Insights

In 2025, sales organizations are navigating more than just competitive landscapes. They’re contending with intensifying trade tensions, evolving geopolitical alliances, and the cascading effects of global tariffs. These forces aren’t abstract, they’re showing up daily in pricing pressure, delayed shipments, shifting forecasts, and customer churn. And they’re transforming how companies approach go-to-market strategy, starting with how they design and deliver their Sales Kick-Offs (SKOs).

Tariffs are no longer edge-case scenarios. They’re sending ripple effects across every link in the value chain. Sales teams are contending with pricing instability as supplier costs swing unexpectedly. Delivery timelines are harder to pin down. Customers are pushing back on cost hikes or walking away altogether. And forecasting? It’s become a moving target. What was once considered a background risk is now a central variable in sales planning.

In this climate of constant flux, SKOs are evolving from motivational moments into serious strategic platforms. Several themes are rising to the surface:

1. Redefining “adaptability” in sales strategy

Tariffs have amplified economic turbulence. With global cost structures in near-constant motion, organizations are being forced to sharpen how, and how fast, they respond. While “agility” has been a staple of business language since COVID-19, today’s landscape demands something deeper: adaptability built on scenario planning, data fluency, and customer-centered pivots.

Sales teams are being asked to do more than react. They’re adjusting pricing mid-cycle, sourcing new suppliers, and rethinking product priorities based on margin impact or availability. SKOs need to reflect this reality. It’s not just about preparing for change—it’s about practicing for it. Teams need exposure to the messiness of mid-quarter shifts, trade-offs across functions, and pressure-filled decisions that can’t wait.

2. Flexible pricing models are pushing teams to focus on customer value

As tariff-related costs climb, many companies are left with little choice but to raise prices. But doing so without a strong value narrative is risky, especially in a market shaped by caution, cost sensitivity, and competitive noise.

Sellers can’t afford to lead with price. They need to lead with relevance. That means helping customers connect the dots between solutions and the outcomes that matter to them—faster ROI, mitigated risk, and sustained performance. The more the landscape shifts, the more essential it becomes to differentiate through clarity and confidence, not discounts.

3. Relationship-building, referrals, and longer sales cycles

In unpredictable environments, trust becomes a competitive advantage. Tariffs introduce new friction—delivery delays, price changes, procurement constraints—that sellers must help customers navigate. As buyers face more internal scrutiny, decisions slow down. Sales cycles stretch. Consensus is harder to build.

All of this puts relationship quality front and center. Sellers who understand their customer’s world, anticipate challenges, and offer real partnership—not just pitches—are the ones who earn the right to stay in the conversation. Advisory behaviors and referral networks matter more than ever. Investing in long-term trust has become a short-term differentiator.

4. Shaking things up with cross-functional insights

The effects of tariffs aren’t siloed. They ripple through procurement, finance, operations, and strategy. Sales teams without visibility into those pressures risk overpromising or missing opportunities for smarter collaboration.

That’s why more organizations are bringing cross-functional voices into the SKO. Procurement leaders are spotlighting sourcing constraints. Finance is unpacking cost structures and trade-offs. Operations is clarifying where flexibility exists and where it doesn’t. These perspectives help sellers see the system they operate within and bridge the gaps that often slow down execution—from misaligned incentives to regional friction.

5. Leveraging AI and data to support shifting targets for frontline sellers

In a tariff-impacted world, data is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a real-time edge. As market signals shift faster than humans alone can track, AI-powered tools and predictive analytics help surface patterns, sharpen messaging, and guide better decisions.

Forward-looking companies are embedding AI into the SKO itself. Tools like BTS’s Verity give reps the ability to practice, iterate, and refine in real time, coaching them through tough conversations, pricing trade-offs, and shifting buyer behavior. It’s not about replacing reps. It’s about expanding their ability to adapt, stay sharp, and lead confidently through constant change.

6. Preparing for longer sales cycles and negotiations

As cost pressures rise, customers are taking longer to commit. Deals are dragging. More stakeholders are weighing in. Pricing discussions are stretching further than before.

SKOs are a chance to help teams get ready for that reality. Sellers need to build fluency in managing drawn-out conversations, navigating objections, and reinforcing value over time. Practicing those skills now ensures they can show up with confidence and consistency, especially when the path to close is slower and more complex than expected.

Rethinking your SKOs for shifting ground

Tariffs aren’t a temporary disruption—they’re part of a broader pattern of global instability that sales organizations must plan around. The question isn’t how to avoid the turbulence. It’s how to lead through it.

That’s what the best SKOs are doing in 2025 and into 2026: grounding teams in the real conditions they’re facing, building strategic muscle, and creating alignment across the business. It’s not about hype. It’s about capability.

Done right, your SKO becomes more than a kickoff. It becomes a catalyst—one that equips your team to win on uncertain ground.

Day 42: A newly hired Group Strategy Director is still at her desk at 9:00 p.m. She was brought in to lead a major transformation - one that’s been discussed for months but never clearly defined. She was hired because she’s capable, and there’s often an unspoken belief that capable leaders should just “get it” and move.

Her inbox is overflowing. Priorities keep shifting. Her peers are polite but distant - unclear on her mandate, protective of their turf, and too busy to engage deeply. Conversations stay surface-level.

She’s been invited in - but not set up to succeed.

It’s a common story: a strong leader, dropped into a high-stakes role without the clarity, structure, or support to land well.

Whether new to the company or stepping into a bigger role, many executives spend their critical first months navigating complexity alone - while being expected to deliver from day one.

Research has held steady for years: around 40% of leadership transitions fail within 18 months when the right support isn’t in place.

Too often, companies focus on choosing the right person - then overlook what it takes to truly integrate them. Without structured, human-centered support, even the most capable leaders struggle to succeed.

Why this matters more now

Transitions have always been high-stakes moments. But in today’s climate, the pressure is rising and the timelines are shrinking.

Leaders are stepping in during disruption - not stability.

Most aren’t inheriting status quo - they’re hired to fix or accelerate something.

Hybrid work delays trust-building and blurs cultural cues.

Visibility is high. Expectations form early and often.

In short: less room for error. More risk when it goes wrong.

Different paths. Same risks.

It’s tempting to think internal promotions are easier. But each path comes with invisible traps:

External hires lack historical context and relationships yet are expected to drive change.

Internal promotions bring familiarity but struggle to reset relationships and lead differently.

In both cases, leaders are often left navigating ambiguity alone once onboarding ends.

What’s missing

Most organizations do onboarding. Few do transitions. And that’s where things break down.

What’s often overlooked:

 
• A clear and aligned mandate
 
• Shared definitions of success across key stakeholders
 
• Insight into unspoken cultural and political dynamics
 
• Active sponsorship from the manager
 
• A longer runway to build trust and momentum
 
• Board-level clarity and engagement for senior roles

The result? Leaders are under pressure to perform - while still finding their footing.

The quiet rejection

Leaders are often hired to shift the system. But once inside, they encounter subtle resistance:

• Their pace feels too fast.
 
• Their questions challenge norms.
 
• Their style doesn’t match unspoken rules.

Suddenly, trust is withheld. Expectations shift. Peers disengage - but don’t say why. The very qualities that got them hired now work against them. Confidence erodes. Performance stalls. And promising transitions quietly derail.

This isn’t just an onboarding issue. It’s a readiness issue - on both sides.

The cost of getting it wrong

A failed executive transition doesn’t just impact the individual - it ripples across the organization. It stalls momentum, fractures teams, delays results, and undermines trust in leadership.

It’s also expensive. Between lost productivity, re-recruitment, and missed goals, the cost can easily reach several times the leader’s salary.

When transitions go off course, it’s not just a talent issue - it’s a business one.

What needs to change

Organizations that get transitions right do five things well:

1. Treat transitions as enterprise critical. Ask: What’s at stake beyond this one role?
 
2. Define success together. Ask: Are expectations aligned across leader, manager, and stakeholders?
 
3. Equip the manager to lead the transition. Ask: Are they prepared to sponsor - not just evaluate?
 
4. Provide real support - not just warm welcomes. Ask: Have we created space for the leader to reflect, adapt, and build capability?
 
5. Extend support beyond day 90. Ask: What happens after the honeymoon ends?

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The gray zone

Most leadership transitions don’t fail during onboarding - they stall in the murky middle. That stretch between onboarding and full performance. Too late for checklists, too early for formal reviews, and too often overlooked.

This is when the leader is highly visible but still gaining footing. The system assumes they’re up and running. But what they actually need is time to reflect, context to navigate, and support to show up differently.

Without that space, small misalignments become big ones. First impressions stick. And promising transitions quietly derail - not because the leader isn’t capable, but because they’re left to navigate complexity alone.

This “gray zone” isn’t anyone’s job to manage - and that’s the problem.

The role of transition coaching

Transition coaching provides a confidential, strategic space to:

• Navigate unspoken dynamics
 
• Build confidence and clarity
 
• Reflect and recalibrate in real time

As Greg Smith, CEO of Teradyne, put it:

“We’re investing in executive coaching because we want our senior leaders to lead with confidence from day one—not figure it out by month six.”

And the research backs it up. Coaching accelerates traction, strengthens alignment, and improves long-term performance.

But it only works when paired with system-level readiness: aligned stakeholders, engaged managers, and a clear plan for integration.

Final thought

Transitions aren’t just about setting a leader up to succeed. They’re a mirror for whether your organization is ready to evolve.

Because every new leader brings change - and every transition is a test of how well your system absorbs it.

If you’re hiring or promoting this year, the question isn’t just “is this the right person?”

It’s “are we ready to change with them?”

BTS helps leaders - and the systems around them - thrive through transition. Let’s talk.

Sources

 
1. McKinsey & Company (2023), Leadership Transitions: Making the Move from Operational to Strategic
 
2. Harvard Business Review (Ciampa & Watkins, 1999), Right From the Start
 
3. CEB/Gartner Executive Research (2016), Why Successful Executives Fail
 
4. DDI Global Leadership Forecast (2021), Assessing the Risks in Leadership Transitions
 
5. McGill, P., Clarke, P., & Sheffield, D. (2019). From “blind elation” to “oh my goodness, what have I gotten into”: Exploring the experience of executive coaching during leadership transitions into C-suite roles. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring. Oxford Brookes University.
 
6. Greg Smith, CEO of Teradyne, as quoted in BTS webinar (2025)
 
7. International Coaching Federation (ICF, 2021), The Value of Coaching in Leadership Transitions

In the 1990s, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) was the Big Bet. Companies launched tightly controlled pilot programs with hand-picked teams, custom software, and executive backing. The results dazzled on paper.

But when it came time to scale? Reality hit. People weren’t ready. Systems didn’t connect. Budgets dried up. The pilot became a cautionary tale, not a blueprint.

We’ve seen this before with Lean, Agile, even digital transformations. Now it’s happening again with AI, only this time, the stakes are different. Because we’re not just implementing a new solution, we’re building into a future that’s unfolding. Technology is evolving faster than most organizations can learn, govern, or adapt right now. That uncertainty doesn’t make transformation impossible, but it does make it easier to get wrong.

And the dysfunction is already showing up, just in two very different forms.

Two roads to the same cliff

Today, we see organizations falling into two extremes. Most companies are either overdoing the control or letting AI run wild.

Road 1: The free-for-all

Everyone’s experimenting. Product teams are building bots, prompting, using copilots. Finance is trying automated reporting. HR has a feedback chatbot in the works. Some experiments are exciting. Most are disconnected. There's no shared vision, no scaling pathway, and no learning across the enterprise. It’s innovation by coincidence.

