The Leadership Skills That Make Transformation Stick

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Business, Hbr, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy, Business/management, Management, Communication, Harvard, Entrepreneurship, Business/marketing, Leadership, Marketing, Finance, Economics, Teams

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why do so many organizational change efforts stall or flat out fail? Julia Dhar, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, says the problem often isn’t strategy, it’s behavior. Leaders spend enormous time designing change, but far less understanding whether employees are willing, motivated, and equipped to adopt it. She shares research around how leaders can create genuine alignment, and what it takes to sustain momentum once the novelty fades. Dhar is coauthor, along with Kristy Ellmer and Philip Jameson, of the book "How Change Really Works: Seven Science-Based Principles for Transforming Your Organization".

Transcript

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0:00.0	On May 20th, join me at HBR's annual Leadership Summit with masterclasses, interviews with the CEOs of AT&T and Mattel,
0:08.9	and an interactive case discussion led by Harvard Business School professor Kareem Likani.
0:13.7	This all-virtual day will give you practical frameworks to lead with purpose and strengthen culture across your organization.
0:20.2	To learn more, go to h HBR.org slash Leadership Summit.
0:23.8	See you there.
0:38.9	I'm Adi Ignatius.
0:42.6	I'm Alison Beard, and this is the HBR IdeaCast.
0:50.6	All right, Allison, it is quiz time. What percent of attempted transformations at organizations fail?
0:55.7	I know it's a lot. I'll say half.
0:58.8	That is a good guess. It's actually worse.
1:01.0	70 percent or more than two-thirds fail or at least fall short of their intended goals.
1:06.7	Wow, that is a depressing statistic. And I guess the follow-up question I would have is why? Why do they fail?
1:12.5	Well, that is the good journalistic question.
1:15.1	Look, it's, of course, about poor execution, but a lot of it can be understood to the lens of behavioral science, as opposed to pure strategic discipline.
1:23.0	So it's understanding what it means to have true alignment, to have agency, and to understand the emotional
1:28.0	issues that are involved in a big transformation. That makes a lot of sense to me. It sounds like
1:32.4	you're saying that people skills are really the most critical ones for leaders to have. They're up there.
1:38.4	You know, leading a transformation involves humans who are grappling with how to make decisions,
1:42.2	how to be persuasive, how to test their biases, and so on. So yeah, very human things that can make or break a successful transformation.
1:50.1	So speaking on that today is Julia Dar, who is managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group
1:55.0	and founder of BCG's Behavioral Science Lab. She's the co-author along with Christy Elmer
2:00.6	and Philip Jameson of the book,
	...

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