Disconnect between talent priorities and executive expectations

A while back I heard a few people talking about public speaking. Person A was talking about their anxiety about making presentations. Trying to make him feel better, Person B said, “Public speaking is just like riding a bike!”

That got my attention.  It seemed to be a comforting little sound bite. The only problem was that it was wrong.  Public speaking is not like riding a bike. But it got me thinking about leadership communication and learning in general.

What does it mean if we say that something is like learning to ride a bike?  We’re saying that it’s a skill that initially may seem pretty difficult to learn… but once we figure it out, we can do it successfully without thinking—even if we don’t do it at all for years at a time. It’s the reassuring idea that you’ve acquired a skill that you will never lose.

There’s no question that we all learn many skills that are like riding a bike. Driving is a good example. Most of us were white-knuckle drivers when we first got behind the wheel, but what about now? On long highway drives, I sometimes snap out of a daydream and realize I have no memory of anything that happened on the road in the last 15 minutes. That’s because I don’t have to think about driving when I do it—not unless there is intense traffic or some other unusual circumstance.

Many other skills are the same—reading, typing, doing simple math in your head, and so on.   But quite a few sophisticated skills are quite unlike riding a bike.  In other words, there are skills that are definitely learnable and where your level of mastery can improve substantially. However, you’ll probably never be really great at these skills without vigilant, ongoing practice, preparation, reflection, and reinforcement.

Some examples that come to mind with leadership communication: Selling, managing change, inspiring your teams, and, yes, public speaking. What’s so different about these areas?  A few things:

• They involve an audience. If you were making your first speech in several months or years, would you find that you could do it almost unconsciously? I couldn’t. You can never be on auto-pilot when you’re delivering any sort of message to an audience. Just as the saying goes that you can never step in the same river twice, no two audiences are ever the same—even if you’re speaking to your internal teams each quarter. All sorts of circumstances change regularly, and you have to consciously adjust your message to address the ever-evolving needs of your audience.

• To maintain performance at a high level, sophisticated skills require ongoing practice. Yo-Yo Ma may be the world’s best cellist, but he estimates that he still puts in roughly 2,000 hours of practice each year. That’s an average of 5.5 hours daily.  If he stopped practicing altogether, he obviously could still play the cello.  But he wouldn’t be the best cellist for much longer.

• Skill mastery typically requires continual learning and reinforcement over time. Practice is critical, but it’s not sufficient. When you think about areas such as selling, motivating, and public speaking, there is always more to learn. There is evidence now that 90% of what we learn at a workshop, for example, dissipates within one year. To ensure the needle keeps moving in the right direction, you need to be a perpetual student. That may involve reading about the subject, hearing about it, going to a workshop, and getting expert advice. Whether you’re a tennis pro, a psychiatrist, or a VP of Sales, having a coach to help you with your real-time challenges can have an enormous impact to give you that reinforcement over time.

As a leader, you’ll no doubt hear from companies that want to offer you “quick-fix” solutions for perpetual leadership development challenges—areas such as executive presence, employee engagement, and public speaking.

But lasting, meaningful mastery is not a quick fix.  Sophisticated skills need reinforcement: A better motto for these skills would be “use it or lose it.” Because some things are quite unlike riding a bike,

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We have more tools, technologies, and data than ever, yet talent challenges are only growing more complex.

AI is reshaping how work gets done, shifting roles and the skills required. Remote and hybrid models continue to redefine how teams collaborate, lead, and build culture. Economic pressure is forcing organizations to do more with less, making talent efficiency a business necessity. And employee expectations are rising people want more purpose, growth, and flexibility than ever before.

These shifts aren’t just complicating the landscape; they’re rewriting the rules. For years, talent operated one step removed, supporting strategy, but not shaping it. That worked when business was linear and predictable. Strategy was set at the top, cascaded down, and talent filled the gaps. But that world is gone. Today, strategy shifts in real time. You can’t launch a new go-to-market plan, integrate an acquisition, or drive cultural change without people who are aligned, capable, and ready to deliver. And that readiness can’t be an afterthought, it has to be future-back.