Road 2: The forced march

Leadership declares an AI strategy. Use cases are approved centrally. Governance is tight. Risk is managed. But the result? An impressive PowerPoint, a sanctioned use case, and very little broad adoption. Innovation is constrained before it ever reaches the front lines.

Two very different environments. Same outcome: localized wins, system-wide inertia.

The real problem: Building for optics, not for scale

Whether you’re over-governing or under-coordinating, the root issue is the same: designing efforts that look good but aren’t built to scale.

Here’s the common pattern:

• A team builds something clever.
• It works in their context.
• Others try to adopt it.
• It doesn’t stick.
• Momentum dies. Energy scatters. Or worse, compliance says no.

Sound familiar?

It’s not that the ideas are flawed. It’s that they’re built in isolation with no plan for others to adopt, adapt, or scale them. There’s no mechanism for transfer, no feedback loops for iteration, and no connection to how people actually work across the organization.

So, what starts as a promising AI breakthrough (a smart bot, a helpful copilot, a detailed series of prompts, a slick automation) quietly runs out of road. It works for one team or solves one problem, but without a handoff or playbook, there’s no way for others to plug in. The system stays the same, and the promise of momentum fades, lost in the gap between what’s possible and what’s repeatable.

We’ve seen this before

These aren’t new problems. From BPR to Agile, we’ve learned (and re-learned) that:

• Experiments are not strategies. Experiments show potential, not readiness for adoption. Without a plan to scale, they become isolated wins; interesting, but not transformative.
• Culture is the operating system. If the beliefs, behaviors, and incentives underneath aren’t aligned, the system breaks, no matter how advanced the tools.
• Managers matter. Without their ownership and support, change stalls.
• Behavior beats code. Tools don’t transform companies. People do.

Design thinking promised to bridge this gap with user-driven iteration and empathy. But in practice? Most efforts skip the hard parts. We tinker, test, and move on, without ever building the conditions for adoption.

AI and the new architecture of work

Many organizations treat AI like an add-on—as if it’s something to bolt onto existing systems to boost efficiency. But AI isn’t just a project or a tool; it changes the rules of how decisions are made, how value is created, and what roles even exist. It’s an inflection point that forces companies to rethink how work gets done.

Companies making real progress aren’t just chasing use cases. They’re rethinking how their organizations operate, end to end. They’re asking:

• Have we prepared people to reimagine how they work with AI, not just how to use it?
• Are we redesigning workflows, decision rights, and interactions—not just layering new tech onto old routines?
• Do we know what success looks like when it’s scaled and sustained, not just when it dazzles?

If the answer is no, whether you’re too loose or too locked down, you’re not ready.

The mindset shift AI demands

AI isn’t just a tech rollout. It’s a mindset shift that asks leaders to reimagine how value gets created, how teams operate, and how people grow. But that reimagination isn’t about the tools. The tools will change—rapidly. It starts with new assumptions, new stances, and a new internal leader compass.

Here are three essential mindset shifts every leader must make, not just to keep up with AI but to stay relevant in a world being reshaped by it:

1. From automation to amplification

Old mindset: AI automates tasks and cuts costs.

New mindset: AI expands and amplifies human potential, enhancing our ability to think strategically, learn rapidly, and act boldly. The question isn’t what AI can do instead of us, but what it can do through us—helping people make better decisions, move faster, and focus on higher-value work.

2. From efficiency to reimagination

Old mindset: How can we use AI to make current processes more efficient?

New mindset: What would this process look like if we started from zero with AI as our co-creator, not a bolt-on?

3. From implementation to opportunity building

Old mindset: Roll out the tool. Train everybody. Check the box.

New mindset: AI fluency is a core human capability that creates new realms of curiosity, sophistication in judgment, and opportunity thinking. Soon, AI won’t be a one-time training. It will be part of how we define leadership, collaboration, and value creation.

From sparkles to scale

In most organizations, the spark isn’t the problem. Good ideas are everywhere. What’s missing is the ability to translate those isolated wins into something durable, repeatable, and enterprise-wide.

Too many pilots are built to impress, not to endure. They dazzle in one corner of the business but aren’t designed for others to adopt, adapt, or sustain. The result? Innovation that stays stuck in the lab—or dies.

Designing for scale means thinking beyond the “what” to the “how”:

• How will this spread?
• What behaviors and systems need to change?
• Can this live in our whole world, not just my sandbox?

It’s not about chasing the next use case. It’s about setting up the conditions that allow innovation to take root, grow, and multiply, without starting from scratch every time.

Here’s how to make that shift:

1. Test in the wild, not just in the lab

Skip the polished demo. Put your solution in the hands of real users, in real conditions, with all the friction that comes with it. Use messy data. Invite resistance. That’s where the insights live, and where scale begins. If it only works in ideal settings, it doesn’t work.

2. Mobilize managers

Executives sponsor. Front lines experiment. But it’s team leaders who connect and spread. Equip them as translators and expediters, not blockers. Every leader is a change leader.

3. Hardwire behaviors, not just tools

The biggest unlock in AI is not the model—it’s the muscle. Invest in shared language, habits, and peer learning that support new ways of working. Focus on developing behaviors that scale, such as:

• Change readiness: the ability to spot opportunity, turn obstacles into possibilities, and help teams pivot.
• Coaching: getting the best out of your AI “co-workers” just like human ones.
• Critical thinking: applying human judgment where it matters most—context, nuance, and ethics.

4. Align to a future-state vision

To scale beyond one-off wins, people need a shared sense of where they’re headed. A clear future-state vision acts as an enduring focus, allowing everyone to innovate in concert. That alignment doesn’t stifle innovation. It multiplies it, turning a thousand disconnected pilots into a coherent transformation.

5. Track adoption, not just “wins”

Don’t mistake a shiny, clever prompt for progress. A great experiment means nothing if it can’t be repeated by many people. From day one, design with scale in mind: Can this be adopted elsewhere? What would need to change for it to work across teams, roles, or regions? Build for transfer, not just applause.

The real opportunity

AI will not fail because the tech wasn’t good enough. It will fail because we mistook experiments for solutions, or because we governed innovation into paralysis.

You don’t need more control. You don’t need more chaos. You need design for scale, not just scale in hindsight.

Let’s stop chasing sparkles. Let’s build systems that spread.

Executive transitions are among the most critical moments in an organization’s lifecycle. When a leader steps into a new executive role, it impacts not only the strategic direction but also the organizational culture, stakeholder relationships, and overall business performance. If managed poorly, transitions can lead to disruptions such as loss of institutional knowledge, diminished team morale, and financial challenges.

The reality is that many executive transitions don’t go as planned. According to Harvard Business Review, 50% of new executives fail or leave within 18 months, potentially costing the organization up to ten times their salary. Additionally, Korn/Ferry reports that only 30% of global executives are satisfied with their onboarding process. These statistics underscore the need for a strategic approach to ensure successful leadership transitions.

Several years ago, I worked with the new CFO of a $6B division of a $40B manufacturing organization. She transitioned from corporate headquarters to a division, which had a markedly different culture. Her challenge was not only adjusting to a new environment. It meant embedding herself in an unfamiliar culture, building trust with her C-suite peers, and establishing herself as a strategic advisor to the CEO—all while leading a team uncertain about its future.

To further complicate the transition, the division was being acquired, and her team faced nine months of incredibly heavy work with no guarantee of securing future roles in the new organization. Despite these challenges, by receiving the right executive advisory transition support, she navigated the complexities, built trust quickly, and inspired her team to stay committed, even when the nine months turned into 18.

Executive transitions are pivotal moments for organizations. They require careful planning, clear communication, and focused support to ensure a smooth and successful transition. Below are four key considerations for senior leaders to manage transitions effectively and with confidence.

1. Understand the ecosystem: stakeholder mapping and engagement

As you step into this new role, understanding the organization’s ecosystem is one of the first and most crucial steps. Every organization has its own dynamics—how departments, teams, and individuals interact, how decisions are made, and where power and influence lie. It’s important to map out not only formal authority but also informal networks and relationships. This will help you navigate internal politics, align your strategies, and avoid potential pitfalls that could derail your efforts.

Stakeholders are key to your success—both in the short term and for the long-term execution of your vision. Their support can unlock resources, enable smoother decision-making, and lead to faster buy-in. However, if you don’t identify and understand key stakeholders early on, you risk spending valuable time and energy in the wrong areas or missing out on insights that could shape your strategy.

I recently advised a new SVP of R&D for a $50B pharmaceutical company who was transitioning into this role from academia. We’ll call him Nate. One of his first areas of focus was understanding and connecting with key stakeholders in this highly matrixed organization around the world. Nate formed relationships, sought to understand their roles and areas of expertise, and learned what was important to them. This enabled him to speed up what is often a daunting transition and quickly become embedded in the business.

Navigating the ecosystem can be tricky, especially when not all stakeholders are immediately visible. Some people may wield significant influence without holding formal authority, while others may be new to the organization or going through their own transitions, which could affect their willingness to support yours.

Executive ecosystem checklist:

• Identify key stakeholders: Identify both formal and informal influencers. Understand their roles, influence, and how their priorities align with yours.
• Conduct listening tours: Engage stakeholders through one-on-one conversations. Listening to their concerns, needs, and aspirations will give you a broader view of the challenges and opportunities ahead.
• Understand motivation and metrics: Recognize what each stakeholder needs to achieve and how they measure success. This understanding will help you align goals and collaborate effectively.
• Build relationships early: Establish trust by engaging with key stakeholders from the start. Understanding their perspectives and setting the foundation for collaboration is essential for a smooth transition.

2. Communicate a compelling vision: aligning and inspiring your team

In your new role, one of the first things you’ll need to do is communicate a clear and compelling vision. This vision should not only align with the organization’s broader goals but also provide your team with a clear direction. As a senior leader, your ability to communicate this vision effectively will be pivotal to driving alignment and motivating those around you.

It’s about more than just outlining a plan—it’s about inspiring action. Crafting a vision that resonates with your team and stakeholders gives them a sense of purpose and direction, especially during a time of uncertainty. Your communication needs to go beyond clarity; it must be compelling and motivating. The clearer and more inspiring you can be, the more quickly you’ll build the trust and commitment necessary to lead your team forward.

Nate communicated his vision with passion and energy that inspired others. He also showed genuine curiosity and care for the organization and people within it, so they wanted to buy into his inspiring vision and deliver on it.

Executive vision checklist:

• Align with organizational goals: Ensure your vision is aligned with the strategic objectives of the organization. This alignment ensures that you and your team are working toward shared long-term goals.
• Communicate clearly: Convey your vision in a way that resonates with your team and stakeholders. Use your communication skills to inspire confidence, trust, and action.
• Inspire and motivate: Use your vision not just as a roadmap but as a source of motivation. Help your team see their role in achieving broader goals, making the work meaningful and engaging.

3. Develop a strong strategic plan: laying the foundation for long-term success

A strong strategic plan to guide your transition and ramp up your impact is essential as you step into your new leadership role. This plan should outline your immediate goals, long-term objectives, and key milestones to mark progress and success. It’s important to approach planning with an understanding of the organization’s broader strategy and how your goals align with it. While your experience gives you strategic insight, remember that flexibility is key. Transitions come with uncertainty, so your plan should adapt to evolving challenges.

As you lead through change, creating a clear roadmap helps you set expectations and provide clarity for your team. At the same time, no plan is without risk. Identifying potential challenges and understanding how to manage them proactively will set your organization up for success in both the short and long term.

