Understand what the objection protects.
Listen for professional standards, workload, relationships and past experience. Test your interpretation with the people involved before deciding what the resistance means.
For Change Professionals
Wayfinder · Human Intelligence for Difficult Change
Get difficult change
working in everyday practice.
Wayfinder trains the people responsible for helping others adopt difficult change—in healthcare, long-term care, and safety-intensive industry. Learn to create psychological health and safety, work through disagreement, and build a next step people can carry.
Real changes. Your working context.Coached practice. Skills you can use.Shared progress. Follow-through that matters.
Change professionals · From agreement to adoption
Approval gives you a mandate.
People need a workable next step.
The launch date is booked. Your sponsor wants visible progress. The team wants to know what they can stop doing to make room for the new process.
You can explain the benefits and still be unable to answer that question. Getting traction means understanding what people are being asked to give up, what they need to learn and which decisions have yet to be made.
Wayfinder gives you coached practice in those encounters: work with disagreement, make participation psychologically safe, and help the sponsor and team reach a next step they can support.
Find the decision beneath the repeated objection.
Bring a change that has stalled. Rehearse a difficult encounter, involve the sponsor where authority is needed, and test an agreed next step with the people who will use it.
What you develop through Wayfinder
Turn participation
into a workable commitment.
Work with power in the room.
Practise making challenge safe, responding to dismissive behaviour and helping people influence the parts of the change that remain open.
Keep the sponsor in the work.
Turn unresolved conditions into a clear request for a decision or support. Agree a small trial, hear what happens and adjust before extending it.
Your guide · Trace Hobson
Work with someone who
understands the responsibility.
You can be held responsible for buy-in while carrying tensions you cannot settle alone. You need the skill to work with disagreement and the backing to act on what it reveals.
Trace brings experience in operational change, project implementation and developing leaders and coaches. His work spans industrial operations and psychological health and safety with healthcare teams.
Meet Trace and explore his experienceHow we begin
A clear way
to get started.
Bring a live change.
Discuss the change you are struggling to move and whether a case clinic or cohort is the right starting point.
Agree the backing.
Identify the practitioner, sponsor, decisions in scope, protected time, and support needed to practise.
Practise and follow through.
Rehearse difficult moments, apply the learning, and review whether the agreed practice is taking hold.
Start with an enquiry. We agree the fit, scope, time, and investment before you commit.
Wayfinder · Programme at a glance
Human Intelligence for Difficult Change
For change, improvement, and safety professionals working in healthcare, long-term care, and safety-intensive industry.
Develop the ability to hear what is keeping change stuck, create psychologically healthy and safe conditions for participation, and turn the conversation into a supported next step.
- Who takes part
- Change and OD practitioners, clinical educators, practice leaders, and safety or improvement professionals leading a real change.
- Who commissions it
- A change, operations, quality, or people leader sponsoring practitioner development—with support from the person who owns the change.
- Proposed format
- 10 weeks · 8 practitionersFour live changes. Practice labs, peer rehearsal, application, and follow-up.
- Your time
- Approximately 17 hoursPer practitioner, including preparation, practice, assessment, and follow-up.
- Sponsor involvement
- 3 review hours per casePlus decisions between sessions, protected learning time, and action beyond the practitioner’s authority.
- Investment
- Scoped for your organisationAgree delivery arrangements and investment around the proposed cohort.
Begin by discussing a difficult change case clinic: a two-hour working session with a practitioner and sponsor, followed up after two weeks. An enquiry starts a conversation; it does not book a place or session.
WHEN YOU’RE THE PERSON ASKED TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
Where the change
meets the work.
You’ve explained the change. Held the meetings. Listened to the concerns. People are still stretched, sceptical, or unsure how to make it work. You need a way to move forward with them.
A better care routine.
An already stretched shift.
Both need to be understood.
Make the change workable where care happens.
A new process can make sense in a meeting and add pressure at the bedside. Care aides and nurses know the handoffs, interruptions, and workarounds that determine what happens next.
Learn to bring that knowledge into the decision, address the demands of the change, and build a way forward people can carry across shifts.
For practice leaders, clinical educators, quality leads, and change professionals.
A new pathway.
Different professional priorities.
A shared responsibility for care.
Help people work through what the plan changes.
A service redesign or digital workflow can unsettle roles, relationships, and professional judgement. Important concerns may be hard to voice in front of the people making the decisions.
Practise working across those differences, making difficult information discussable, and securing the decisions and support that implementation needs.
For clinical transformation, OD, project, learning, and improvement professionals.
A revised procedure.
Pressure to keep production moving.
