The Four Types of Catalysts required for Transformation in the Age of Disruption and AI

LUMAN Matrix of Transformation Catalysts

There is a reason why so many transformation efforts, especially AI adoption, fail. They prioritize strategy and technology while overlooking the most critical factor: people.

Organizations do not transform through frameworks alone, nor do PowerPoint decks and reports drive meaningful change. The success of any transformation depends on the individuals within the system — how they adapt, collaborate, and engage with new realities.

Transformation is neither a linear path nor a one-time event. It is a continuous process of recalibration, resilience, and systemic evolution.

Beyond strategy and execution, transformation demands a profound understanding of human psychology — how people process change, what enables them to embrace uncertainty, and what structures allow them to thrive in shifting landscapes. Whether navigating disruptions from climate change, geopolitics, shifting supply chains, evolving customer needs, or the rapid acceleration of AI, organizations must focus not only on what is changing but also on who is driving that change.

The right people, in the right roles, make the difference between transformation as a vision and transformation as a reality.

Starting with the coalition of the willing

As with any introduction of something new (the root of the word innovation), not everyone in your organization is immediately ready to make the shift. You would be wasting your resources if you assumed you could simply announce a transformation and everyone was readily adopting it. Here too, the innovation adoption curve applies. You will have:

• Your innovators — who are already chomping at the bits to go to the next level and who are already ahead of the curve — and who will leave if you don’t give them an opportunity to apply themselves
• Your early adopters — who look up to the innovators and want to be part of the change, but need clear direction and some role models they can follow
• Your early majority — who require social proof before they risk moving and adopting new ways
• The late majority — who will only do something new if it already isn’t new anymore, if it has become “how we do things around here”
• The laggards — who you might never reach, and who will resist any new thing, might not come along for the ride — and really might be better off working somewhere else

In our work with organizations we found that it is the innovators who are your best starting point for any transformation. Giving them opportunities to explore and experiment and create proofs of concept will then inspire the early adopters. Early adopters in turn make great catalysts for the early majority. They thrive on acknowledgement for being part of the transformation early, and make great trainers and ambassadors to spread the transformation to the early majority. The rest will follow — or not in case of the laggards, but don’t even waste your attention or resources on them.

How to find your innovators

Selecting and developing high potential talent is key to the future of talent and of organizations as such.

Instead of only relying on current management to spot people like themselves among their staff, we found that creating opportunities to participate in future crafting activities (e.g. intrapreneurship programs), gives your employees the opportunity to step up into leadership.

Following Kotter’s idea of shifting from a hierarchical to a networked organization, we found that the best way to select future high-potentials is to let them select themselves.

Of course, not everyone who applies to such a program is indeed cut out for future leadership, but it gives you a first indication of Self-Reliance, of intrinsic purpose-driven motivation, one of the keys to an intrapreneurial mindset and the future of work.

Among the ones who self-select into your programs, you can then determine, which type of transformational catalyst they are, ensuring that you have balanced participation in your program.

The Four Types of Transformational Catalysts

Amidst the innovators and early adopters, and for any transformation to take root, four key types of catalysts must be present. These roles are not mere functions; they represent essential mindsets and disciplines required to bridge the gaps between vision and execution, between technological possibilities and human adaptability. Each of these catalysts addresses fundamental obstacles that arise in times of disruption: confusion, fear, misalignment, and operational chaos.

1. Navigators: Bringing Clarity and Direction

• Motivation: Driving toward results, winning, being first, achievement, decisiveness
• Priorities: Establishing strategy, enforcing clarity, aligning leadership
• Differentiators: Goal-oriented, assertive, data-driven, prefer action over deliberation

Amidst the noise of transformation, Navigators act as the architects of direction. These are the strategists who map out the journey, providing a North Star and a decision matrix to ensure alignment at all levels. They are responsible for creating frameworks that guide structured, repeatable processes, ensuring that transformation does not descend into chaotic experimentation.

But their role is not just about logic and order — it is about instilling confidence. Leadership often struggles to make sense of the unknown, and without clear strategic guidance, organizations risk either paralysis or reckless acceleration. Navigators educate, align, and ensure that decision-making is informed rather than reactive.

Navigators provide sensemaking, bring clarity, educate leadership, and establish strategic alignment.

2. Guides: Cultivating Emotional Readiness and Trust

• Motivation: Caring about people, connection, relatedness, harmony, emotional intelligence
• Priorities: Reducing fear and resistance, fostering trust, enabling psychological safety
• Differentiators: Diplomatic, empathetic, consensus-driven

If Navigators chart the course, Guides ensure that people are emotionally prepared to take the journey. Resistance to change is rarely rational — it is deeply emotional. People fear what they do not understand, and transformation, particularly with AI, often evokes existential anxieties.

Guides act as integrators of the human experience within transformation. Using psychology and emotional and relational intelligence, they create safe spaces for individuals and teams to process fears, uncertainties, and doubts. They do not impose change but enable it — through active listening, empathy, and fostering an environment where adaptability becomes second nature.