Nate sparked bold, future-focused thinking on his team while communicating long-term strategic priorities related to wise investment and growth. He advocated for impactful portfolio investments while engaging in open dialogue to ensure his team contributed meaningfully to, and owned, the strategy.

Executive strategy checklist:

• Set clear success objectives: Define what success looks like in the first 6–12 months. Engage your leadership team in setting achievable goals that align with the broader strategy.
• Identify potential barriers: Recognize challenges such as misalignment or lack of support and create contingency plans to navigate them.
• Develop a flexible roadmap: Create a strategy that balances structure with flexibility. Build in checkpoints to reassess and adjust as needed.

4. Evaluate, build, and engage the team: ensuring alignment and high performance

As you settle into your new role, evaluating and aligning your team is critical. Assess whether the team structure is equipped to execute your strategic plan. Do you have the right people in the right positions? Are there gaps or development opportunities? Building a high-performing team isn’t just about filling positions—it’s about fostering collaboration, psychological safety, and shared ownership of your vision.

Nate quickly built trust through openness, thoughtfulness, and respect while encouraging collaborative thinking and cross-functional idea sharing. As a result, his team was positioned to lead significant initiatives that will positively affect the future of the business.

Executive team checklist:

• Evaluate and align the team: Assess your team’s structure and capabilities against strategic goals to ensure the right people are in the right roles. Identify development areas and align efforts.
• Foster a culture of collaboration: Create an environment where open communication and constructive conflict are encouraged. This enables better decisions and teamwork.
• Invest in building a high-performing team: Continuously develop your team’s skills and collaboration to ensure alignment with your broader strategic goals.

Set the stage for true transformation

Stepping into a new executive role is more than a leadership shift—it’s a pivotal moment for both you and the organization. The challenges are significant, and the stakes are high, but this transition also offers a powerful opportunity to shape the future. The actions you take early on establish your credibility and influence, setting the tone for your leadership from day one.

How you navigate these early challenges will define both your immediate success and your long-term legacy. This transition isn’t just about managing change—it’s about actively shaping it. By embracing a structured, strategic approach, you can turn uncertainty into a clear roadmap for growth and transformation.

The more you invest in understanding the organizational ecosystem, building your team, and aligning your vision, the better equipped you’ll be to lead with confidence, inspire loyalty, and drive the organization forward.

Ultimately, this transition is not just a phase to endure—it’s a defining moment that can elevate the organization and set the stage for sustained success. Make it count.

In times of major organizational change, structure alone doesn’t guarantee success.

The difference-maker is leadership—leadership that takes into account the uncertainty, the lack of clarity, and the need to engage and support your teams in new ways and propels the organization forward.

Our research and work with organizations undergoing complex transformations has underscored the fact that leadership before, during, and after reorganization requires careful attention to how you react and show up to others. It means doubling down on showing up with clarity when roles are undefined; building trust while systems are still forming; and translating structural blueprints into real-world behavior.

Through each phase, one theme remains constant: thriving in transformation isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about how you lead in the fog, under pressure, and beyond the launch. The leaders who do this well don’t just survive change—they shape and define what comes next.

Today, change isn’t just constant—it’s compounding.

AI is reshaping roles. Supply chains remain volatile. Customer expectations evolve faster than annual planning cycles can keep up. In this context, a strategy that looks great on paper often falls apart in practice. Imagine a team, for instance, who spent months crafting a detailed strategy—every milestone mapped, every risk assessed. But when conditions shifted, their well-laid plan quickly felt more like a burden than a beacon. Sound familiar?

This is a reality many organizations face. The traditional top-down approach to strategy, where a select few create the plan and hand it down, is cracking under the pressure of a faster, more complex world. Organizations need a strategy that’s dynamic, resilient, and, most importantly, actionable by everyone. To make this a reality, today’s leaders must bring strategy to life through a more inclusive, flexible model that empowers teams to contribute and adapt in real time.

In this new approach, strategic planning is about more than a set of priorities and goals—it’s about creating a two-way dialogue with people across the organization, building a culture of ownership, and embedding adaptability at every level. Here’s how to reinvent strategy in a way that turns it from an isolated exercise into a collective movement, creating a fast track to impact and ownership.

Create feedback loops closer to the customer

In conventional strategy sessions, plans are often crafted behind closed doors, only to be revealed once they’re fully formed. This approach may feel efficient, but it leaves out insights from those closest to the work—and to customers. Without input from these critical perspectives, strategies risk being disconnected from the realities on the ground.

This doesn’t mean handing over the strategy process to every employee or crowd-sourcing big decisions. Leaders still set the direction. The key is being intentional about when and where employee input will sharpen the strategy. Rather than starting with a blank slate, offer specific, targeted opportunities for feedback—especially from those on the front lines.

From: Senior leaders make the strategy and inform employees of the plan

To: Employees are engaged at critical moments early in the strategy planning process

An example: A SaaS company set an ambitious goal to double in size within three years—but early alignment was missing. Leaders were energized by big ideas but lacked a shared direction. To clarify the path forward, they created a set of strategic alternatives rooted in a clear purpose. Rather than relying solely on executive input, they brought in next-level leaders to pressure test early ideas and offer real-world feedback. These leaders piloted key parts of the strategy in their markets and then offered insights from their experiences that helped sharpen the long-term strategy. By intentionally involving the right people at the right moments, the organization gained clarity faster—and built stronger alignment early on.

By building feedback loops at the right moments, you can:

• Capture frontline insights that executives may not see, enriching the strategy.
• Generate early buy-in by giving employees a voice in shaping the “how” of the strategy where they are better positioned to know what will work.
• Align daily work with strategic goals by allowing employees to test the strategy and spot where it will work—and where it won’t.
• Create an environment where teams feel empowered to surface new insights and adapt.

A participatory approach at the right times along the strategy process doesn’t just inform the strategy—it makes it stronger and more grounded in real challenges, empowering employees to shape an outcome that feels both ambitious and achievable.

Cultivating ownership at every level

Even the best strategy is only as effective as the people who execute it. Ownership at all levels is essential to driving speed and adaptability, but it doesn’t happen by accident. When employees have clarity on how the strategy aligns to their individual roles and on the decisions they can own, they feel empowered and motivated to contribute to its success. This sense of ownership fosters a nimble, resilient organization.

By building purpose and clarity into every level of the plan, leaders can:

• Empower informed decisions at the right level that support company goals.
• Create momentum by showing employees their impact early on.
• Encourage continuous learning and adaptability anchored in the customer and market.
• Shift from static planning to an iterative, progress-driven mindset.

When employees see how their roles connect to larger goals and feel like they have the authority to make decisions, they are more willing—and prepared—to take ownership. This alignment, combined with a focus on purpose, drives momentum even in a shifting landscape.

From: Strategy execution is top-down, with decisions held at the leadership level.

To: Employees at all levels have clarity on how their roles connect to the strategy and where they can make decisions, fostering ownership and speed.

An example: One global healthcare company, having grown rapidly through acquisition, struggled with a fractured strategy—each business unit pulling in a different direction. Their turning point came not from a better plan, but from a unifying purpose. By helping teams see how they fit into a bigger vision, people could start seeing themselves in the future of the company. This shared purpose became a powerful driver of ownership—especially when disruption hit. When a major supply chain issue emerged just months later, teams didn’t splinter. Instead, they used that shared purpose as a compass, identifying new ways to deliver value and keep momentum going.

Align strategy and culture

All too often, strategy and culture are treated as separate domains. Yet, no matter how robust your strategic plan, it can only succeed if it aligns with the organization’s cultural norms and ways of working. For example, adopting a more agile operating model might mean shifting the culture toward quicker decision-making and cross-functional teamwork.

To create alignment between strategy and culture, leaders should:

• Identify key behaviors and ways of working that support strategic objectives—and those that are getting in the way.
• Focus on how these behaviors show up in everyday actions and decisions, and start making small shifts that reinforce what’s needed to execute the strategy.
• Experiment and iterate, and as you see success, formalize new ways of working.

When strategy and culture move in harmony, they generate powerful momentum. Strategy becomes part of the organization’s DNA, reinforcing behaviors that propel the company toward its goals.

From: Strategy and culture are treated as separate priorities.

To: Strategy and culture are intentionally aligned, with behaviors, ways of working, and decision-making reinforcing strategic goals.

An example: A company formed through a series of acquisitions faced a challenge: culture fragmentation. With each acquired unit operating by its own norms, there was no shared way of working—and no clear basis for making strategic tradeoffs. Before any strategy could take hold, leadership recognized that the organization needed a common foundation. The breakthrough wasn’t a new plan, but a cultural one: reconnecting people to why they were part of the same company and what future they were building together.

By identifying consistent ways of working across teams and aligning on a shared purpose, they built the cultural scaffolding needed to execute strategy effectively. When external conditions changed, teams responded not with confusion, but with cohesion. Cultural alignment became the engine that made adaptive strategy possible.

Build in flexibility and adaptability

Even the best strategies need room to flex. But too often, organizations treat adaptability as an exception—something reactive, triggered only when disruption hits.

In a world where the conditions you plan for rarely match the ones you execute in, flexibility can’t be an afterthought—it must be a built-in feature of how strategy takes shape and stays alive.

The problem? Most strategy processes are built for control, not change. They prioritize precision over learning, timelines over feedback, and reporting over reflection. The result: strategies that look solid on paper but crack under real-world pressure.

Everyone talks about agility. It’s become a fixture in executive keynotes and strategy decks. But what’s often missing is the how—the operating system that actually enables teams to move quickly and stay aligned when conditions shift.

To build that system, leaders need to rethink not just their planning cadences, but the behaviors, structures, and decision-making norms that shape how strategy is executed day to day.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Empower teams to surface real-time insights and propose tactical shifts—so strategy stays grounded in frontline reality.
• Support rapid adjustments without losing strategic direction—aligning short-term moves with long-term outcomes.
• Strengthen leaders’ resilience and decision-making under pressure—so they can lead through ambiguity without stalling progress.
• Establish structured feedback loops and clear decision rights—so teams know when to escalate, when to adjust, and when to act.

These shifts aren’t abstract ideals—they’re already reshaping how leading organizations approach strategy execution. One global logistics company, facing rapid expansion and constant external pressure—from shifting customer expectations to volatile supply chains—recognized that reacting faster wasn’t enough. They needed to design for adaptability from the start.

Instead of relying on rigid quarterly plans, they implemented a 30-, 60-, and 90-day strategy rhythm. These weren’t status updates—they were structured checkpoints designed to challenge assumptions, surface real-time insights, and recalibrate execution before small issues became big ones.

So, when disruption came—as it inevitably does—the teams didn’t freeze or fall behind. They flexed with purpose and kept moving, not because they had all the answers, but because they were built to shift. Adaptability wasn’t a reaction—it was how the organization worked, by design.

A new era of strategic planning

Strategic planning today isn’t about crafting the “perfect” plan—it’s about building the capability to learn, adapt, and align at scale. What’s different now? Disruption is no longer episodic—it’s constant, compounding, and often coming from directions leaders didn’t anticipate. AI is rewriting roles. Markets move overnight. And decision-making is no longer confined to the top—it’s distributed across teams, functions, and geographies.

In this environment, traditional planning cycles collapse under pressure. The organizations that thrive won’t be the ones with the most polished strategy deck—they’ll be the ones with the strongest strategic muscles: the ability to sense, shift, and stay aligned in real time.

By replacing rigid plans with dynamic systems, leaders can activate strategy as a living, participatory process—shaped by insight from every level, reinforced through culture, and tested through execution.

