Most change work is still a black box.....
We are really good at reporting outcomes and creating outputs, yet usually we can’t explain what made them happen.
The problem with this, is that the next team end up copying the surface-level change plan, and ends up getting different results.
That’s why I encourage leaders I advice to apply a evidence based behavioral approach.
Not because behavioral science is extra, but because it forces you to specify the ingredients of change in a way that can be used again.
Here’s what that looks like in change and transformation work:
1. Challenge (behavioral framing) Frame the challenge in behavioral terms and in context: who needs to do what, where, when, using what, under what constraints.
2. Outcomes (two layers, not one) a) Separate outcomes into: Implementation outcomes: are people actually doing the new thing... consistently and with quality?
b) Business/service outcomes: did it produce the result you care about (cost, speed, risk, customer, safety)?
If you skip the first, you end up “managing” business results without knowing whether the change is even being done.
3) Diagnosis (constraints + drivers) Use mixed methods to identify what’s shaping behaviour: time pressure, tools, handoffs, permissions, incentives, risk, norms, identity, effort.
This is where most programs default to assumptions.... for sure it must be a skills issue...and end up addressing the wrong thing.
4) Design (strategies + ingredients) Write the plan at two levels:
a) Strategies are the labels: train, communicate, coach, incentivise, redesign the workflows.... b) Ingredients are what actually happens in the work: practice in the real workflow, feedback, job aids, prompts...
That’s the difference between an intervention that’s transferable and one that only works once, if at all.
5) Leadership (reinforcement, not inspiration) What leaders reward, resource, measure and model becomes part of the real change system regardless of what the decks say.
6) Sustainment (what keeps it in place) These are the things that need to be changed in the system in order for the behaviors to change and stay that way, these are the defaults in tools, workflow integrations, clear decision rights, feedback loops, policies etc.
A simple test for you: If you left the organisation tomorrow, could another team replicate your results using only your plan?
If your plan says only...train the team... but doesn’t specify the ingredients, you’re still working with a black box