That’s why a new kind of talent leadership is emerging, one that moves beyond standalone programs and focuses instead on building integrated systems. It’s a shift from reacting to problems to anticipating what the business will need next; from patching broken processes to designing for performance from the start. In this model, talent strategy is no longer fragmented. It becomes a connected ecosystem where hiring, development, performance, and culture work in sync, aligned to business priorities and built to deliver results. In this environment, integrated talent strategy isn’t just good HR, it’s how business gets done.

The AI revolution and its real-world talent application

AI is revolutionizing how organizations attract, develop, and retain talent. From automating performance reviews and job descriptions to enabling personalized career path development, the promise of AI is clear. However, many warn of a trough of disillusionment. Reality often falls short due to insufficient data, immature infrastructure, and misaligned objectives between business leaders, talent leaders and across functions. Without a clear problem definition, technology risks accelerating misalignment instead of solving meaningful challenges.

Organizations must first define the outcomes they seek whether efficiency, insight, engagement, or growth before deploying technology solutions. As AI adoption expands, success will depend on whether organizations match the right tools to the right problems. Having the discipline to make this evaluation will be game-changing when it comes to delivering impact.

Skills-based organizations: substance or semantics?

The rise of skills-based models reflects both a desire for innovation and a rebranding of long-standing HR practices. While the framing may have shifted, the underlying work—job analysis, development planning, and performance alignment remains constant. Many of today’s talent challenges aren’t new; they’re longstanding issues being reframed under new labels.

To move the conversation forward, leaders must avoid fixating on language and instead focus on what truly drives performance when it comes to talent models: clear role expectations, relevant development paths, and contextualized application of skills. Prioritizing the right core activities will deliver the talent performance you need, regardless of what it’s called.

Manager capability as the linchpin

The most innovative talent strategies still rely on a critical success factor: the people  manager. Whether it’s performance enablement, development conversations, or cultural reinforcement, execution hinges on manager capability. The success of most talent initiatives ultimately depends on whether managers are equipped to implement them effectively. Manager enablement is the operational layer that determines whether talent strategies deliver impact or stall. Managers also shape the day-to-day experiences that influence engagement, growth, and retention.

Investing in scalable, practical, and embedded manager development is essential to unlock the potential of any talent system. Currently this remains a challenge to plan and execute in many companies, while some at the leading edge have leaned into this and are making progress. Looking forward, organizations that prioritize preparing their managers for delivering what’s next will yield more rapid results for the business.

Integrated talent management: moving from silos to systems

Gone are the days when talent functions could operate in isolation. Today’s organizations require an integrated approach that connects succession planning, workforce strategy, learning, performance, and employee experience. For business leaders, the structure of HR functions is secondary to receiving actionable guidance that accelerates hiring and performance outcomes.Achieving true integration means moving beyond siloed initiatives and building a connected system where talent strategies reinforce one another across data, design, and delivery. It’s not about where each piece sits, but how well they work together to deliver consistent, business-relevant outcomes.

For example, when identifying successors for executive roles, the best organizations take a systemic approach. They leverage business leader input to nominate high-potentials based on a consistent set of standards. They add rigorous assessment of people and business capability (often using external support) to reduce bias, confirm potential for more complex roles, and identify gaps. They then employ tailored development, run in partnership among the business, talent, and learning with external support, to address identified gaps. This multi-faceted approach incorporates perspectives from the business and HR while leveraging best practices from inside and outside the company, and ties outcomes to business imperatives.

Bringing “Integrated Talent” to life in your organization

Integrated talent refers to the intentional alignment and coordination of all talent-related functions such as hiring, learning, succession, performance, rewards, and workforce planning under a unified strategy that directly supports business goals. Instead of fragmented programs running in parallel, integrated talent strategies are designed and executed as a cohesive system, with shared data, consistent language, and a focus on outcomes that matter to the organization. It’s about designing for the whole employee lifecycle, not just optimizing parts of it in isolation.

The most effective partnerships, including those with consultants and external experts, often blur internal and external boundaries, delivering seamless support to business leaders.

