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Defining Change: Goals, Metrics, and Pilot Structure · The Science of Leading

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Science of Leading, I'm Claire Monroe with Edwin Carrington.
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  Edwin, last time we talked about sponsorship.
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  Today I want to talk about a failure pattern that's almost invisible while it's
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  happening, everyone agrees on the change in theory, then argues about it in
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  execution.
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  That's what happens when success was never actually defined,
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  Claire.
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  And it usually hides behind language that sounds like a goal but isn't one.
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  "Improve collaboration."
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  "Increase accountability."
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  "Drive transformation."
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  "Be more agile."
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  Nobody disagrees with those phrases in a meeting, which is exactly the problem,
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  they're impossible to disagree with because they don't mean anything specific yet.
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  So what does a real version of "improve collaboration" actually look like?
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  Something observable.
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  "Handoffs happen within twenty-four hours."
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  "Status updates happen weekly, in the platform, not in inboxes."
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  "Managers use the same scorecard for performance check-ins."
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  "Training gets applied in role workflows within thirty days."
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  The moment you can picture someone doing it or not doing it,
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  you have an actual goal.
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  And I think the metrics trap is just as sneaky, because it's tempting to just track
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  whether the project shipped on time.
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  Which tells you almost nothing about whether the change worked.
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  You need two metric sets running side by side.
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  Project metrics, timeline, scope, system stability.
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  And people metrics, adoption, capability, engagement, sustainment.
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  If you only track project metrics, you can finish the rollout and still fail the
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  actual change.
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  Can you break down what belongs in that second set?
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  Because "people metrics" can turn into a vague bucket too if you're not careful.
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  Four specific things.
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  Adoption, who's actually using the new process and how often.
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  Capability, can they do it correctly, which shows up in error rates and rework.
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  Engagement, do they believe it helps and do they feel supported doing it.
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  And sustainment, does it persist sixty to ninety days after the initial push,
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  because that's where most "successful" rollouts quietly revert.
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  Sustainment feels like the one everyone forgets to check, because by day ninety the
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  project team's already moved on to the next initiative.
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  Exactly why every one of these metrics needs a named owner.
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  A number with no owner becomes trivia nobody's accountable for.
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  Okay, so once you've defined real goals and real metrics, the next question is how
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  you actually structure the rollout.
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  And this is where I think a lot of leaders either overthink it with some elaborate
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  framework, or underthink it and just launch.
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  Both extremes fail for the same reason, no structure to catch the predictable
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  problems.
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  Research on this is direct, organizations applying a structured methodology are
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  thirty-three percent more likely to see good or excellent change management
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  effectiveness than those without one.
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  Not because the model is magic, but because a structure forces decisions you'd
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  otherwise avoid, sequencing, how deep to engage stakeholders,
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  reinforcement routines, what gets measured and when.
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  And the model itself should match the type of change, right,
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  not just whichever one a consultant is pitching that year.
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  Correct.
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  Individual adoption and behavior shift, something like ADKAR logic fits.
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  Organization-wide transformation needing coordination across a lot of stakeholders,
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  Kotter-style sequencing keeps urgency and governance visible.
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  Iterative improvement to a business process, Lean or PDCA thinking keeps the loop
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  tight, test, learn, standardize.
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  Pick based on the shape of the change, not the shape of the slide deck.
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  And then phasing, I think, is where mid-sized companies get impatient.
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  They want to go company-wide immediately.
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  Which is the classic failure pattern, launching everywhere before you know what
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  breaks.
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  A real pilot has a defined group and timeframe, clear success criteria decided
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  before you start, a weekly feedback cadence at minimum, and a decision gate at the
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  end, scale it, revise it, or stop it.
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  If any of those four pieces is missing, it's not a pilot, it's a soft launch with
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  better branding.
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  And a project management platform helps here too, as long as it doesn't become its
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  own second job.
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  Right, use it to create visibility, not bureaucracy, track milestones,
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  document who owns what decision, surface blockers early.
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  The moment updating the tool becomes the work, you've lost the plot.
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  If you're trying to figure out who on your team has the behavioral profile to run a
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  pilot well, calm under ambiguity, follows through on routines,
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  OAD's free Top Performer Profile gives you that signal in about seven minutes,
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  results in twenty-four hours, no credit card.
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  That's O-A-D dot A-I.
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  Define the destination in specifics, then structure the path there.
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  Everything else is just motion.
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  Perfect place to leave it.
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  Thanks, Edwin.
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  Always, Claire.