Change Management

Corporate Change

Corporate change is an inevitable reality in any company’s growth and transformation journey. Strategy work, process improvement projects, restructuring decisions, the introduction of new systems and technologies… None of these can create the expected impact unless change is managed properly.

Over the years, Orhan Erkut has seen one thing very clearly as a consultant:

A well-designed solution on its own is not enough.
How that solution is embedded in the company—how change is managed—is at least as critical as the solution itself.

For this reason, change management is not a separate “module” in his work; it is almost always the invisible backbone of every project.

The three concepts that define his work are central here as well: strategic, trustworthy, and transformative.

His View on Change Management

For Orhan Erkut, change management is not a “methodology you pick a colour for and hang on the wall,” but a process based first on understanding and then on walking the path together.

The first step is not to apply a ready-made model to the company, but to answer a few key questions:

• What is it that we want to change?
• Why do we want to change it now?
• Who will be affected by this change, and in what way?
• With which resources and within which constraints are we operating?

His many years of management consulting experience—across different sectors, organisations of various sizes, and especially numerous family businesses—have given him a clear view of the gap between “what’s right in the book” and “what’s real in the field.” That’s why, in change management, he relies not on ready-made recipes but on good listening and correctly reading the underlying need.

Models like Four Rooms of Change® are important tools in this journey. But for Orhan Erkut, the decisive question is always:

The method does not replace experience. When used well, it becomes a framework that makes years of accumulated learning more visible and easier to share.

Understanding the Need and Seeing the Whole Picture

In every change project, the first step is to assess the company’s current position holistically. This cannot be done by looking only at the organisation chart—it requires focusing on three layers at the same time:

This reading is shaped through conversations with the management team and employees at different levels, workshops, and on-site observation. The aim is to move change away from being simply “a decision by top management” and connect it directly to the company’s real, everyday agenda.

Sequencing the Right Steps

Even a well-designed consulting solution can “explode in your hands” if the steps are taken in the wrong order. At this point, Orhan Erkut pays particular attention to the following principles:

• Not diving into details before creating a shared intent and framework,
• Not ignoring the emotional cycle people go through during change,
• Not making promises before talking honestly about resources and constraints,
• Not announcing major transformations before creating small, concrete wins.

Change emerges in different forms: restructuring, process design, new technology, or generational transition. In every case, the essence is to transform the weak links while preserving the company’s strengths—without damaging the existing capabilities.

The Human Dimension and Emotional Cycles

One of the areas Orhan Erkut values most in change management is taking seriously the emotional fluctuations people experience during these processes.

During periods of change:

• Some employees feel uncertainty and anxiety,
• Some ignore it, thinking “this too shall pass,”
• Some adapt quickly, while others show resistance.

Models such as Four Rooms of Change® are used to describe this emotional movement and make it openly discussable. What is truly critical, however, is the ability—both as a leader and as a consultant—to read this cycle.

Drawing on the experience of having worked with thousands of people in different sectors, Orhan Erkut knows:

• In which situations must trust come first?
• In which situations must information come first?
• And in which situations listening must come first—using intuition and analysis together.

For him, change management is therefore not “seeing people as entries in a dataset.” It requires walking alongside people in the field. He positions communication not as a “side element” of the process, but as the backbone that carries all the others.

Different Sectors, Different Cultures, Shared Experience

Working across different sectors and scales, and especially with a large number of family businesses, has given Orhan Erkut a significant advantage.

In structures where self-taught (“alaylı”) and formally trained (“mektepli”) professionals work together, and where family members and professional managers share the same table, change management is not just a matter of processes and organisation charts:

• Family values,
• Decision-making habits,
• Intergenerational expectations

They are all part of the picture.

Over time, carving out a realistic and respectful roadmap for each family and each company within this complexity has become a strong capability. Orhan Erkut does not view change and transformation processes merely as “mandatory restructuring,” but—when designed properly—as a development journey for both the company and the family.

Methods, Tools, and the Role of Four Rooms of Change®

In his change management practice, Orhan Erkut uses a range of tools, including workshop designs, leadership meetings, pulse checks, feedback mechanisms, and mentoring processes.

The Four Rooms of Change® model is one of the frameworks he frequently draws on. The reason he uses this model as a licensed practitioner is simple: it allows him to talk about the emotional transitions that already exist in change processes in a shared language with companies.

Conclusion: A Strategic, Trustworthy, and Transformative View of Change

In summary, for Orhan Erkut, change management is a holistic journey that:

• Clarifies where the organisation is headed through a strategic framework,
• Involves people in the process on the basis of a trustworthy relationship,
• Transformatively and permanently improves the way the company works.

Well-designed consulting solutions can truly come to life only when this journey is taken seriously. It is precisely at this point that Orhan Erkut—by bringing together his experience, his ability to work with people, and the methods he uses—aims to transform change from a risk that must merely be “managed” into a development process that can be guided, learned from, and owned by the organisation.