Making Change Land
Beyond the Blueprint
Why Your Brilliant Strategy is Gathering Dust (And What to Do About It)
We’ve all been there. There’s a specific kind of frustration that leaders know all too well. It’s the feeling you get six months after a big launch. You had the brilliant new strategy, the solid set of goals, and a crystal-clear vision for the future. Yet, when you look around, not much has really changed. The new initiative is gathering dust, and people have quietly reverted to their old, comfortable ways of working.
My thoughts on this were recently sparked by a Harvard Business Review article about driving change during uncertain times. It highlighted an “opportunistic change approach,” which is the idea that moving fast and seizing the right moment is just as crucial as patient, long-term planning.
But here’s the thing: whether a change is a meticulous five-year plan or a fast-moving opportunity, it faces the exact same challenge. How do you make it stick? Why do so many well-intentioned changes fail to land, and what can we, as leaders, actually do about it?
From Telling to Enabling: Why We Get It Wrong
In my experience, many change initiatives fall short not because the ideas are bad, but because their integration is an afterthought. It is exciting to announce a change; it is much harder, and far less glamorous, to make it part of the daily rhythm.
One of the most common traps is what I call the “information dump.” We assume that if we just give people all the data, the new policies, and a comprehensive (and probably very long) slide deck, they will magically change overnight.
This is not how human beings work. It’s a leadership comfort blanket. It allows us to say, “We gave them all the information,” effectively shifting the burden of failure from the plan to the people. It’s like giving someone a marathon manual and expecting them to finish the race without any coaching, a training plan, or someone to hand them water at mile 18.
For change to be successful, people need to understand why it matters - not just to the company, but to them. They need to feel ready for it, and more importantly, they need to trust that they have the support to make it work.
This requires a fundamental shift in our approach: from telling people what to do to enabling them to succeed.
Enabling, by contrast, is an act of continuous empathy. It’s about checking in along the way and asking the hard questions:
Are people truly clear on what is expected of them, or are they just nodding along?
Are they actually adopting the new behaviours, or just finding clever workarounds?
Is the new process workable day-to-day, or does it add unnecessary friction that will be abandoned the moment you stop watching?
Are the costs - in time, energy, and sheer cognitive load - being acknowledged and managed?
The Hidden Risk: Stretching Your Best People Too Thin
One of the biggest hidden challenges to making change land is that we stretch our key people too thin across too many projects.
I recently listened to a fascinating podcast with Mark Mortensen, a professor at INSEAD, who made a vital point: “The person who knows best what projects someone is on is the person themselves.” But, he noted, that individual is often the only one who knows the full picture.
No one in leadership, no PMO, no spreadsheet, can see the complete map of that person’s commitments. We inadvertently penalise our most capable, most willing employees by pulling them in so many directions that they are over-committed without anyone fully realising it.
Projects that seem completely unrelated on a spreadsheet suddenly become tightly linked because they all depend on the same handful of people. As Mortensen said, “There’s nothing about the car and truck projects that look connected, but because they share people, they’re bound tightly.”
This creates enormous risks. If one project hits a snag, the others stall simply because that key person is tied up. The fix is not just to “listen and act.” It is to create a culture of psychological safety where people feel they can say “I’m at my limit” without fearing it makes them look uncommitted or “not a team player.” When someone on your team finally works up the courage to say, “I’m too stretched,” we must listen and take immediate, visible action.
Governance That Connects, Not Controls
Change does not happen in a vacuum. A culture that ignores capacity is an environment where change cannot land.
This is where how we talk about change matters more than what we say. Dropping big news on a Friday afternoon after months of secret C-suite planning is a recipe for mistrust and resentment. Instead, we must bring people into the conversation early, listen actively to their concerns, and create a space where it is safe to ask hard questions.
A powerful exercise I love to use is the “pre-mortem.” You get the team together and imagine it’s six months in the future, and the change has failed spectacularly. Why? This simple role-play gives people permission to spot real, practical risks early on, without sounding negative.
This trust must also be reflected in our governance. Let’s be honest: the word “governance” makes most of us think of bureaucracy. It conjures images of a heavy pyramid of upward reporting, time-wasting meetings, and colour-coded spreadsheets that invite micromanagement.
I have seen a better way: governance that “reaches in.”
Instead of a formal, heavy process, teams host informal “show and tell” sessions. It’s collaborative. Leaders can drop by, see the progress for themselves, ask questions, and offer gentle nudges. If leaders do not show up, it is not an insult; it is a quiet, implicit “thumbs-up” for the team to keep going. This light-touch approach cuts the red tape, builds trust, and keeps leaders connected to the work without controlling it.
The Space to Innovate
This trust-based, flexible environment is the soil in which innovation flourishes. Rigid, top-down systems do not just block change; they actively kill it.
There is a reason the most innovative companies build autonomy into their culture:
3M had its famous “15 Percent Rule,” encouraging employees to spend 15% of their time on personal projects. This freedom led directly to the Post-it Note.
Software company Atlassian ran “ShipIt” Days, 24-hour sprints where people could build anything they want, which has led to countless new product features.
The BBC gave staff “10 Percent Time” to explore new ideas, leading to innovations in how they delivered content.
These moments of autonomy are not a bug; they are a feature. They are not a “waste of time” but a critical investment in a culture that is agile, resilient, and open to change.
The Path Forward: Balancing Fast and Lasting
Ultimately, leadership is a balance. As the HBR article warns, “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
We must balance the short-term, opportunistic wins with our long-term, strategic goals. And we must accept that “perfect” rarely arrives.
Change is not neat or linear. It is messy, it is human, and it relies on relationships, open dialogue, and a deep well of trust. When you, as a leader, shift your focus to how change happens - not just what changes - you create real, lasting momentum.
So here’s my question for you, to take into your next team meeting: What is one thing you could do differently to make sure the next change you lead actually sticks?
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