Key recommendations for talent leaders to move to an integrated talent approach

So what does it take to lead effectively in this environment? Several key priorities are emerging:

• Understand the evolving business context: Start with a clear understanding of the organizational environment, where the business strategy is going, and the role of culture in supporting growth, before proposing solutions.
• Customize with purpose: Balance tailored approaches with scalable standards to drive consistency.
• Build your internal base: Credibility is built by understanding internal politics, brand sensitivities, and cultural norms.
• Elevate the employee experience: Amid ongoing disruption, meaning, purpose, and psychological safety are essential stabilizers. Make this a priority, and the business will follow.
• Build meta-skills: Leadership development must focus on adaptability, resilience, empathy, and systems thinking; the capacities needed to lead through complexity.
• Develop an enterprise mindset: Today’s talent leaders must be business-centric, fluent in financial and strategic conversations, and capable of integrating disparate talent functions to construct a coherent whole. They must translate data into compelling narratives and foster strong partnerships both within HR and across the enterprise.

Most importantly, talent leaders must see themselves not just as HR professionals, but as organizational architects, designing the systems, cultures, mindsets and experiences that enable growth.

Conclusion: Talent strategy integration isn’t a trend. It’s your edge.

The world of work is not simply changing. It is being fundamentally redefined. Integrated talent strategy is no longer a future aspiration; it is a current imperative. To deliver on this mandate, talent leaders must: align their strategies tightly with business priorities; build managerial capability at scale; and use technology with precision and discipline. They must create strong, trusted partnerships across internal and external boundaries, and focus on clarity over complexity. The siloed HR model has reached its limits. The future belongs to those who embrace integrated talent strategy as a core business driver.

In late 2023, we set out to answer a question we kept hearing from clients:

How do you prepare for what’s next—when “next” keeps changing?

That question has only become more urgent in 2025. Today’s leaders are navigating rapid shifts—from AI’s integration into nearly every role to volatile markets and a growing disconnect between employee expectations and organizational readiness. Planning feels harder than ever—because the future keeps accelerating while our tools and assumptions stay anchored in the past.

Too often, strategic planning is built on outdated logic: start with what’s already in motion, layer on incremental improvements, and forecast trends forward. But in today’s environment, that approach isn’t just ineffective—it’s risky. It reinforces legacy thinking. It prioritizes what’s easy over what’s essential. And it creates strategies built for a version of the world that no longer exists.

That’s why we took a different approach. We gathered a team of I/O psychologists, academics, and senior talent leaders—not to react to trends, but to reimagine what the future of talent, leadership, and learning might truly demand.

To guide the process, we used a method we often apply with clients: future-back thinking.

What is future-back thinking?

Future-back thinking flips traditional strategy. Rather than starting with today’s constraints, it begins with a bold vision of future success—and works backward to define what it will take to get there.

This approach helped us look past short-term pressures and surface deeper signals. It made the future feel more actionable—and more human.

It also reminded us why innovation is so rare: Most organizations are wired to protect what’s familiar. We prioritize feasibility, optimize what exists, and assume continuity. In uncertain times, we tweak around the edges instead of reimagining what’s possible.

Future-back thinking breaks that cycle. It turns ambiguity into alignment—and strategy into design.

It starts with a better question:

What will the future demand—and what will we wish we’d done sooner?

Because it’s not about being right. It’s about being ready.

Five bold predictions—and how they became reality

When we applied future-back thinking to the future of talent and learning, five provocative themes emerged. Each was grounded in signals we were already starting to see—but at the time, they felt ambitious.

We captured them in our original blog, Navigating the New Dawn of Talent Strategy—a look at what might shape how organizations attract, develop, and lead talent over the next 3–5 years.

Now, just two years later, those signals have become strategy. Here’s how the predictions stack up against today’s reality:

1. Skills × jobs (the remix)

Then: We predicted that rigid job architectures would give way to more fluid, capability-based models—ones that reflect how people actually grow and how business needs evolve.

Now: That shift is well underway. Many organizations have begun redesigning roles around transferable skills and capabilities, creating more dynamic paths for growth, mobility, and performance.

2. AI-powered learning

Then: We anticipated GenAI would unlock personalized, real-time learning at scale, integrated into the flow of work.

Now: GenAI is now embedded in many organizations’ learning ecosystems—powering smart coaching, adaptive learning paths, and knowledge retrieval in the flow of work.

3. Diversity as differentiation

Then: We forecasted a shift from DEI as a compliance mandate to DEI as a core driver of innovation, adaptability, and growth.

Now: High-performing organizations are building cognitive and cultural diversity into teams, treating it as a strategic advantage—not a checkbox.

4. AI as a leadership partner

Then: We imagined a future where AI would augment—not replace—leaders, supporting better decisions, planning, and communication.