Because in a world that won’t wait, the real advantage isn’t having the right answers upfront—it’s building an organization that knows how to respond when the questions change.

In a world where transformation often feels complex and distant, real progress is often sparked at the community level, through leaders who create change from within.

In Senegal, a partnership between BTS Spark and Tostan, a nonprofit dedicated to community-led development across Africa, is bringing this idea to life. It’s a reminder that sustainable leadership isn’t built by imposing new systems. It grows when people are equipped to lead themselves.

A ground-up approach to lasting change

Since 1991, Tostan—whose name means "breakthrough" in Wolof—has partnered with rural African communities to advance human rights, health, literacy, and economic development. Its Community Empowerment Program (CEP) weaves together practical knowledge and human rights education, enabling communities to define and pursue their own visions of progress.

Across eight countries and more than five million lives, Tostan’s approach has led to deep-rooted changes, including the voluntary abandonment of harmful traditional practices. Not by directive, but by choice.

It’s an approach that shows leadership capacity isn’t something to be delivered from outside. It’s something to be nurtured from within.

Meeting communities where they are

In 2024, BTS Spark deepened its collaboration with Tostan through an in-person leadership workshop, led by a BTS Spark consultant, following a year of virtual engagement.

The visit coincided with a leadership transition at the executive level—a pivotal moment requiring clarity, continuity, and resilience. Through targeted coaching and workshops, BTS Spark worked alongside Tostan’s leaders to support the transition and strengthen leadership capacity at every level of the organization.

The focus wasn’t on delivering a model. It was on listening, amplifying existing strengths, and equipping leaders to navigate complexity with confidence.

Practical tools for complex challenges

As part of the ongoing collaboration, BTS Spark also provided custom-designed micro-simulations focused on sectors vital to community sustainability: climate resilience, microfinance, and agriculture.

These micro-sims offer leaders a chance to engage with real-world decision-making challenges in a safe, practical environment—an approach that mirrors how leadership development increasingly happens: not through theory alone, but through repeated, real-world application.

It’s a reminder that growth is rarely linear. It’s built through practice, reflection, and adaptation over time.

Building leadership that endures

The work between BTS Spark and Tostan reflects a broader truth:

Leadership isn’t confined to titles, industries, or regions. It emerges where people are given the tools, trust, and space to act.

Sustainable change, whether in communities or organizations, happens when leadership capacity is strengthened closest to where challenges are lived every day.

The partnership also highlights the power of investing in local capability: focusing on what’s already working, building resilience from within, and preparing leaders not just to meet today’s challenges, but to shape tomorrow’s opportunities.

Moving forward: Scaling with purpose

The work in Senegal is continuing to evolve. BTS Spark and Tostan are exploring ways to extend leadership development to more communities, deepen their impact, and continue supporting transformation through shared expertise and partnership.

It’s a model rooted in respect, collaboration, and the belief that leadership is most powerful when it reflects the realities and aspirations of the people closest to the work.

AI is reshaping how work gets done—automating tasks, accelerating decisions, and raising expectations for speed and precision. Strategy is shifting faster than structures can adapt, leaving many leaders operating in systems that weren’t built for what’s being asked of them now. Employees are asking more of their managers—while the business is asking more of them, too. And leaders are stuck navigating it all with development priorities, operating norms, and support systems that weren’t designed for this level of speed, ambiguity, or stretch.

As expectations rise, leadership capability is under scrutiny.

But are development efforts evolving fast enough to meet the moment?

Where priorities and expectations diverge

Most leadership development programs today emphasize foundational strengths:

• Executive presence
• Personal purpose
• A growth mindset
• Empowering others
• Stretching others

In contrast, senior executives in the BTS study identified a different set of capabilities as most critical for leaders right now:

• Accountability
• Transparency
• Enterprise thinking
• Divergent thinking

The contrast reveals a disconnect between what development programs are building—and what executives believe their organizations need most from their leaders today.

How did we get here?

The expectations placed on leaders—especially at the middle—have always evolved alongside the business landscape.

In the 1990s, leadership development focused on emotional intelligence and team empowerment. The 2000s brought globalization and lean operating models, with a sharper focus on efficiency and agility. Then came digital transformation, agile ways of working, and flatter, more matrixed structures.

Each wave expanded the leadership mandate—asking leaders to become connectors, coaches, and change agents.

What’s different now is the pace and proximity of change. Strategy no longer shifts annually—it flexes monthly. And mid-level leaders are no longer simply executing someone else’s vision. They’re expected to interpret it, shape it, and deliver results through others—in real time.

At the same time, the psychological contract of work has changed. Employees want more meaning, flexibility, and support—and they often look to their managers to provide it. Add in the rise of AI and the frequency of disruption, and the expectations placed on leaders have outpaced what many development efforts were designed to support.

What’s driving the disconnect?

What we’re seeing isn’t disagreement—it’s a difference in vantage point, shaped by the distinct challenges each group is solving for. This isn’t about misaligned intent—it reflects different priorities and pressures.

Talent and learning teams often prioritize foundational capabilities because they’re proven, scalable, and critical to developing confident, human-centered leaders. These programs are designed to grow potential over time.

Executives, meanwhile, are focused on the immediacy of execution—strategy under strain, shifting priorities, and the need for alignment at speed. Their focus reflects where progress is stalling now.

Both perspectives matter. But when they remain disconnected, development risks falling out of sync with business reality—and the gap is most visible at the middle, where expectations are rising fastest.

What’s the takeaway for talent leaders now?

This moment offers more than a gap to close—it offers insight into how leadership needs are evolving.

What if the differences between these two capability lists aren’t in conflict, but in sequence? Foundational strengths help leaders show up with purpose and empathy. Enterprise capabilities help them lead across systems and ambiguity. The opportunity isn’t to choose between them—it’s to connect them more intentionally.

What’s uniquely now is the acceleration. The stretch. The pressure to reduce friction and support faster alignment. Talent leaders aren’t just being asked to build capability—they’re being asked to build momentum. That means designing development experiences that reflect complexity, enable cross-functional thinking, and help leaders decide and adapt in real time.

It also means listening more closely. The capabilities executives are calling for aren’t just wish lists—they’re signals. Signals of where transformation slows, and where leadership must evolve for strategy to move forward.

This isn’t about shifting away from what works—it’s about expanding it. To connect what leaders already do well with what the business needs next—and to do it in ways that are grounded, human, and built for today’s pace.

Shifting momentum

Leadership development isn’t just a pipeline priority. It’s a strategic lever for how your organization adapts, aligns, and accelerates through change.

This research doesn’t just reveal a skills gap—it surfaces a systems opportunity. The disconnect between talent priorities and executive expectations highlights where momentum gets lost, and how leadership development can close the space between vision and execution.

Talent leaders are uniquely positioned to reconnect the dots—between individual growth and enterprise outcomes, between what leaders learn and how they lead, between what the business says it needs and how that shows up in behavior.

So the next question isn’t just: What should we build?

It’s: How do we enable leaders to build it into the business—faster?

Every organization is navigating this differently. If you’re revisiting your development priorities or rethinking what leadership looks like in your context, let’s connect. We’re happy to share what we’re seeing—and learning—with others facing the same questions.

At a large nonprofit, the team’s schedules were packed—weekly staff meetings were one of the few times they could connect and align on big priorities. Having just gotten Board approval of an ambitious strategic plan, the leadership team saw this as a high-leverage moment and made bold changes to improve the structure: clear purposes, defined outcomes, and assigned ownership.

But after a high-stakes budget conversation fell flat, it became clear that structure wasn’t enough. The behavior in the room—who spoke, who listened, how decisions were made—mattered just as much.

Every habit embedded in the nonprofit’s culture—good and bad—was showing up somewhere in their meetings. Rather than ignore it, the team used it. They turned meetings into a mirror (and a tool) for culture change.

This is the third post in our Meetings as Culture series. Part 1 explores how meetings reflect your organization’s culture. Part 2 offers practical solutions to five common meeting pitfalls. Now, in Part 3, we focus on the five individual and team behaviors that drive lasting culture change—one meeting at a time.

Meetings as the crucible of culture 

Meetings are where your company culture plays out in real time—where it’s tested, transformed, and forged under pressure. The more senior you are, the more meetings you attend. Your behavior in these meetings—whether you’re leading or participating—affects the culture of your organization. Each company has a unique approach to meetings that reflects their culture.  

At BTS, we believe meetings are more than just structures—they’re part of your organization’s social fabric. The way people interact, pay attention, and respect each other’s time in meetings reflects your company’s values and mindsets. In short, a single meeting is the culture in concentrated form.

As simple as it sounds, there are five fundamental meeting behaviors:

1. Listening

2. Participating

3. Efficiency

4. Accountability

5. Focus

These five meeting behaviors – defined in observable terms to ‘see’ what works - can be developed by individuals, teams, and organizations to transform your meeting culture. Individual behavior informs team dynamics, which aggregate to become organizational behaviors. To shift your culture, you need to progressively develop meeting behaviors with individuals, teams, and the organization.

Develop the five meeting behaviors—as individuals, teams, and organizations

Start by looking in the mirror. Individuals have a major impact on meeting productivity and inclusiveness. It starts with you—your actions shape the meeting environment, whether you are leading it or not.  

Considering your last meeting, ask yourself: How many times did I reschedule this meeting? Was I on time? How well did I listen? Did I ask questions for clarity, or did I talk over others? Did I come to the meeting having done what I said I would do? Did I leave knowing and committing aloud what I will do next? The fixes are all simple, but not always easy.

• Quick tip: A BTS client aiming to improve their meetings found that reminding individuals of the power of asking more probing questions helped foster better listening, which helped with their strategic goal of building a culture of stronger collaboration. A probing question is one that opens up the conversation, clarifies the discussion for everyone, and increases ideas generation.  

Once individuals are aware of and start improving their behaviors, look at how the team works. Here, you will start to notice that individual behaviors seep into team patterns: Are the same voices always leading the conversation? Does everyone feel free to speak up? Do we reward diverse perspectives and debate? How many conversations do we have at the same time? Do the triggers that often derail us have discernable tells?

• Quick tip: Consider how you allocate time during meetings. One team made a rule to save the last five minutes of any important topic for quieter members to speak, sending a strong message: everyone’s voice matters. It’s often easier to change meeting structures (like the agenda) than it is to change behaviors. So, use structures to support the team behaviors you want.

Cumulatively, meetings have a huge organizational impact. If you look closely, you can see how meetings reflect and shape company-wide cultural values. Are your meetings aligned with the strategic priorities of the business and the values you want to see across the organization?

• Quick tip: When the meeting invite and materials you send in advance overtly connect the meeting’s purpose and outcomes to broader business goals, people are more aligned and productive. As a side benefit, people should question any meeting that cannot be tied to a broader business goal—it is the litmus test of a meeting agenda.  

Assess your meeting effectiveness  

If you’re not paying attention to how you and your team behave during meetings, you won’t have a sense of how effective your meetings are, and they won’t improve.  

At the nonprofit in our earlier example, leaders tracked their progress with a simple anonymous post-meeting poll. After each meeting, participants gave a thumbs up if the meeting hit the five fundamental observable behaviors or a thumbs down if it didn’t. This quick feedback helped them stay on track.  

Reflect on your most recent meeting using the framework below.

How to do it:

Start with assessing your most recent meeting at Level 1 in the list below. If you can’t answer “yes” to the fundamental meeting behaviors at Level 1, then this is an area to practice intentionally next meeting. To level up to Level 2 and 3, answer “yes” for all five meeting behaviors for three meetings in a row (to ensure it’s not a fluke).

