Common Changing and Improving mistakes — and how to fix them
Most weak Changing and Improving statements fail in predictable ways. Here are the seven mistakes assessors see most often, each with a straightforward fix you can apply to your own draft today.
Why these mistakes cost marks
Changing and Improving fails differently from other behaviours. With Delivering at Pace, weak statements are usually just vague. With this behaviour, they are often negative: the writer sounds like they endured change, complained about it, or watched it happen. Assessors read that as evidence against the behaviour, not for it.
The good news is that most of these problems are drafting problems, not experience problems. The example is usually fine; the telling needs work.
Read the list below against your draft before you look at the fixes. Most people recognise two or three of their own habits immediately — that is normal, and it is what revision is for.
The seven mistakes
These are the patterns that most often drag Changing and Improving statements down the scale. Each comes with a fix you can apply before you submit.
Common mistake
Mistake 1: Describing a change that happened to you, not one you shaped. Fix: choose an example where you spotted, suggested or actively supported the change. Rewrite the actions with 'I' and name what you did, in order.
Common mistake
Mistake 2: Claiming openness to feedback without showing it. Fix: include one concrete moment where someone gave you feedback and you changed your approach. The adjustment is the evidence.
Common mistake
Mistake 3: Writing 'we' throughout the action. Fix: assessors score you, not your team. Keep 'we' for context and make every action sentence start with 'I did'.
Common mistake
Mistake 4: No numbers in the result. Fix: find one honest measure: time saved, errors reduced, people affected, money saved. Estimate fairly and say 'around' or 'roughly'.
Common mistake
Mistake 5: Criticising colleagues who resisted change. Fix: resistance is a chance to show leadership. Describe how you listened, involved the person, and adapted the plan — never how wrong they were.
Common mistake
Mistake 6: Change for its own sake. Fix: link the improvement to a real problem: waste, delay, errors, frustration. A change with no 'why' reads as restlessness, not improvement.
Common mistake
Mistake 7: Burying the improvement at the end. Fix: say what you changed by the end of the second action sentence. Assessors skim; make the improvement impossible to miss.
Check your own draft
After your first draft, test it against this list. Read the action section aloud and count how many sentences start with 'I'. Find the sentence where you changed your mind because of feedback — if there is not one, add it. Then check the result has at least one number.
Tip
Ask someone who does not know your job to read the statement and tell you what you personally changed. If they cannot answer in one sentence, your ownership is not clear enough.
Finally, make sure the example is honest. Assessors interview afterwards, and an inflated story unravels quickly under a simple follow-up question.
Give yourself time for at least one full rewrite. Strong statements are rarely written; they are rewritten, usually by cutting the context in half and doubling the action detail.
A quick rewrite, before and after
Weak: 'Our rotas were a mess, so management brought in a new system and after some teething problems it worked much better.' Nothing here tells the assessor what the writer did.
Stronger: 'I mapped where our rota clashes came from, suggested trialling the new system on my team first, and fed back three fixes during the pilot. Clashes dropped from eleven a week to two.' Same change, visible person.
Frequently asked questions
Writing about a change your team made without showing your personal role. Assessors can only score what you did, so a statement full of 'we introduced' and 'the team decided' gives them nothing to mark. Keep the team for context and put yourself in every action sentence.
No — describing a weak process is normal context for this behaviour. The mistake is dwelling on criticism or blaming named colleagues. State the problem in one or two neutral sentences, then move quickly to what you did about it.
A partial success told honestly can still score well, because the behaviour is about openness to change and learning. Show what you tested, what the early results were, and what you adjusted. What sinks statements is a missing or vague result, not an imperfect one.
Next step
Get the free STAR template — the same structure used in every example on this site.
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