Now: That’s exactly what’s happening. Leaders are using AI to model scenarios, synthesize insights, and communicate with more speed and clarity.

5. Decentralized, human-centric leadership

Then: We projected leadership would decentralize, moving closer to the front line and defined by mindset more than title.

Now: Leading organizations are scaling leadership behaviors across levels and embedding psychological safety, inclusion, and empowerment into day-to-day work.

These predictions weren’t about chasing trends. They were about imagining what the future might require—and preparing for it before it arrived.

That’s the power of future-back thinking: it doesn’t just forecast change. It helps leaders design for it.

Start thinking differently now

Most strategic plans start by looking around—at what exists, what’s already in motion, what feels feasible. But the brain doesn’t just collect data. It builds habits. It channels information into familiar paths. And it reinforces what it already knows.

That’s good for speed. But bad for imagination.

Future-back thinking challenges that. It deliberately disrupts those neural paths. Instead of adjusting today’s structures, it starts at the endpoint: a bold future state. Then it reverse-engineers the shifts required to get there.

This shift—from refining the familiar to reimagining what’s possible—is what organizations need now.

Here are three provocations to help you start:

1. What assumptions are we treating as facts? The most dangerous limits are the ones we no longer see.
2. What would someone from a completely different world do? (A customer, a child, Beyoncé?) Try role-storming to unlock new angles.
3. What if we had no legacy systems to maintain—what would we build from scratch? Imagine a blank slate.

These questions aren’t just creative warm-ups. They help you unstick your strategy from old grooves—and build what’s essential.

Because in a world that’s constantly changing, the biggest risk isn’t getting it wrong. It’s staying stuck.

How BTS helps leaders and teams think beyond today

Our brains—even at their most capable—get stuck in “rivers of thinking,” defaulting to what feels safe instead of what the future demands.

At BTS, we help organizations break that cycle.

Future-back thinking is more than a framework—it’s a provocation. A way to disrupt habitual planning, reframe challenges, and design from a place of possibility.

We work with leaders and teams to:

• Break from old patterns by surfacing the assumptions quietly guiding decisions
• Align around vivid, future-state scenarios that challenge status-quo thinking
• Role-storm bold ideas into strategic options that unlock creativity
• Simulate future decisions to build confidence and agility
• Build the mindsets and capabilities your strategy requires

Because the real risk isn’t change. It’s standing still.

Too often, organizations invest time and energy planning for a version of the world that no longer exists. They reinforce legacy mindsets, delay bold moves, and miss the moment.

Future-back thinking offers a way out. It gives leaders a structured way to reimagine what’s possible, align teams around the future, and start building toward it—now.

Let’s build what’s next—together. Learn how we help organizations prepare for the future.

É possível mudar a cultura de uma organização?

Hoje em dia, poucas organizações não estão envolvidas em um (ou vários) processos de transformação cultural. Novas formas de trabalhar em organizações mais horizontais e adaptativas, melhorias na cultura de segurança, orientação ao cliente, transformações nas áreas comerciais e excelência operacional, entre outros.

E é aqui que surge uma das grandes perguntas:

É possível mudar a cultura de uma organização? E, se sim, como fazer isso?

Para ajudar a responder a essas perguntas—frequentes entre nossos clientes e amplamente discutidas—gostaria de compartilhar o que aprendemos na BTS ao longo dos últimos 38 anos sobre o que funciona e o que não funciona (até agora, pois em transformação cultural estamos sempre aprendendo).

A boa notícia é que a resposta é sim.

A dificuldade está na segunda pergunta: como fazer isso?

Um projeto? Uma iniciativa?

Um ponto importante é que a transformação cultural não é um projeto com início e fim, mas sim um processo contínuo e em evolução. Isso muitas vezes gera tensão em organizações acostumadas a uma lógica de projetos.

O que é crítico e frequentemente ignorado?

Existem elementos que, quando considerados e aplicados corretamente, tornam a transformação muito mais eficaz. No entanto, muitas vezes são ignorados.

Esses elementos são:

• Envolver as pessoas. Quanto maior o envolvimento em todos os níveis, maior a probabilidade de implementação das mudanças.
• Tornar a mudança tangível e vivida no dia a dia, conectando teoria e prática. Transparência é fundamental.
• Toda mudança tem impactos positivos e negativos — ambos devem ser comunicados com clareza.
• Mudança cultural exige tempo e transformação de mindsets e estruturas organizacionais.
• A cultura deve estar conectada à estratégia.