Level 1

Listening: Did we have ‘one conversation’?

Participating: Did everyone stay present – no multi-tasking or checking out?

Efficiency: Did we begin and end on time?

Accountability: Were all the action items clear and claimed?

Focus: Did we stay on topic for each agenda item?

Put it into practice

At the nonprofit, assessing meeting behaviors over time led to better individual behaviors, stronger team results, and a shift in the way staff meetings contributed to the mission. As old behaviors that previously dominated or derailed staff meetings declined, the meetings became an even more valuable time for organization-wide connections and storytelling. This approach and discipline to meetings was adopted by the individual leaders’ meetings. Meetings all around the organization improved. While getting there took longer than predicted, the shifts lasted, and the organization’s outcomes improved. People began to expect good meetings that were productive and contributed to action and success.  

Meetings are more than just a tool for getting things done—they’re a powerful reflection of a microcosm of your organization’s culture. When approached with intention, they can drive behavior change, foster collaboration, and align teams with strategic goals. Simply by developing five fundamental behaviors, the way you and your teams show up in meetings can transform how your company works together and accelerates progress. Ultimately, meetings are where culture is built, one conversation at a time.  

Once a reorganization goes live, leaders are no longer waiting. They are in it. The organization is looking for rapid signs of momentum. Executives are being asked to make calls quickly, show decisive leadership, and validate that the new model is working.

But in reality, most leaders are still figuring out their new context. Teams are re-forming. Work is being uncovered. And no one yet has full visibility into how everything fits together.

This is the tension of the early days. The pressure to move fast and deliver results collides with the reality that long-term, scalable success depends on something slower—defining roles, building trust, establishing connection, and understanding what is really going on.

The reality: You’re expected to perform in a system you’re still learning

Your new role may be official, but the environment around you is still unstable. You might be leading a team you have never met, working in a part of the business that is new to you, and trying to navigate decisions with incomplete information.

Meanwhile, others are looking to you for answers and there is no time to reflect and analyze the right path forward. Here are steps that will help you achieve this balance and create impact for yourself and your teams quickly, while staying on course.

Five things great leaders do during the transition

1. Balance decisiveness with discovery The instinct is to prove yourself by acting quickly. But decisive leadership is not about speed alone. Take these steps to check your actions:
   • Make informed decisions with short-term relevance while signaling you’re still learning the broader system. Ask questions and show curiosity.
   • Be transparent about what you do and don’t yet know, and ask your team to help close the gaps.
2. Establish connection before authority There’s often a quiet fear: “If I don’t assert control early, I’ll lose credibility.” Trust is built by showing interest, not just issuing direction. Now’s the time to:
   • Start by listening. Ask thoughtful, open-ended questions. Seek clarification and insights.
   • Assume the team knows things you don’t and is closer to the work than you are.
   • Learn how the team functions before trying to improve it.
3. Expect the unexpected—and normalize it Every reorganization brings surprises. Legacy work emerges. Assumptions break. Systems misfire. Communications blur. Dial up your composure:
   • Stay calm and curious. Your reaction shapes how others respond.
   • Resist the urge to assign blame or fix everything. Learn from what surfaces.
4. Lead with questions, not just answers In the thick of transition, the questions you ask can influence outcomes more than commands:
   • Use a few consistent questions that signal what matters to you and encourage deeper thinking.
   • Genuinely ask for input—you’ll build credibility and sharpen your own decisions.
5. Be steady in the chaos Many organizations equate competence with rapid action and displays of command. During disruption, consistency of presence is your greatest asset:
   • Show up predictably, especially when conditions are unpredictable.
   • Make it clear your priority is helping the team succeed, not showcasing your own capability.

Four common transition pitfalls to avoid

Pitfall #1: Moving fast without understanding the system you’re operating in. Context is key. Don’t trade speed for comprehension.

Pitfall #2: Defaulting to past experience that doesn’t match the new context. What served you before won’t necessarily serve you now. Lead differently.

Pitfall #3: Trying to “look strong” instead of building the strength of the team. Heroics sap energy and undermine collective performance.

Pitfall #4: Assuming trust will come later—it starts now. If you wait to build trust, it will be too late. Now’s the time to lean into that foundation.

Key takeaways

• In the first 30 days, balance the urgency to act with the discipline to listen.
• Trust is not a soft skill—it’s the foundation for sustainable performance.
• The way you show up now will be remembered long after the reorganization dust settles.

Call to action: In the transition

If you are in the early days of a new leadership role post-reorg, ask yourself: “Am I earning the trust that will let me lead through what’s next, not just what’s now?”

If you want a downloadable version of this series, click here to get the whitepaper.

This is part of a 3-part series. Be sure to read the other two: Part 1: What great leaders do before the change and Part 3: What great leaders do after the change.

The reorganization is complete. The structure is in place, job titles are assigned, and reporting lines are formalized. From the outside, it may look like the change is over.

But this is where the real work begins.

At this stage, teams are no longer navigating ambiguity about where they sit. Now, they are trying to figure out how to operate in a new system. This is the phase where leaders must move from concept to execution, turning design decisions into daily reality.

The reality: The structure is set, but the work is just beginning

You now have clarity on roles and reporting, but that does not mean people know how to work together. Expectations are still being defined, cross-functional collaboration is still forming, and pressure to deliver results is growing. Your teams are worried about ensuring their own success as well as that of the organization.

The mistake many leaders make is to assume the structure will carry itself. But an operating model is only as effective as the behaviors it enables and the decisions it guides. This is where leadership matters most.

Four things great leaders do after the reorganization

1. Commit to making the model real This means going beyond knowing what the new structure looks like. You must understand why it was designed and how it is meant to function. Your ability to help your teams thrive in the new organization rests on being able to live the new model yourself. Consider these steps:
   • Revisit the intent behind the operating model. What problems was it built to solve?
   • Use that intent to guide how you set priorities, coordinate with peers, and shape decisions.
   • Treat the structure as a framework, not a finished product. It gives shape to the work, but it does not dictate how the work gets done. This is where you and your teams come
2. Adapt the “how” while staying anchored to the “why” Things will not unfold exactly as planned. That doesn’t mean the plan is wrong—it means reality is offering new input. Your adaptability as a leader to keep the focus while incorporating information as you go is key to your success—and your team’s. Now’s the time to:
   • Refine how work happens without losing sight of what you are trying to achieve.
   • Be disciplined in your purpose, flexible in your methods.
   • Keep it balanced. Resist both rigid adherence and constant reinvent
3. Practice detachment and purposeful ownership You are not here to protect a system. You are here to make it work. It’s easy to get swept up in the emotions of a new environment. Now is the time to keep those emotions in check and focus on the end game: leading toward the vision for the new organization.
   • Stay focused on outcomes. Take ownership for how your team contributes to the bigger picture.
   • When something fails, do not personalize it. Use it as input. The best leaders treat operating models as living systems, not fixed mandates.
4. Make inclusion intentional and strategic Including others in shaping the work is not about being agreeable. It is about unlocking the full capability of the organization. People get behind new ways of working when they have helped to shape them. Your role is to make sure this happens effectively and with purpose:
   • Be specific about who you bring into decision-making and why. Inclusion must serve the work, not dilute it.
   • Avoid informal circles of influence that leave others confused or sidelined. This quickly erodes trust and engagement.
   • Done well, inclusion increases clarity, alignment, and speed. Ignored, it creates drag and disconnection.

Four common post-change pitfalls to avoid

Pitfall #1: Assuming that the operating model will work automatically. It’s never “build it and they will come.” Acknowledge up front that making it work is the real work.

Pitfall #2: Abandoning the design too early instead of learning through it. It’s tempting to revert to the old way when resistance appears. Treat resistance as information and stay the course.

Pitfall #3: Overcorrecting at the first sign of friction. Especially in harmony-seeking cultures, quick overreactions create more uncertainty and make it harder to move to the new vision.

Pitfall #4: Making inclusion broad and vague rather than targeted and purposeful. Trying to give everyone a voice in everything leaves no one feeling heard. Get the right voices on the right decisions at the right time.

Key takeaways

• The operating model is not the solution. It is the starting point.
• Leadership after the reorganization means interpreting and adapting the model in service of outcomes.
• Inclusion is a strategic behavior that drives performance when applied with intent and discipline.

Call to action: Post-reorganization

If you are leading after a transformation, ask yourself: “Am I helping this model function as intended, or am I assuming that structure equals success?”

If you want a downloadable version of this series, click here to get the whitepaper.

This is part of a 3-part series. Be sure to read the other two: Part 1: What great leaders do before the change and Part 2: What great leaders do during the change.

In today’s climate of continuous transformation, especially across manufacturing and engineering, many organizations are launching new operating models while managing significant workforce reductions. The weeks before “go live” are often the most ambiguous, yet they carry disproportionate weight in shaping how people interpret and engage with the change.

In this early stage, leadership presence sends strong signals. What executives say, how they show up, and the questions they ask all begin to shape the culture of the new organization. The challenge is that because so much is uncertain at this stage, the signals you send can get mixed up, exacerbating the problem of your team’s engagement and focus.

The reality: You’re leading before the structure is ready

This period before the reorganization goes live means leading in an abyss, before the new structure and roles are clearly defined and announced.

At this stage, your future as a leader is still in flux:

• Some leaders know their new roles but not their teams or decision rights.
• Others are being pulled into decisions for parts of the business they do not yet fully own.
• Some still do not know if or where they fit in the new organization.
• And yet all have to act.

This creates a leadership paradox. You are expected to influence outcomes in a space where your authority is informal, your team is undefined, and your context is incomplete. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to move forward successfully.

Four things great leaders do to navigate pre-organization

1. Prioritize the play-by-play, not the organizational chart

When formal clarity is missing, do not wait. Focus on how to work together in the moment, and take these steps:

• Treat major tasks or decisions like individual plays. Huddle up, assign roles based on strengths, and move forward.
• Recognize that progress comes from coordinated actions, not from waiting for the full design to finalize. Keep the focus on making smaller moves, together.

2. Resist solving for the whole system

As you press forward, you will notice inefficiencies and gaps. You will feel pressure to fix everything. Pause and remember:

• Now is not the time for sweeping changes. You do not yet have the full information.
• Stay focused on solving the immediate problem while keeping broader implications in view. Make notes you can come back to later when you know more.

3. Be aware of the shadow you cast

In times of uncertainty, your influence is amplified. Even casual comments you make can set unintended actions in motion. As you communicate to your team, use this as a guide:

• Assume everything you say will be interpreted as direction; be intentional about what you ask people to do.
• Speak with intention, even when you are still forming your own understanding.

4. Make decisions that can be revisited

Remember that most early decisions will not—and should not—be irreversible. Focus on keeping things moving, not setting the future in stone. As your guide:

• Make smart calls that can be adjusted as new information emerges.
• Aim for progress and learning, not permanence.

Three common early-stage pitfalls to avoid

Pitfall #1: Trying to fix everything at once. This fragments your focus and is impossible to achieve, while creating the risk that you will miss important smaller wins and solutions that will propel the team more successfully forward.

Pitfall #2: Applying past playbooks too quickly. What has worked before does not always work in a new and different environment. Jumping too quickly to past approaches can blind you to quick pivots you need to make now, and bring your team off course along with you.

Pitfall #3: Waiting for certainty. By nature of the “pre-reorg” fog, certainty is not going to come anytime soon. And important work still needs to get done. Getting stymied by awaiting big decisions and key direction will leave you and your teams far behind.

