible and Safe

  • Use simple artifacts like one-pagers and traffic-light dashboards. These make accountability visible and help everyone quickly see risks, progress, and gaps.
  • Provide air cover, budget, and autonomy. Teams thrive when they know leaders are backing them, not micromanaging them.
  • Leaders must show up consistently. Skipping syncs signals disinterest; attending weekly reviews signals commitment. Presence is how leaders show what matters.

6. Reinforce with Rhythm and Recognition

  • Establish rituals: weekly syncs, milestone reviews, visible dashboards.  Recognize not just outcomes but the behaviors that drive cultural change.
  • When people feel seen, valued, and connected to a bigger purpose, belief deepens.

7. Institutionalize Through Culture

  • Embed new behaviors into onboarding, performance reviews, and team norms.  Change sticks when it becomes how we work here.
  • Leaders must show up consistently – role modeling is non-negotiable.

Case Study: Transforming at Hewlett Packard Enterprise

At HPE, Manju inherited a 1,000+ engineer storage division that was siloed, firefighting constantly, and struggling with unpredictable releases.

  • The challenge: shifting focus from aging products to a new enterprise-scale offering, while cutting through tech debt and unstable infrastructure.
  • The approach:
    • Began with one-on-ones with senior leaders and architects to co-create a vision.
    • Asked: “What does great look like in each of these areas?”
    • Defined SMART goals, owners, and success criteria.
    • Invested in CI/CD, re-architected the release process, and replaced band-aid fixes with systemic solutions.
    • Kept progress visible through one-page trackers and traffic-light dashboards.
  • The results:
    • Release predictability improved by 25%.
    • Infrastructure stability increased by 30%, reducing test times.
    • Teams transitioned successfully to deliver a new 1.0 scale-out enterprise product – on time and with less budget.

The transformation worked not because of mandates, but because leaders and teams owned the change.

Common Mistakes Leaders Make

  • Focusing on the process before people. Silence isn’t alignment. Teams must believe in the vision.
  • Designing top-down change. Without co-creation, change evaporates when leaders walk away.
  • Wasting energy on loud resistors. The real leverage is in activating the 70% in the middle.
  • Confusing urgency with pressure. Urgency motivates; pressure burns people out.
  • Rewarding only delivery, not behavior. Culture shifts when the how is valued as much as the what.
  • Mistaking silence for commitment. Just because people don’t object doesn’t mean they’re aligned. Test for clarity, not compliance.

A Checklist for Driving Lasting Change

If you’re an engineering manager driving transformation, start here:

  • Start with belief, not a plan. Earn trust before expecting commitment.
  • Create emotional safety so people feel free to experiment and speak the truth.
  • Make the vision repeatable. If your team can’t explain it without slides, it’s not embedded.
  • Co-create SMART goals. When people define success, they own the outcome.
  • Focus on the majority. Activate the quiet doers, not just the champions or resistors.
  • Track progress visually and simply. One-pagers and traffic lights beat endless decks.
  • Recognize behaviors, not just outcomes. This is how culture sticks.
  • Coach your champions. Invest in the people who amplify belief and momentum.
  • Encourage change at every level. You don’t need to be a VP to lead transformation – ICs can be powerful catalysts.

Final Takeaway

Real change doesn’t come from pressure or command. It comes from trust, clarity, and shared ownership.

As Manju puts it:

“People do not remember what you changed. They remember how you made them feel during the change.”

So ask yourself:

  • Can your team repeat the vision without a slide deck?
  • Have you made space for emotional readiness, not just tactical execution?
  • Do your people feel safe, or merely informed?

Lead like a gardener, not a general. Nurture, prune, protect, and create the conditions for growth. Because change is not linear – it comes in seasons.