Como estruturamos a transformação cultural?

Nosso modelo se baseia em quatro etapas: definir resultados, criar líderes de mudança, incorporar mudanças e sustentar novas formas de trabalho.

1. Definir resultados

O primeiro passo é estabelecer resultados claros e alinhamento executivo. É necessário conectar propósito, visão e objetivos organizacionais.

Ações:

• Coleta de dados (entrevistas, focus groups, visitas)
• Diagnósticos culturais
• Definição de expectativas (Leadership Profiles

2. Criar líderes de mudança

Todos os líderes devem atuar como agentes de mudança. É fundamental engajá-los emocional e racionalmente.

Ações:

• Programas de liderança
• Playbooks
• Feedback contínuo

3. Incorporar mudanças

É essencial transformar mentalidades e sistemas organizacionais.

Ações:

• Coaching
• Sprints culturais
• Cascata organizacional
• Avaliações comportamentais

4. Sustentar o novo modelo

Garantir continuidade através de redes, dados e suporte contínuo.

Ações:

• Integração com processos de talento
• Uso de IA no dia a dia
• Monitoramento da transformação
• Comunidades de prática

A importância de ser paciente e impaciente ao mesmo tempo

Transformações culturais são complexas e não têm fórmula única.

Ser estrategicamente paciente e taticamente ágil é essencial para ajustar e evoluir continuamente.

Esse equilíbrio permite transformar a jornada em algo positivo e sustentável.

Este é apenas um resumo.

Se quiser aprofundar com exemplos e práticas:

Baixe o PDF completo e acesse todo o conteúdo.

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Si può cambiare la cultura di un’organizzazione?

Oggi, poche organizzazioni non sono immerse in uno (o più) processi di trasformazione culturale. Nuovi modi di lavorare in organizzazioni più piatte e adattive, miglioramenti nella cultura della sicurezza, orientamento al cliente, trasformazioni delle aree commerciali e miglioramento dell’eccellenza operativa, per citarne alcuni.

Ed è qui che nasce una delle grandi domande:

Si può cambiare la cultura di un’organizzazione? E, se sì, come si fa?

Per aiutare a rispondere a queste domande—che i nostri clienti ci pongono spesso e su cui esiste molta letteratura—vorrei condividere ciò che in BTS abbiamo imparato negli ultimi 38 anni su ciò che funziona e ciò che non funziona (finora, perché nel cambiamento culturale non si smette mai di imparare).

La buona notizia è che la risposta alla domanda se si possa cambiare la cultura di un’organizzazione è sì.

La difficoltà sta nel rispondere alla seconda: come si fa?

Un progetto? Un’iniziativa?

Un aspetto importante da considerare è che i processi di cambiamento o trasformazione culturale non sono progetti con un inizio e una fine; sono processi in continua evoluzione. Questo spesso genera tensione nelle organizzazioni abituate a un approccio basato sui progetti.

Cosa è critico e spesso viene ignorato?

Esistono diversi elementi che, se considerati e utilizzati correttamente, rendono gli sforzi di trasformazione molto più efficaci. Purtroppo, spesso vengono ignorati.

Questi elementi critici sono:

• Coinvolgere le persone. Più le persone (a tutti i livelli) sono coinvolte nella trasformazione, maggiori sono le probabilità che implementino i cambiamenti richiesti.
• Per comprendere il cambiamento, bisogna renderlo tangibile e sperimentarlo. Ciò significa collegare il quadro teorico alle azioni quotidiane. Spiegare il quadro completo con trasparenza è fondamentale.
• Tutti i cambiamenti portano aspetti positivi, ma anche impatti negativi. Spiegare il quadro completo con trasparenza è fondamentale.
• Cambiare la cultura richiede tempo e implica identificare e modificare i “mindset” e le strutture quotidiane (simboli) che definiscono come si fanno le cose nell’organizzazione.
• La cultura deve essere fortemente connessa alla strategia.

Come consigliamo di strutturare i processi di cambiamento culturale?

Il nostro approccio si compone di quattro fasi: definire i risultati, creare leader del cambiamento, incorporare i cambiamenti chiave e sostenere i nuovi modi di lavorare.