Renee Lertzman, PhD, who we worked with at LUMAN in the in the context of sustainability and climate change, emphasizes how transformation requires deep psychological work, and how anxieties, ambivalences, and aspirations have to have a space to be addressed before people are ready to move into the new.

Guides reduce overwhelm, resistance, and fear while increasing trust and resilience.

3. Intrapreneurs: Building and Experimenting with the Future

• Motivation: Doing cool new things, exploration, experimentation, innovation
• Priorities: Experimenting with AI, creating prototypes, learning rapidly from failures
• Differentiators: Big-picture thinking, thrive on new ideas, embraces risk

Intrapreneurs are the ones actively forging ahead, testing, and iterating new solutions. These are the internal pioneers who bridge vision with reality by rapidly prototyping and experimenting with AI-driven innovations. They don’t just replicate the existing business with AI, but instead explore where customer challenges are emerging and build solutions for the needs of tomorrow.

Their value lies in their ability to learn, pivot, and translate emerging opportunities into tangible business outcomes. They operate at the intersection of customer needs and technological possibilities, ensuring that transformation is not just an internal mandate but a market-responsive evolution. By connecting experimentation with strategic alignment, they prevent innovation from becoming detached from business viability.

Intrapreneurs build prototypes, create early successes, and surface new opportunities for value creation.

4. Stewards: Safeguarding Integrity and Accountability

• Motivation: Doing things right, quality, sense of control, stability, reliability, structure
• Priorities: Governance, compliance, ethical oversight, risk mitigation
• Differentiators: Detail-oriented, focused on rules and processes, values historical insights

No transformation is sustainable without governance. Stewards act as the custodians of responsible growth, ensuring that speed does not come at the cost of stability. In the AI era, where ethical considerations, compliance, and systemic impact are paramount, their role becomes even more critical.

They safeguard transparency, operational integrity, and ethical implementation. By establishing accountability mechanisms, they ensure that organizations do not “move fast and break things” at the expense of trust and long-term viability. Their work is not about slowing transformation but about making it sustainable, equitable, and aligned with both business ethics and societal impact. Bringing them into the fold early ensures their participation, rather than becoming stumbling blocks and obstacles later in the process.

Stewards ensure governance adherence, mitigate risks, and integrate AI responsibly.

Creating Programs for Transformation Catalysts

In our work we have found that while Navigators are often in the strategy departments and headquarters of organizations, Intrapreneurs and Stewards emerge from within the business.

Guides are probably the most neglected of the four types, but more needed than ever in an age of disruption that causes widespread anxiety. As if the daily news weren’t enough to cause people to feel anxious, transformation inside the organization causes even more fear and overwhelm. That is why it is paramount to train people to do the emotional and psychological work required for transformation. They sometimes exist in HR and People Offices, as this is where this personality type often finds a home in the corporate world.

Navigators and Stewards focus on the organization, metrics and results, while Guides and Intrapreneurs focus on people (employees and customers respectively).

When creating programs to activate your transformational catalysts:

1. Find the Navigators to set direction and provide decision guidelines. Have them collaborate — ideally across silos and departmental boundaries — to create a North Star and Vision, but also to develop concrete tools to help decide whether new solutions align with the overall corporate strategy.
2. Train Guides to hold space for people as they encounter transformation. They will be the lubricants for difficult conversations, help get stakeholders on board, enroll support and alleviate fear of the new.
3. Activate your Intrapreneurs by providing opportunities for innovation. Create challenges that fit the strategic frameworks set by Navigators, and provide opportunities for employees to choose in and build new solutions.
4. Build alliances of Stewards and engage them to create your standards. Task them with determining how new innovations can integrate while maintaining the integrity of the organization and your ethical standards, compliance requirements, and first and foremost your brand promise.

While some will have this work as their normal day job, many will do this in addition to their daily roles. Ensure they have support from leadership to use at least 20% of their time to be part of these initiatives. This will take some ground work with the managers of those innovators who apply to be part of these programs. Ensure to get them on board early and that they indeed support their resources being tapped. Also communicate regularly with them throughout the program and be sure to point out benefits for their work and for what they are being measured on so that you can warrant their buy in.

Why These Catalysts Matter More Than Ever

Transformation is not a passive phenomenon — it is an act of leadership, resilience, and continuous learning. The organizations that will thrive in this era of disruption and AI are not those that merely adopt technology, but those that build the human and structural foundations to make change a practice.

The four transformation catalysts — Navigators, Guides, Intrapreneurs, and Stewards — are not roles to be assigned haphazardly; they must be intentionally cultivated.

Without clear direction, transformation leads to confusion. Without emotional support, it meets resistance. Without experimentation, it stagnates. And without governance, it collapses under its own weight.

The question is not whether transformation is coming — it is already here. The question is whether you are ready to navigate it with clarity, humanity, and integrity.

Let’s transform your organization toward a new operating system that can handle disruption and thrives on human-AI collaboration.

Connect with me at https://philiphorvath.com or through LUMAN at https://luman.io

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