Experience that needs to be heard.
Connect the change to the reality of the work.
Operators, supervisors, and contractors see where a new requirement meets field conditions. Their objections may reveal something the implementation plan has missed.
Learn to examine the concern, involve the right technical and safety decision-makers, and help people carry the change responsibly.
For safety, operational excellence, project, and change professionals.
A MOMENT WAYFINDER PREPARES YOU FOR
What looks like resistance
may reveal the way forward.
An illustrative long-term-care situation.
A revised handover. A deadline.
A concern that keeps returning.
THE FRONTLINE CONCERN
“You keep adding steps.
We still have the same
number of people.”
The new handover is meant to improve continuity. The practice lead has explained why it matters. The team hears another demand on time they don’t have.
The skill in this momentNotice the urge to persuade. Stay curious enough to find out what the objection is telling you.
THE PRACTITIONER’S RESPONSE
“Show me where this
becomes difficult
on your shift.”
The practitioner listens without defending the rollout. Staff explain that the new handover overlaps with an existing record and assumes cover that isn’t available at night.
Psychological safety becomes practicalA concern can be raised without being dismissed as a bad attitude. The people doing the work help explain what needs attention.
THE DECISION AND THE NEXT STEP
“What can we simplify?
Who can resolve
the coverage gap?”
The clinical lead reviews the duplication. The sponsor addresses the coverage question. With the appropriate approvals, staff help test a revised handover and review its effect on continuity and workload.
A more credible basis for commitmentWhat people say changes the implementation. The practitioner helps turn the concern into a decision, an owner, and a next step.
A fictional teaching example. Clinical and safety decisions remain with qualified, accountable people. Select each step to follow the conversation.
THE HUMAN CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE
Safe enough to speak.
Supported enough to act.
Wayfinder teaches practitioners to work with three connected conditions: what people feel able to say, what they are being asked to carry, and what makes the next step possible.
Psychological safety
Invite questions, uncertainty, and disagreement. Respond to unwelcome information with respect. Help people see that raising a concern can lead to a meaningful response.
“Can I tell you what I see?”
Psychological health & safety
Examine workload, role clarity, support, and influence. Recognise moral concerns and work with responsible leaders on conditions that put people at risk.
“Can we carry this without being harmed?”
Readiness for change
Understand what matters to people, what they can influence, and what they need to act. Build commitment alongside the time, skills, and support to follow through.
“What would make the next step workable?”
Human intelligence makes the real situation visible.
Shared decisions and workable conditions make progress possible.
Trace, in the work with a group.
DEVELOP THE PERSON CARRYING THE CHANGE
Learn it in the room.
Use it in the work.
You bring the conversation that went quiet, the concern you keep hearing, or the decision nobody seems able to make.
We demonstrate, rehearse, observe, and give feedback. Then you practise a specific behaviour in your own setting and return with what happened.
Understand what is actually stuck
Separate uncertainty, distrust, competing priorities, and practical constraints. Find out what people are protecting and what needs a different explanation, a changed plan, or a sponsor’s decision.
Remain effective when you’re challenged
Notice your own reactions. Listen without rushing to defend the change. Stay clear about your role and boundaries while making room for information you may not have considered.
Make difficult information discussable
Invite contributions across differences in status and authority. Work with silence and disagreement. Respond in ways that support continued candour and show people how their concerns will be handled.
Turn concerns into responsible decisions
Translate what you hear into design requirements, choices, support needs, or escalation. Connect psychological health and safety to the working arrangements people will actually experience. When change follows a traumatic incident, include appropriate recovery support in the discussion of readiness.
Build commitment through practical experience
Involve affected people in a bounded, authorised test. Agree what to observe, how to surface problems, and when to review. Let experience inform the next decision.
Help people carry the change forward
Coach local leads, establish ownership, and build review into everyday routines. Make sure the work can continue beyond the workshop and the project team.
RESEARCH THAT MEETS THE REALITY OF CHANGE
Knowing the framework
is a beginning.
The programme uses coached rehearsal, live cases and sponsor review. Our evaluation asks whether participants can lead the encounters, obtain the decisions and support the continuing practice their change requires.
Wayfinder brings psychological safety, workplace health, and implementation research into coached practice. The founding programme will evaluate what changes in participants’ own settings.
Read the research and its implications
Trace HobsonMission, British Columbia
THE EXPERIENCE BEHIND WAYFINDER
I work with the people
others rely on.
I’ve been responsible for regional operations, industrial projects and putting new ways of working into practice. I know that carrying a change means working with the people who have to make it part of their day.