1. Definire i risultati

Il primo passo in qualsiasi processo di trasformazione è stabilire risultati chiari. È fondamentale identificare i driver della trasformazione e definire i risultati desiderati in modo da ottenere un vero allineamento a livello esecutivo. Man mano che si procede, è necessario collegare lo scopo e la visione, comprendendo da dove si viene, dove si è e dove si vuole andare. Inoltre, è essenziale collegare la trasformazione agli obiettivi organizzativi.

Alcune azioni rilevanti in questa fase sono:

• Raccolta di informazioni (interviste, focus group, visite operative, …)
• Diagnosi culturali
• Definizione delle aspettative (Leadership Profiles

2. Creare leader del cambiamento

In BTS crediamo che tutti i leader siano anche leader del cambiamento. Adottare una mentalità da “leader del cambiamento” richiede che i leader sperimentino e vedano ciò che ci si aspetta da loro. Fin dall’inizio è fondamentale promuovere l’azione attraverso il “lavoro reale”, come stabilire nuove priorità e comunicare in modo trasparente ed efficace.

I leader devono essere coinvolti (emotivamente e razionalmente) nel cambiamento e devono capire come possono influenzare la cultura attraverso azioni concrete quotidiane.

Infine, è necessario fornire supporto continuo per i cambiamenti più difficili di mentalità e comportamento e raccogliere feedback su ciò che funziona e ciò che non funziona in questa fase.

Alcune azioni rilevanti in questa fase sono:

• Sviluppo di playbook per ruoli critici
• Implementazione di programmi di leadership e cambiamento
• Feedback loops con i livelli esecutivi

3. Incorporare i cambiamenti chiave

Per ottenere un cambiamento significativo, è essenziale identificare i modelli mentali attuali e introdurne di nuovi che supportino lo stato desiderato. Creare routine e simboli che rafforzino il cambiamento, così come identificare processi, pratiche, eventi o norme ancorate ai vecchi modi di lavorare, è fondamentale.

Co-creare nuovi modi di lavorare per un’attivazione immediata aiuta a consolidare questi cambiamenti. Con il progresso, modificare sistemi e processi che supportano e rafforzano i cambiamenti è essenziale per il successo a lungo termine.

Alcune azioni rilevanti in questa fase sono:

• Coaching per leader
• Cultural sprints
• Cascading del cambiamento nell’organizzazione
• Assessment per misurare i cambiamenti comportamentali

4. Sostenere i nuovi modi di lavorare

Il cambiamento non è solo uno sforzo individuale, ma anche un fenomeno sociale. Per questo è necessario creare reti sociali che supportino i cambiamenti di mentalità e comportamento. Interventi con supporto individuale per ruoli critici e momenti specifici, così come l’integrazione dei nuovi modi di lavorare, garantiscono la continuità del cambiamento.

Infine, è necessario utilizzare i dati per analizzare ciò che funziona e ciò che non funziona, permettendo di definire nuove azioni e interventi.

Alcune azioni rilevanti in questa fase sono:

• Integrazione dei playbook nel ciclo di talent management
• Pratica dei nuovi comportamenti con bot basati su IA
• Creazione di un ufficio per monitorare il cambiamento e definire nuove azioni
• Creazione e lancio di Comunità di Pratica (CoP)

L’importanza di essere pazienti e impazienti allo stesso tempo

I processi di trasformazione culturale sono tra i più complessi, poiché non esiste una ricetta unica.

Essere strategicamente pazienti (con risultati chiari ed evitando cambiamenti erratici), ma tatticamente impazienti (agendo nelle fasi descritte e adattando in base a ciò che funziona e ciò che non funziona) è fondamentale.

Questo approccio permette di trasformare questi percorsi in esperienze arricchenti per l’organizzazione, e non in processi dolorosi che lasciano cicatrici nella memoria collettiva.

Questo è solo un riassunto.

Se vuoi approfondire l’approccio completo, esempi e chiavi pratiche:

Scarica il PDF completo e accedi a tutti i contenuti.

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Can an organization’s culture be changed?

Nowadays, there are few organizations that are not immersed in one (or several) cultural transformation processes. New ways of working in flatter and more adaptive organizations, improvements in safety culture, customer-centric transformations, changes in commercial areas, and improvements in operational excellence, to name a few.

