THE BOOK BEHIND FORGE
Forging Change
A practical framework for leaders delivering change under pressure. Forthcoming May 2027.
For leaders who make change work while the business still has to perform.
Forging Change helps leaders read the situation, understand readiness and decide where their leadership can make a difference.
Written for functional leaders and business owners working between strategic decisions and everyday delivery.
By Campbell Travis · Forthcoming May 2027
A practical framework for leaders delivering change under pressure
For leaders who must make change workable while the business still has to perform.
The strategy has been decided. Now someone has to make it work.
Much change-management thinking speaks to executives designing transformation or individuals managing their own response. Forging Change is written for the leaders between those two perspectives: the people translating change into everyday action.
They may be functional leaders turning decisions into priorities or business owners funding change while protecting customers, cash flow and morale. Their circumstances differ, but both occupy a load-bearing position.
A sound strategy can still leave a local leader uncertain about what changes first. A restructure can make commercial sense while disrupting responsibility. New technology can promise efficiency while making the work harder before it becomes easier.
The practical questions follow: How do I explain the direction honestly when I do not have every answer? What are people’s reactions telling me? Where can my leadership make a difference? How do I maintain progress while the old work continues?
A practical framework for judgement
FORGE is a cyclical and adaptive framework for leaders delivering change under pressure. The website describes the perspective and outcomes; the complete framework belongs in the book, workshops and practitioner materials.
It helps leaders read what is happening, understand readiness and exercise practical judgement as conditions change—without pretending they control every force shaping the outcome.
At its centre is the Change Readiness Gap between strategic intent and operational reality. FORGE helps load-bearing leaders determine where attention is needed and how to sustain progress when they cannot control every organisational condition.
Why forging?
Strength, flexibility and resilience have to be created deliberately. Damascus steel forging is the book’s central metaphor because strength does not come from pressure alone. It comes from judgement and timing applied through shaping, refining and tempering.
Organisational change asks for the same care. Leaders need to understand what people can absorb, when to build momentum and when more pressure risks fatigue or fracture.
Connect the ideas with your own experience
The free Change Readiness Compass helps you apply the book’s thinking to one workplace change you are experiencing. Your personal results and interpretation guide can help you notice the confidence, pressure and surrounding conditions shaping your response.
Explore the Change Readiness Compass →
Campbell Travis has more than 30 years of business and technology leadership experience, a Bachelor of Business in Marketing and an MBAX with a focus on change from UNSW. His work has repeatedly placed him between strategic intent and operating reality.