Key takeaways

• The “before” period is not a holding pattern. It is a critical window to shape tone, relationships, and ways of working.
• Curiosity, not control, earns early trust.
• The habits you form now will influence how others operate once the structure is in place.

Call to action: Before the reorganization

If your organization is approaching a major reorganization, ask yourself:
“What signals am I sending today, and are they building the foundation I want for tomorrow?”

If you want a downloadable version of this series, click here to get the whitepaper.

This is part of a 3 part series. Be sure to read the other two here: Part 2: What great leaders do during the change and Part 3: What great leaders do after the change

You already know strategy matters. You’ve likely spent months—maybe years—crafting one that’s bold, clear, and built to win. But when progress stalls, the issue often isn’t the strategy itself—it’s whether the organization can move with it.

That’s where culture comes in.

The culture that once fueled your success may no longer be fit for what’s next. And even if things look fine on the surface, early signals might be telling a different story—signs your culture isn’t accelerating your strategy the way it used to.

Culture is what turns intent into impact. It’s not the values on the wall or the message at a town hall—it’s the unwritten rules that shape how people decide, collaborate, and lead. It’s how things really get done.

When those patterns align with your direction, momentum builds. When they don’t, even the best strategy struggles to stick.

→ Let’s chat about leveraging culture to manage change fatigue at your organization.

You see it in:

• The stories people tell about what gets rewarded
• The choices teams make under pressure
• The habits that show up when no one’s watching

And in the everyday:

• How decisions get made
• How people collaborate
• How accountability is managed
• How change is received

If your strategy has shifted but progress still feels stuck—or strained—it’s worth asking:

Is your culture still serving your business, or is it starting to slow you down?

A case in point

Two years ago, BTS partnered with a global organization that had just launched an ambitious growth strategy. Excitement was high—but results didn’t follow.

Leaders were frustrated by a lack of speed and ownership. Employees said they didn’t feel empowered. The word that kept surfacing? Bureaucracy.

That term became a catch-all for inefficiency, but no one could quite define it. So we helped them unpack what was really going on:

• Unclear decision rights
• Too many committees for too many decisions
• Outdated knowledge-sharing systems
• Manual processes slowing everything down

We visualized the findings in a “bureaucracy tree” to connect the dots. That clarity helped leaders prioritize where to focus first. And that’s when momentum returned.

The power of pivotal moments

The breakthrough didn’t start with a bold new initiative. It started with a shift in focus—from broad ideas to specific moments.

We worked with leaders to identify the everyday situations where culture is shaped and signaled: subtle, unscripted moments that reflect what’s truly expected and rewarded.

• A decision point with no obvious answer: do we act, or wait for perfection?
• A team member hesitates: do we jump in to solve, or create space for them to step up?

When leaders could name these moments, they could begin to shape them—making small, deliberate choices that sent a different signal. These weren’t one-time actions. They were repeatable patterns, practiced consistently.

And they’re just as available to you. Start by asking: where are the moments I tend to default to safety, silence, or control? And how could I begin to respond differently to shift the story?

Breaking old habits and building new ones

With these pivotal moments in mind, the leadership team reflected on their own patterns. How were they showing up? What were they reinforcing?

They focused on three shifts:

1. Stop reinforcing slow, complex decision-making
2. Start modeling clarity, ownership, and speed
3. Shift systems that quietly rewarded caution over empowerment

These weren’t abstract goals. They were grounded in real behaviors:

• How many people are involved in a decision?
• Are roles and responsibilities clear?
• Are our tools helping—or slowing us down?

By focusing on what people could see, track, and practice, change became tangible. It gave people something to act on—and believe in.

Scaling change through experimentation

The organization didn’t treat culture change as a campaign. They treated it as a learning process.

Top leaders ran small, coordinated experiments—turning abstract values into visible behaviors.

In one experiment, leaders committed to returning authority to managers who had “delegated decisions up” to them. In another, they redefined decision rights to cut through ambiguity and accelerate action.

These weren’t pilots. They were deliberate repetitions of new behaviors, designed to build muscle memory across the organization.

The results:

• Decisions moved faster
• Long-stalled initiatives were shut down
• A new product feature launched in half the usual time
• Employees reported feeling more empowered and accountable

If you’re wondering what this could look like for your organization, start here: What’s one behavior you could test out—or let go of—for a week? What’s one decision you could delegate? One moment you could coach instead of solve?

That’s how momentum builds—quietly, visibly, and fast.

Four common patterns to surface

Now that you’ve seen how small cultural habits shape (or stall) strategy, the next step is to spot where those habits are hiding in your organization. Here are four patterns we often see when momentum is missing—along with what they may be signaling.

   Element of Culture What It Shapes What It Might Look Like Today Why It Might Be Time to Rethink     Decision making Speed, ownership, and accountability Teams slow down not because the path is unclear, but because they’re unsure who’s empowered to choose it. Decisions stall in ambiguity—or escalate unnecessarily. Legacy approval structures often reflect yesterday’s risks. Today’s pace requires alignment over consensus, and trust in judgment at every level.   Meeting norms Focus, decision velocity, and participation Meetings are packed with updates, but few decisions get made. Real conversations happen in sidebars—after the meeting ends. When meetings become status dumps, they signal that the real work happens elsewhere. Reclaim meetings for collaboration and visible decisions to shift how teams show up—and move with more speed.   Leadership modeling Credibility and cultural integrity Leaders talk about agility or empowerment—but in high-stakes moments, default to control, caution, or top-down decisions. Culture isn’t shaped by slides—it’s shaped by what leaders do when it counts. If words and actions diverge, people follow the behavior. Find misalignments and try a new tack.   Feedback Learning, adaptability, and momentum Leaders see something misaligned—but let it go to avoid discomfort or protect relationships. Feedback is delayed, diluted, or disappears. Without feedback, small misalignments calcify. Cultures that learn fast don’t wait—they normalize feedback as a lever for shared growth.    

Which one shows up most in your team? That’s your next pivotal moment.

Shining a flashlight on your invisible “monsters”

When it comes to culture, the hardest part is often what you can’t see—or don’t know how to name.

Think back to childhood. Most of us, at some point, were convinced there was a monster in the closet or under the bed. In the dark, a pile of clothes becomes something menacing. A shadow turns into something to fear.

But then the light comes on. You see clearly. The fear fades. What once felt huge and scary becomes harmless—even a little silly.

That’s what culture can feel like inside an organization. Bureaucracy. Resistance. Complexity. These forces seem big and hard to define. They slow us down and sap momentum. But more often than not, they’re just old habits and assumptions lurking in the dark.

When leaders learn to spot the subtle, pivotal moments that shape behavior, they turn the light on. What felt intangible becomes specific. What felt impossible becomes actionable.

You don’t need a total reinvention. You need clarity—a way to see what’s really happening and where to shift, simply and deliberately.

When to bring in reinforcement

Not every culture challenge needs an outside partner. But some moments call for reinforcement—especially when change needs to stick at scale.

At BTS, we help organizations turn invisible cultural friction into visible forward motion. Whether you’re shaping a new strategy, integrating after a merger, or building a leadership culture that unlocks ownership—we help leaders shift from insight to impact.

Here are a few signs it might be time to partner

• You’ve named the strategy—but execution keeps stalling.
• You see the issues—but can’t align on how to shift behaviors.
• Leaders are bought in intellectually, but behavior hasn’t changed.
• Teams say the right things—but culture feels stuck in old habits.

If you’re facing one of these moments, it’s not a failure—it’s a signal. The good news? You don’t have to tackle it alone.

Let’s talk about what it would take to move from insight to sustained culture change.

AI is reshaping how organizations think about go-to-market

Tools are smarter. Content is easier to produce. Execution feels faster than ever.

But for many teams, something’s still off.

Growth is sluggish. Sales cycles feel stuck. Content isn’t landing. Leaders keep asking for more—but what they really need is better.

Because that’s the trap: when performance plateaus, many companies start adding. More tools. More messaging. More campaigns. More enablement.

It feels like progress. But often, it’s just motion—without momentum.

The most effective GTM leaders are starting to realize that the answer isn’t more. It’s better execution of the right strategy—with the right people, at the right moments.

That simple shift in thinking changes everything.

The illusion of progress: When “more” feels like a solution

The allure of AI is that it removes friction. It gives teams the ability to move fast and produce at scale. That’s a gift—but also a risk.

When growth slows, it’s tempting to flood the system with content and activity. New talk tracks. New sequences. New assets. More volume, more reach, more automation.

But if the fundamentals aren’t sound, you’re just amplifying misalignment.

Without a clear GTM strategy at the center, that content doesn’t connect. Sellers don’t know how to use it. Customers don’t know what to do with it. And suddenly your teams are working harder—but not driving real results.

Better is about focus—not flash

The most mature GTM teams aren’t chasing complexity. They’re pursuing clarity.

They start by asking sharper questions:

• What do our top sellers already do well—and how do we scale that behavior?
• Where are we falling short in executing on our strategy?
• What’s the one thing we need to get right before we try to scale?

These questions drive focus. And that focus turns strategy from theory into traction.

When enablement and marketing efforts ladder up to a shared GTM playbook, capability building becomes a multiplier—not an afterthought. It’s not about equipping people with more—it’s about helping them execute what matters most.

AI doesn’t replace alignment—it accelerates it.

AI should enhance execution, not distract from it

Used well, it can help teams personalize outreach, generate insights, and build assets faster. But AI doesn’t tell you what to say, who to target, or why your message matters. That still requires a well-defined GTM strategy, strong customer understanding, and aligned messaging.

And most importantly, it requires talent that’s equipped to bring it all to life.

AI won’t fix a disconnected team or a fragmented customer experience. It will just help you scale the wrong things faster—unless your foundation is strong.

Don’t scale what you haven’t nailed

Before you double down on more, ask yourself: have we nailed the fundamentals?

• Do our sellers understand the buyer’s real problems?
• Is our messaging consistent, clear, and rooted in our value proposition?
• Are our commercial teams aligned around shared motions and moments?

If the answer is “not yet,” then adding more tools or content won’t move the needle. In fact, it might make things worse—by creating clutter, confusion, and competing signals in the field.

The real leverage comes when you pause and invest in better execution. That’s what makes strategy stick.

The risk of “more”

• Misalignment between strategy and execution
• Content that’s produced, but not used
• A GTM engine that’s busy, but not effective

The upside of “better”

• Teams focused on the right moments that matter
• Capability building that drives real business outcomes
• A GTM motion that feels clear, confident, and connected

Where to go from here

AI is not going away—and it shouldn’t. But it’s time to get intentional about how you use it. Not to create more noise, but to sharpen your signal.

That starts with strategy. With execution. With talent.

And most of all—with clarity.

Because in a world of infinite GTM choices, better is your competitive edge. It’s what separates teams that deliver impact from teams that deliver volume.

So don’t start with more. Start with better.

P R E S S R E L E A S E
Stockholm, May 5, 2025

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – BTS Group AB (publ), a leading global consultancy specializing in strategy execution, change, and people development, has agreed to acquire Nexo Pesquisa e Consultoria Ltda., Nexo, a boutique consulting firm headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.

Nexo has been growing continuously since it was founded in 2017. With revenues of approximately 12 million Brazilian Reales (approx. 2.1 million USD) in 2024, and a highly capable team of 21 members, Nexo has built a strong reputation for delivering transformative projects in strategy, innovation, leadership, and culture.