And this is where one of the big questions arises:

Can an organization’s culture be changed? And if so, how is it done?

To help answer these questions—often asked by our clients and widely discussed—I would like to share what we at BTS have learned over the past 38 years about what works and what doesn’t (so far, since in cultural transformation one never stops learning).

The good news is that the answer to whether an organization’s culture can be changed is yes.

The difficulty comes in answering the second: how is it done?

A project? An initiative?

An important point to consider is that cultural change or transformation processes are not projects with a beginning and an end; they are ongoing, evolving processes. This often creates tension in organizations that are used to a project-based approach.

What is critical and often overlooked?

There are several elements that, if considered and properly used, will make transformation efforts much more effective. Unfortunately, they are often overlooked.

These critical elements are:

• Involve people. The more individuals (at all levels) are engaged in the transformation, the higher the likelihood that they will implement the required changes.
• To understand change, it must be made tangible and experienced. This means connecting the theoretical framework with day-to-day actions. Explaining the full picture with transparency is key.
• All changes bring positive aspects, but also negative impacts. Explaining the full picture with transparency is key.
• Changing culture takes time and requires identifying and shifting mindsets and daily structures (symbols) that define how things are done in the organization.
• Culture must be strongly connected to strategy.

How do we recommend structuring cultural change processes?

Our approach consists of four stages: setting outcomes, creating change leaders, embedding key changes, and sustaining new ways of working.

1. Set outcomes

The first step in any transformation process is to establish clear outcomes. It is crucial to identify the drivers of the transformation and define the desired results in a way that achieves true executive alignment. As you move forward, you must connect the dots between purpose and vision, understanding where you come from, where you are, and where you want to go. Additionally, it is essential to link the transformation to organizational goals.

Some relevant actions in this phase are:

• Information gathering (interviews, focus groups, operational visits, …)
• Cultural diagnostics
• Definition of expectations (Leadership Profiles

2. Create change leaders

At BTS, we believe that all leaders are also change leaders. Adopting a “change leader” mindset requires leaders to experience and see what is expected of them. From the outset, it is vital to drive action through ‘real work’, such as setting new priorities and communicating transparently and effectively.

Leaders must be engaged (emotionally and rationally) in the change and shown how they can impact culture through concrete day-to-day actions.

Finally, it is necessary to provide ongoing support for the most challenging mindset and behavior changes and gather feedback on what works and what doesn’t at this stage.

Some relevant actions in this phase are:

• Development of playbooks for critical roles
• Deployment of leadership and change programs
• Feedback loops with executive levels

3. Embed key changes

To achieve meaningful change, it is essential to identify current mindsets and introduce new ones that support the desired state. Creating routines and symbols that reinforce change, as well as identifying processes, practices, events, or norms anchored in old ways of working, is crucial.

Co-creating new ways of working for immediate activation helps cement these changes. As progress is made, changing the systems and processes that support and reinforce key changes is essential for long-term success.

Some relevant actions in this phase are:

• Coaching for leaders
• Running cultural sprints
• Cascading the change across the organization
• Assessments to measure behavior changes

4. Sustain new ways of working

Change is not only an individual effort but also a social phenomenon. Therefore, it is necessary to provide the social networks needed to support mindset and behavior changes. Intervening with individual support for critical roles and specific periods, as well as embedding new ways of working, ensures the continuity of change.

Finally, data must be used to analyze what works and what doesn’t, enabling the creation of the next set of interventions and necessary support.

Some relevant actions in this phase are:

• Integration of playbooks into the organization’s talent cycle
• Practice of new behaviors in daily work with AI-powered bots
• Design of an office to monitor change and define new actions
• Design and launch of Communities of Practice (CoP)

The importance of being patient and impatient at the same time

Cultural transformation processes are among the most challenging elements, as there is never a single recipe.

Being strategically patient (with clear desired outcomes and avoiding erratic changes), but tactically impatient (taking action in the phases outlined above and observing what works and what doesn’t, in order to pivot and adjust) is key in transformation processes.

The 4-phase approach helps achieve this, enabling these journeys to become an enriching experience for the organization, rather than a painful one that leaves scars in the collective memory.

This is just a summary.

If you want to dive deeper into the full approach, examples, and practical insights:

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