My experience includes building management systems and developing leaders at Badger Daylighting, alongside psychological health and safety work with clinical leaders and teams at Fraser Health. These settings bring real consequences to the decisions about what changes, who carries it and what support they need.
Across thirty years of work with leaders and teams, I’ve combined operational responsibility with coaching and practitioner development. Alan Seale mentored me to lead Transformational Presence programmes; developing people who can take the practice into their own work remains central to what I do.
In Wayfinder, we apply that experience to the change you are carrying. We practise hearing what people find difficult or unworkable, staying effective through disagreement, and helping the right people agree a next step they can put into practice. Psychological health and safety helps people contribute what the change needs you to hear.
I know what it is like to be left carrying too much alone. The people carrying change need people beside them, too.
Trace
More about Trace’s workEXPERIENCE BEHIND THE WORK
Presence, backed
by practice.
More than 10,000 hours coaching leaders and working with teams, alongside experience inside healthcare, industry and other high-pressure organizations.
Education & professional credentials
Royal Roads University
University of Fredericton
Simon Fraser University
MTHS Certified Trauma-Informed Coach
ICF Professional Certified Coach
Certified Transformational Presence Coach
A few of the organizations I’ve worked with
Fraser Health
Island Health
BC Hydro
TELUS
Vancouver 2010 Olympics
Peter Kiewit
City of Vancouver
FortisBC
WAYFINDER · THE FOUNDING PROGRAMME
A real change.
A supported way through.
A proposed ten-week practicum for eight practitioners working in pairs on four live changes. Learn alongside people in your sector, with sponsor involvement and a review at day 90.
BEFORE WE BEGIN
Choose the change.
Bring a consequential situation. Agree the baseline, the decisions in scope, and the support participants need to practise.
SIX PRACTICE LABS
Develop the capability.
Six 90-minute sessions across ten weeks. Work with real cases, rehearse difficult moments, and receive specific feedback.
BETWEEN SESSIONS
Apply it together.
Practise in the work, compare observations with a peer, and bring what you learn to the next lab and sponsor review.
WEEK TEN · DAY 90
See what holds.
Review demonstrated capability, decisions, and changes in practice. Return at day 90 to see what people are continuing.
Progress you can examine.
- Practitioners handle difficult encounters with greater skill.
- Concerns receive a decision, explanation, or appropriate escalation.
- Affected people help shape a workable approach.
- Agreed practices are used, with quality and workload checked.
- Local ownership continues after the programme.
These are the outcomes we evaluate together. Sponsors provide protected time and act on issues beyond the practitioner’s authority. Participants’ own psychological health and safety belongs in the work, too.
A FEW PRACTICAL QUESTIONS
The questions
worth asking.
Who is Wayfinder for?
Change and OD professionals, client partners, clinical educators, practice leaders, quality-improvement leads, and safety or operational-excellence practitioners. The common thread is responsibility for helping others put a difficult change into practice.
How does it fit with our existing change approach?
Bring the methods and tools your organisation already uses. Wayfinder develops your ability to apply them in difficult human situations through coached rehearsal, workplace practice, and feedback.
What if people still disagree with the change?
Honest disagreement can remain. Participants learn to clarify what has been decided, what people can influence, and how concerns will be addressed. They work toward an informed, workable next step without treating enthusiasm as a requirement.
What if the problem is workload, resources, or safety?
Then those conditions need attention. Practitioners learn to recognise and raise the issue with the people who can act. Sponsors retain responsibility for resources and organisational decisions; qualified clinical and safety professionals retain their technical responsibilities.
Can I do this without being the manager?
You can shape how you invite input, respond to concerns, and follow through. Wayfinder also develops your ability to work with authority: who owns the decision, what needs escalation, and where your responsibility ends.
How will we know whether it helped?
We agree measures for each case before starting. These include observed practitioner behaviour, responses to concerns, actual use of the changed practice, and effects on quality and workload. Research informs the design; the programme’s contribution is evaluated in your setting.
What you are working towards
A change people can
put into practice.
You can show how staff input changed the implementation plan, which decisions the sponsor made and whether the new practice is being used. The team knows what it has agreed to try, what support is available and when it can influence the next adjustment.
We agree what progress would look like in your situation, then review the evidence together.
BEGIN WITH A DIFFICULT CHANGE CASE CLINIC
Bring the change
you can’t seem to move.
A short intake. A two-hour working session with a practitioner and sponsor. A follow-up after two weeks.
We’ll examine what is keeping the change stuck, practise the difficult conversation, and identify a decision or next step—with someone responsible for carrying it forward.
A useful place to start. A clearer basis for deciding what comes next.
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