Nexo collaborates with a great portfolio of clients across sectors such as financial services, consumer goods, and technology, assisting both local and global companies in navigating uncertainty, unlocking creativity, and activating strategy through people. Their work encompasses culture transformation, leadership development, employer value proposition, innovation culture, and vision alignment – supported by proprietary methodologies and frameworks.

BTS currently operates in Brazil servicing both local and multinational clients with a team of 13 employees. By acquiring Nexo, BTS not only increases the Group’s footprint in Brazil but also adds significant capabilities in culture and transformation services. Nexo’s client base has limited overlap with BTS, creating strong growth potential and synergy opportunities.

“Nexo is known for helping leaders and organizations tackle some of the most complex, human-centered challenges with creativity, empathy, and strategic clarity and the Nexo team is loved by their clients,” says Philios Andreou, Deputy CEO of BTS Group and President of the Other Markets Unit. “Their products and services complement and elevate our existing offerings, especially in culture transformation, and we are thrilled to welcome the Nexo team to BTS.”

“We’re excited to join BTS. We’ve long admired BTS’s approach and unique portfolio to support large organizations and leaders in connecting strategy with culture across the organization,” says Andreas Auerbach, co founder of Nexo. “Becoming part of BTS, allows us to scale our impact and bring more value to our clients while staying true to our values and culture,” adds Mariana Lage Andrade, co-founder of Nexo.

Upon completion of the transaction, Nexo’s business and organization will merge with BTS Brazil. Nexo’s founders will assume senior management roles in the joint operation.

The acquisition includes a limited initial cash consideration. Additional purchase price considerations will be paid between 2026 and 2028, provided Nexo meets specific performance targets. A limited portion of any such additional purchase price considerations will be paid in newly issued BTS shares. The transaction is effective immediately.

BTS’s acquisition strategy continues to focus on broadening our service portfolio, expanding our geographic reach, and enhancing our capabilities to support future organic growth in a fragmented market.

For more information, please contact:
Philios Andreou
Deputy CEO
BTS Group AB
philios.andreou@bts.com

Michael Wallin
Head of investor relations
BTS Group AB
michael.wallin@bts.com
+46-8-587 070 02
+46-708-78 80 19

‍

PRESS RELEASE

Stockholm, May 5, 2025

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — BTS Group AB (publ), a leading global consultancy specializing in strategy execution, change, and people development, has agreed to acquire Nexo Pesquisa e Consultoria Ltda. (Nexo), a boutique consulting firm headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.

Nexo has been growing continuously since it was founded in 2017. With revenues of approximately 12 million Brazilian Reales (about 2.1 million USD) in 2024, and a highly capable team of 21 members, Nexo has built a strong reputation for delivering transformative projects in strategy, innovation, leadership, and culture.

Nexo collaborates with a diverse portfolio of clients across sectors such as financial services, consumer goods, and technology, assisting both local and global companies in navigating uncertainty, unlocking creativity, and activating strategy through people. Their work encompasses culture transformation, leadership development, employer value proposition, innovation culture, and vision alignment—supported by proprietary methodologies and frameworks.

BTS currently operates in Brazil, servicing both local and multinational clients with a team of 13 employees. By acquiring Nexo, BTS not only increases the Group’s footprint in Brazil but also adds significant capabilities in culture and transformation services. Nexo’s client base has limited overlap with BTS, creating strong growth potential and synergy opportunities.

“Nexo is known for helping leaders and organizations tackle some of the most complex, human-centered challenges with creativity, empathy, and strategic clarity, and the Nexo team is loved by their clients,” says Philios Andreou, Deputy CEO of BTS Group and President of the Other Markets Unit. “Their products and services complement and elevate our existing offerings, especially in culture transformation, and we are thrilled to welcome the Nexo team to BTS.”

“We’re excited to join BTS. We’ve long admired BTS’s approach and unique portfolio to support large organizations and leaders in connecting strategy with culture across the organization,” says Andreas Auerbach, co-founder of Nexo. “Becoming part of BTS allows us to scale our impact and bring more value to our clients while staying true to our values and culture,” adds Mariana Lage Andrade, co-founder of Nexo.

Upon completion of the transaction, Nexo’s business and organization will merge with BTS Brazil. Nexo’s founders will assume senior management roles in the joint operation.

The acquisition includes a limited initial cash consideration. Additional purchase-price considerations will be paid between 2026 and 2028, provided Nexo meets specific performance targets. A limited portion of any such additional considerations will be paid in newly issued BTS shares. The transaction is effective immediately.

BTS’s acquisition strategy continues to focus on broadening its service portfolio, expanding geographic reach, and enhancing capabilities to support future organic growth in a fragmented market.

For more information, please contact:

Philios Andreou
Deputy CEO
BTS Group AB
philios.andreou@bts.com

Michael Wallin
Head of Investor Relations
BTS Group AB
michael.wallin@bts.com
+46-8-587 070 02
+46-708-78 80 19

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.

Every now and then, a wave of disruption comes along that doesn’t just change how business gets done—it redefines the competitive landscape entirely. For sales organizations today, that wave is artificial intelligence.

AI is already transforming the way customers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands. It’s influencing how sellers interact with buyers, how leaders allocate resources, and how companies build their go-to-market (GTM) strategies.

And yet—despite its accelerating impact—many organizations are reacting like it’s a curiosity. A useful new tool. Something to keep an eye on. But we’ve been here before.

This isn’t a brand-new story. It’s a sequel.

In the early 2000s, eCommerce entered the scene. Most brands treated it like an experiment—a digital side hustle to support their brick-and-mortar core. The assumptions were:

• Customers will mostly still shop in-store.
• Online sales might grow, but not enough to upend our model.
• There’s time.

And then? Amazon scaled. Shopify democratized. Mobile-first experiences changed consumer expectations almost overnight. Suddenly, the store wasn’t the primary channel—the screen was. Brands that treated eCommerce as “just a tool” didn’t just lose market share. Some lost relevance entirely.

We’re seeing the same signals today with AI.

Like eCommerce in its early days, AI is being mischaracterized as incremental. Leaders are thinking in point solutions—an AI assistant here, a smarter dashboard there—when the shift is system-wide.

The danger is in treating AI like a feature, when in reality, it’s a forcing function. It’s not just about what you sell—it’s about how your entire commercial engine works.

Sales teams are already at the center of the shift

Sales organizations sit on the front lines of this transformation. They’re already seeing how AI can:

• Accelerate pipeline generation
• Sharpen targeting and forecasting
• Personalize engagement at scale

But while many are experimenting, few are reorganizing their GTM strategies around the new reality.

This is where forward-thinking leaders are getting ahead:

• They’re moving from enablement to reinvention.
• They’re embedding AI not as a feature, but as a capability that reshapes how teams compete and grow.

The real impact comes from connection, not addition

We’re seeing this play out in real time. The most effective sales transformations are happening not through standalone capability building, but through integrated change. As Jason Davis puts it, “The most valuable transformations aren’t about adding new capabilities in isolation—they happen when capability building is tied directly to go-to-market methodology and initiative execution.”

Said another way: It’s not about piling on new technologies—it’s about weaving AI into the core of how your commercial engine operates. When AI is embedded into the systems and processes that already drive performance—target setting, customer engagement, deal qualification, seller coaching—it becomes a force multiplier. It enables organizations to execute smarter, faster, and more consistently across the board.

Start small, learn fast, move forward

You don’t need to overhaul everything at once.

Just like the eCommerce shift didn’t happen in a quarter, becoming an AI-enabled sales organization is a journey. But it’s one that starts with momentum.

Teams that thrived during the last disruption didn’t wait for perfect clarity:

• They ran pilots.
• They iterated fast.
• They learned faster.

That same mindset applies today. Start by identifying friction points in your GTM system:

• Where could AI create lift?
• Where can you test, learn, and adapt?

Momentum matters more than perfection. The speed at which you learn and change will be a critical differentiator.

The cost of inaction is real

As AI becomes the new baseline for high-performance sales organizations, the cost of doing nothing will compound quickly. Teams that delay risk being left behind—not just by their competitors, but by their customers, whose expectations are already shifting.

Buyers are already experiencing what AI can deliver: greater personalization, faster responsiveness, and more intelligent solutions. Organizations that don’t evolve in parallel will increasingly feel out of step with the market.

Sales leaders who recognize this shift early—and who take deliberate steps to reimagine their GTM strategies through an AI lens—will stay competitive, and they’ll help define what great looks like in the next era of commercial excellence.

Feedback is one of the most powerful tools a leader has, shaping both individual and organizational culture. Yet, despite its value, it’s often met with apprehension—seen as judgment rather than an opportunity. Instead of fueling growth, it can create tension, leaving recipients feeling exposed and defensive.

This reaction is natural. Feedback touches on identity, competence, and self-worth. When framed as a verdict rather than an insight, it sparks defensiveness instead of openness. But what if feedback wasn’t about judgment? What if it was a tool for gathering better data—both for the recipient and the leader?

When leaders make feedback a habit, not a performance review, they gain sharper insights, model continuous improvement, and create a culture where learning thrives. The shift from evaluation to empowerment turns feedback into fuel for growth. And at the heart of this shift? Curiosity.

Leading in a MESSY world: Why feedback matters more than ever

Leaders today operate in constant disruption and complexity. They must move beyond assumptions and seek new perspectives. At BTS, we call this operating in a MESSY world:

• M – Making sense of the broader ecosystem
• E – Establishing emotional connections to build trust
• S – Seizing momentum to stay ahead
• S – Sensing the future amid uncertainty
• Y – Yielding ego to create space for others to grow

Feedback is critical in helping leaders navigate these challenges. It’s not just a tool for correction but a catalyst for innovation and collaboration. But without structure, feedback can fall flat. That’s where the AFIRM Model comes in.

Reframing feedback: From evaluation to exploration

Great feedback moves beyond transaction into mutual discovery. When leaders model effective feedback, they foster deeper connections and unlock insights that drive performance.

Curiosity plays a crucial role in this transformation. When leaders approach feedback with genuine curiosity—asking open-ended questions and actively listening—they shift conversations from critique to shared learning. Curiosity also provides leaders with better data on how they show up, helping them refine their approach and model the kind of feedback culture they want to create.

Balancing feedback with efficiency is essential. The AFIRM Model provides a structured approach that makes feedback actionable and constructive while keeping curiosity at the center.

Structure feedback for impact with the AFIRM model

AFIRM enables structured yet flexible conversations—ensuring feedback drives results. It provides a roadmap for leaders to create meaningful, productive discussions that foster growth and accountability. Here’s how it works:

A – Agenda

Set clear intentions. Define the purpose and desired outcomes upfront. A prepared conversation leads to honest, productive dialogue and signals that feedback is a shared responsibility rather than a one-sided critique.

F – Facts, Observations, Evidence

Keep it objective. Base feedback on data and observations to minimize bias. Stay neutral and constructive. Providing fact-based feedback ensures conversations remain focused and prevents emotional reactions that derail progress.

Curiosity fosters deeper dialogue—ask questions, seek perspectives, and pave the way for growth. Instead of assuming why something happened, ask “What led to this?” or “What challenges were you facing?” to create space for honest reflection.

I – Impact

Clarify effects. Who was affected? What were the consequences? Centering feedback on impact builds trust and accountability. Highlighting the broader implications helps individuals understand why feedback matters and how their actions contribute to team success.

R – Request

Co-create a path forward. Define actionable, SMART next steps (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound). Encourage collaboration by asking “How do you think we can move forward?” or “What support do you need?” Keeping the dialogue open ensures accountability while fostering autonomy.

