The number is famous: roughly 70% of large change programmes fail to deliver what they promised. The reasons given — resistance, communication, sponsorship — are mostly downstream of one upstream mistake.
The upstream mistake
Change programmes are designed against the operating story, not the operating reality. The story is what leadership believes is true. The reality is what an engineer in the third sprint of a delayed migration actually does on a Tuesday.
Three patterns we see repeatedly
- Cut against the grain. Restructures that ignore where trust and tacit knowledge actually live.
- Scale before craft. Rolling out a process that hasn't yet earned its right to exist.
- Strategy as substitute. Mistaking a deck for a decision.
8 min
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