It’s a paradox that keeps transformation leaders up at night: Organizational strategies have never been more sophisticated. Yet over 70% of transformations still fail to deliver their intended results.
It’s what we call the implementation gap. And it exists despite “change readiness” having been a strategic imperative for well over the past decade. Here’s what we’ve realized from dissecting the implementation gap: Being ready for change is not the same as being ready to implement change.
People lack the capabilities, skills and mindset to actively shape change:
People’s capability gaps run deeper than resistance to change. They are struggling to navigate uncertainty, make decisions without perfect information, or collaborate across silos. So they default to the status quo. Leaders and teams have to build the skills to actively shape change.
Teams lack effective, high-performing collaboration to solve problems:
Most organizations are structured for predictability, not adaptability. Confronted with novel challenges, these structures become constraints as teams need to co-create solutions that don’t exist yet.
The quality of the innovation in response to new challenges is lacking:
The space between "good idea" and "transformative solution" is where most initiatives die. Teams often overthink until solutions are too complex to implement, or oversimplify until they're too weak to matter. People get exhausted by busy work without seeing meaningful progress.
Over the past 10+ years, The DO has been reinventing how to make change work, we’ve distilled four approaches to take you from simply being change-ready to actually leading change implementation.
1. A people-first approach that recognizes and values human energy as your most important resource
This means:
- Aligning motivation with business KPIs through genuine connection, not manipulation
- Using behavioral activation – small actions that snowball into lasting habits
- Embracing co-creation over imposition, since people support what they help create
2. Catalyzing change to quickly go from strategy to execution
This translates as:
- Prioritizing action over theory for fast, impactful results that build trust
- Embracing progress over perfection through fast cycles of doing, learning, iterating
3. Approaching change as a competency where they need to build muscle
Not as a crisis that needs to be managed, which means:
- Viewing each transformation as an opportunity to strengthen change capability for the next
- Authentic stories to energize the organization along the shared journey
4. Recognizing the value of co-creation as the path to lasting transformation
This involves:
- Resisting the urge to outsource transformation and instead co-creating it with partners who bring outside perspective to inside knowledge
- Ensuring the transformation is both strategic and becomes embedded in how the organization operates
You can bridge the implementation gap if you consistently:
- Build know-how instead of just executing projects
- Engage people instead of just managing them
- Co-create solutions instead of just implementing them
And when you do, change stops being something that happens to your organization.
It's something your organization becomes good at doing.
