Why change succeeds or fails before it starts

Written by Ollie Butcher, Practice Director - Change & Transformation, Robert Walters Consultancy

Over the years, I've led and delivered change and transformation inside global organisations. Many of those programmes went very well. Others were harder than anyone expected.

When I compare the two, the difference was rarely the plan. It was usually whether anyone had properly asked if the organisation was ready. That question is easy to skip when there is pressure to get started. So readiness tends to be assumed rather than tested.

Organisations typically go through significant change every three years. Yet the evidence suggests most don't achieve their original outcomes, and many are underprepared.

• 88% of business transformations fall short of their original ambition. (Bain & Company, 2024)
• 13% of organisations said they were highly prepared for their last major change. (Insights, Global Change Readiness Report, 2026)

In my experience, the outcome is decided before a programme starts. The signs are usually there if you know where to look. This article is about where I look, and what the strongest leadership teams do differently.

The hardest questions are usually asked too late

What are we really delivering, and what aren't we? Who makes the decisions? How much capacity do people have left? How consistent will leaders be under pressure? These questions shape whether a change lands. Yet they are often overlooked, partially considered or decided too late.

The Insights research shows how much they matter. Unclear decision-making and fatigue were two of the most common barriers to keeping performance on track during change. Yet in my experience, they are the areas organisations prepare for least.

Leaving these questions until later causes problems. The scope and timeline are set on the assumption that the organisation fully understands and can absorb the change. If that turns out to be wrong, it is much harder to fix once the programme is running. Pressure to start can quickly become pressure to recover.

I once reviewed a programme with significant uncertainty across its core foundations. The scope was ill-defined, so no one could say with confidence what would and wouldn't be delivered. The steering committee wasn't challenging milestones or the financial position. Capacity and capability were unclear. And no one had worked out how the change would land across the business. It needed a reset: an honest conversation about scope, clearer decision rights and a plan to fix the underlying issues.

That's why the context around a change needs to be understood first. It should shape how the change is run, not be fitted in afterwards.

The same is true of the people side. Most programmes think about people. There is usually a workstream for communications, training and engagement. But it often starts after the big decisions have been made. By then, the scope, the timeline and the approach are already set.

What the strongest leaders did before they started

The programmes I've seen go well weren't perfect. What made the difference was how the leadership team approached the start. They were clear about what was in scope and what wasn't, and how it linked to the strategy. They knew what else was competing for their people's time.

The first sign I look for is genuine alignment. That is different from people turning up to a steering committee. A team can approve a business case together and still disagree about what matters most when it gets difficult. In the strongest programmes, leaders tested that early and differences were communicated effectively.

They also made sure they were hearing what was really going on. The more senior people become, the less they tend to be told. The best leaders asked people outside the team how the change was governed across all aspects of delivery, and they listened to the answer.

They were realistic about how to start. When people weren't yet ready, or it wasn't clear who held the decisions, pushing hard from the top tended to make things worse. Starting smaller, with a pilot or one part of the business, gave them evidence and confidence before they scaled up.

Most of all, they recognised that they are part of the change, not just its sponsors. How they behaved under pressure would shape how everyone else responded. So they treated their own readiness as seriously as everyone else's.

One programme I worked on stands out. The leadership team invested early in a clear problem statement and outcomes, and tested them with the right stakeholders. Everything else followed from that. Scoping was tough but stayed within its boundaries. Decisions had clear owners. Governance matched the complexity rather than a template. Stakeholders across every geography understood what was being delivered and why, so communication stayed consistent. The teams worked with clarity, not ambiguity.

Eight questions to apply before mobilising

A lot of what those teams did came down to asking the right questions early. There is no single right way to run change, because every organisation's situation is different. So before choosing an approach, I try to understand that situation as clearly as I can.

To do that, I draw on the Change Kaleidoscope, developed by organisational change researchers Julia Balogun and Veronica Hope Hailey. It sets out eight contextual features: the conditions around a change that shape how it should be run.

Most leaders I've worked with don't use the model by name. But the good ones are weighing up these features all the same, whether they know it or not. Below, each contextual feature is followed by the question I’d ask leadership teams before they mobilise, and why it matters. The answers give a firm basis for running the change and clear levers to adjust as it mobilises and delivers.

1) Scope: What are we delivering, and what aren't we?

Business cases describe change in terms of cost and timeline. Focus on what is in and out of scope, how it links to the strategy and what it will ask of the people doing the work. What you aren't doing matters as much as what you are. The real scope is usually bigger than the business case suggests.

2) Time: How long do we really have?

Deadlines are often set before anyone knows what the change fully involves. Leaders should know whether the timeline allows people to learn, adjust and recover, not just for the work to get done.

3) Capacity: What else is landing on people at the same time?

Very few changes happen on their own. Most organisations have several programmes running at once, and the same people often carry more than one of them. Check capacity and SME allocation early.

4) Capability: Do we have the skills and experience to lead this change?

Presenting a change is one skill. Leading people through uncertainty is another. Doing this early identifies whether the skills the change needs sit inside the programme or outside it.

5) Power: Who makes the important decisions?

The governance chart gives one answer. The way decisions really get made can be quite different. Understand both and validate whether they will hold up when the programme establishes its delivery rhythm.

6) Readiness: How ready are people for this, and how would we know?

Look at whether people understand why the change is happening, whether they want it to work and whether they feel prepared. Those answers rarely come from a status report.

7) Preservation: What must we protect through the change?

Not everything should change. Every organisation has a few people, relationships and ways of working that should or will endure. Change often puts them under the most strain, so it helps to know what they are before you start.

8) Diversity: Where will this land differently?

Different teams, locations and cultures rarely experience change in the same way. An approach that works well in one part of the organisation can fall flat in another.

Underneath all eight sits one more question. What are we assuming that we haven't tested? Every programme rests on assumptions, builds dependencies and most of them are reasonable. The ones that cause problems are usually the ones nobody thought to question.

None of these questions needs a complex answer. Most of them aren't about the programme itself. They are about the organisation it must land in. What matters is that the leadership and change delivery teams ask them honestly, and before the programme starts rather than after.

Ready doesn't mean certain

Being ready for change doesn't mean being certain about how it will go. No leadership team can predict every problem. Trying to do so usually slows a programme down without making it any more predictable.

Being ready means something more practical. It means being clear on what you are delivering and how it will affect people. It means knowing where pressure is likely to appear. It also means agreeing how the leadership team will respond when it does, before the programme starts.

This is where governance is so important. Good governance doesn't remove uncertainty. It keeps watch on the context as the programme moves, so you can see when something shifts and adjust before it becomes a problem.

Nothing about change is ever certain. Predictability is enabled when teams start with fewer surprises, and they have the levers to adjust when things move. Their change is better prepared, more predictable and more likely to deliver the outcomes it was meant to.

If you are preparing for a significant change, it is worth asking yourself one question. Is the organisation ready for what this will ask of it, or is it just ready to start?

Talk it through with us

I've walked in the shoes of the leaders I now work with, so I know how it feels when the pressure to start is building. If you're planning a significant change or one is already underway, I'd be glad to talk it through.

A discovery call is a chance to look at the contextual features in more detail, test how ready your organisation really is, or discuss anything else about your change portfolio or programmes. Complete the form to get in touch.