M – Mutuality

Feedback is a partnership. Success requires shared ownership and commitment to growth. A strong feedback culture thrives when both parties see feedback as a two-way street—leaders should also invite input on how they can better support and enable success. Take time to ask “What feedback do you have for me?” to reinforce that feedback is a mutual learning process.

Creating feedback-driven growth

Imagine an organization where feedback fuels engagement and connection. When framed as a tool for growth rather than judgment, conversations shift from evaluation to exploration. Everyone is on the same team, with the same goals.

Great leaders don’t just give feedback—they seek it, reflect on it, and use it to sharpen their approach. By modeling curiosity and making feedback a daily habit, they foster a culture where feedback is normal, constructive, and empowering.

Feedback isn’t about fixing. It’s about discovering what’s possible. By approaching it as a shared learning opportunity, we move from judgment to collaboration, growth, and transformation.

What’s one question you could ask today to spark a meaningful feedback conversation?

If you want to understand where the pressure is building in your organization, look at your middle managers. They sit at the center of it all—and that center is under strain.

They’re expected to lead strategic change, drive culture, retain talent, and hit performance goals—all while translating executive vision into everyday action. But they’re often doing it without clear direction, real-time feedback, or consistent development support.

And now the data confirms it: the squeeze is real—and getting tighter. In 2025, 45% of middle managers report burnout—higher than any other group. Only 21% say they’re thriving. (Future Forum, Gallup) That’s not just a warning sign. It’s a leadership risk.

The rising cost of holding the middle

Middle managers aren’t just task owners—they’re the force that connects vision to execution. And we’re asking them to do more than ever:

• Lead through ambiguity
• Coach and develop teams
• Champion DEI and hybrid culture
• Balance employee expectations and business constraints
• Prepare for next-level leadership roles

They’re expected to model the organization’s values while delivering results. But the systems designed to support them haven’t evolved at the same pace. They rely on outdated perspectives on learning and capability building, and are often informal at best.

The result? Too many managers are being asked to grow faster than the organization is growing its capacity to support them.

Burnout isn’t a side effect—it’s a signal

When middle managers burn out, business performance suffers.

• Middle managers are 3 times more likely to leave (Future Forum, 2025)
• Their teams underperform or disengage
• Innovation, development, and inclusion efforts lose momentum

Burnout isn’t just about wellbeing—it’s about organizational readiness.

It’s not just about removing pressure. It’s about reinforcing strength.

The most common response to manager burnout is to “lighten the load.” But that doesn’t address the structural issue. You can remove a few books from the shelf. But if the structure was never designed to hold the weight, it still bends under pressure.

Managers don’t just need less work. They need better support systems.

What effective support looks like in 2025

The most forward-looking organizations are shifting away from ad hoc fixes and leaning into investing in structured, measurable capability-building. It’s not about more content. It’s about developing real, sustained leadership capacity. The organizations who are embedding development into the flow of work are developing managers who don’t just cope, they grow.

What’s working:

• Co-created goals between managers and senior leaders
• Ongoing reflection and feedback loops that build self-awareness
• Development experiences that stretch leadership capability in real time
• Targeted support that improves coaching, communication, and decision-making

When support is consistent and measurable, managers build the adaptability, clarity, and presence needed to lead through complexity—not just react to it.

Coaching interventions

Managers who are truly effective aren’t just trained—they’re supported by coaching that strengthens behavior change over time, connects individual development to real business goals, and builds a sustainable leadership pipeline. It’s massive part of how organizations move from check-the-box training to actual transformation. For years most organizations have understood the value of coaching their senior executives. It’s those enterprises who have figured out the power that coaching unlocks at the manager level are ahead of the game now.

Building stronger foundations, not just lighter loads

The middle manager squeeze isn’t going away, but it can be addressed.

That shift starts when organizations move beyond burnout mitigation toward embedding strategic development systems that build real leadership capacity—and track progress along the way.

Because when you strengthen the center, you strengthen the whole organization.

Want to see how leading companies are building manager capability at scale?

Now part of BTS, Sounding Board brings a clearer, data-backed view of what’s working—and where high-performers need to grow next via:

1. Goal alignment – See progress tied to your strategy
2. Behavioral growth – Track real shifts in how leaders show up
3. Self-awareness – Build reflection through feedback and assessments
4. Cohort insights – Spot trends, surface gaps, and scale what works

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How AI is accelerating leadership development by enabling more practice

In today’s fast-paced business world, developing leaders who can navigate complexity, inspire teams, and deliver results is more critical than ever. Yet, traditional training methods often fall short in addressing the scale, personalization, and immediacy required to create lasting change. AI-powered practice bots are emerging as a transformative solution, offering leaders unparalleled opportunities to practice, grow, and improve—faster and more effectively than ever before.

Feedback with precision and accessibility

Feedback is the cornerstone of leadership development. However, research from Gallup reveals that only 26% of employees strongly agree that the feedback they receive improves their performance. Feedback all too often misses the mark, because it is too vague, infrequent and not relevant to the job at hand. AI practice bots address this gap by providing instant, objective, and actionable feedback through simulated conversations. Well trained practice bots, armed with leading-edge, business-specific knowledge on the critical skills needed for leaders, offer the most valuable simulated conversations, and the most accurate feedback.

These bots mimic real-world scenarios such as performance reviews, stakeholder negotiations, and high-stakes presentations. Leaders gain immediate insights into their communication style, areas for improvement, and actionable next steps—all without the need for scheduled coaching sessions.

Moreover, AI expands access to high-quality feedback across all levels of leadership. No longer confined by time, geography, or resource constraints, organizations can now equip every leader with the tools they need to grow. This scalability ensures consistent, equitable development opportunities while fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

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Limitless practice for deeper growth

Behavioral change is built through deliberate practice, yet many traditional training programs provide limited opportunities for leaders to apply what they’ve learned. A study from the American Psychological Association (APA) highlights that repetitive, focused practice is essential for mastering new skills.

AI bots remove barriers to practice by offering leaders unlimited chances to rehearse critical conversations, test new approaches, and refine their strategies. Whether delivering constructive feedback, managing conflict, or influencing stakeholders, leaders can practice important conversations without fear of judgment or failure.

‍Available 24/7, these bots integrate development into daily routines, accelerating skill acquisition and embedding new behaviors. The result is not only faster growth but also greater confidence and readiness to tackle complex challenges.

Amplifying human insight through AI

AI bots enhance leadership development not by replacing human expertise but by amplifying it. They excel at handling repetitive, data-driven tasks such as providing feedback and tracking performance trends. However, the role of human insight—through coaching, mentorship, and relationship building—remains irreplaceable.

According to Deloitte, organizations that combine AI-powered tools with human-led learning experiences see a 33% increase in effectiveness. AI provides the structure and scalability to ensure consistent development, while human experts bring empathy, context, and nuance to guide leaders on their unique journeys.

This synergy between technology and human insight accelerates individual growth while creating a ripple effect across organizations. Leaders not only develop the skills they need to excel but also inspire their teams and drive meaningful cultural change.

‍Transforming leadership development with AI practice bots

AI practice bots enhance leadership development by:

• Delivering precise, personalized feedback: Instant insights empower leaders to grow faster and with greater clarity.
• Offering unlimited opportunities to practice: Leaders can refine critical skills anytime, embedding growth into their daily routines.
• Providing data-driven insights: Bots analyze performance trends across leaders within an organization to inform targeted training strategies.
• Scaling impactful learning: Accessible to leaders across geographies and roles, AI ensures consistent and equitable development opportunities.

By enabling leaders to practice more, grow faster, and lead with confidence, AI-powered bots are transforming leadership development—one conversation at a time.

Discover how AI practice bots can enhance your leadership strategy and deliver lasting results.

Explore the AI Practice Bot Offering Here

P R E S S  R E L E A S E

Stockholm, March 3, 2025

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – BTS Group AB (publ), a leading global consultancy specializing in strategy execution, change, and people development, has agreed to acquire Sounding Board, a technology-based leader in scalable, high-impact coaching solutions driving transformational leadership development.

“With this acquisition, BTS can leapfrog its current technology and operations with the integration of a team and platform that is considerably more productive and ready-to-scale globally than our current technology. The acquisition allows us to create and take to market a very differentiated offering and to faster expand BTS’ current USD 40 million coaching services, taking advantage of the growing USD 7 billion coaching market, and to increase our margins,” says Jessica Skon, CEO of BTS Group.

Founded by Christine Tao and Lori Mazan in 2016, Sounding Board is a silicon-valley based start-up with USD 7 million in scaled coaching revenue in 2024, delivered through the company’s proprietary technology platform. With over USD 45 million in capital invested in its technology, Sounding Board has pioneered a modern, proprietary platform to fully meet a company’s scaled coaching needs. The addition of Sounding Board’s coach network will create a combined BTS network of 700 credentialled coaches with global reach.

The acquisition is expected to have a slightly positive impact on EBITA in 2025 and a positive impact on both earnings and margins in 2026.

Sounding Board is differentiated in the market with a unified software platform for coaching that can be utilized for both external and internal coaching and mentoring programs. With a track record of high client retention, a global network of expert coaches, and a data-driven approach to leadership transformation, Sounding Board has been taking market share with its scalable coaching solution offerings. With future support from BTS global account managers and access to BTS’ global client base, the acquisition will be a pivotal moment for both firms to continue their mission together.

“Sounding Board’s innovative coaching platform, efficient and scalable operating model, combined with both firms’ global reach of world class, consistent top 5 percent coaches, is exactly what our clients have been asking for. They are tired of inconsistent coaching quality from competitors and platforms that don’t reinforce their organization’s unique strategy and culture,” concludes Katrin Mulford, BTS Partner and Global Head of Coaching.

"We are joining BTS to amplify and accelerate our impact,"

said Christine Tao, Co-founder and CEO of Sounding Board.

"BTS’s global reach, broader leader development solutions, industry-leading simulations, and AI-based coaching and practice for strategic plays and culture shifts, are exactly the additional tools clients are looking for to complement our coaching. Together, we will redefine how companies prepare their people, deliver ongoing change at scale, and develop leaders who drive transformation."

“Joining forces, we will simultaneously drive growth and win market share within coaching, fortifying our reputation in making strategy personal, while also driving automation and efficiencies for our clients and in our operations as we scale. By replacing our platform with theirs, the handling of all the steps in the coaching process will become significantly more effective, from scheduling to coaching to insights and billing. It will be easier, faster, and less resource intensive to manage large programs with tens of thousands of leaders. In addition, Sounding Board’s operating model will serve as an example inside BTS as a more tech-forward way of working,”

adds Jessica Skon.

The acquisition includes a limited initial cash consideration as well as additional purchase price considerations paid between 2025 and 2028, provided the acquired business meets specific targets during that period. The transaction is expected to close as soon as the completion procedures have been finalized, which are expected in March.

BTS's strategy for acquisitions aims to create a broader base for future organic growth while actively consolidating in a highly fragmented market. Through its acquisitions, BTS seeks to serve new and existing customers with innovative services.

‍For more information, please contact:

BTS Group AB
Jessica Skon, CEO
+1 (415) 203 1760

Michael Wallin, Head of investor relations
‍michael.wallin@bts.com
‍+46-8-58 70 70 02
+46-708-78 80 19

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In today’s rapidly changing world, leaders must foster environments where open dialogue, trust, and innovation thrive. But are "safe spaces" enough? In this article published in the Winter 2025 issue of Rotman Management, Andrew Atkins explores how leaders can move beyond comfort to create braver spaces—ones that encourage authenticity, diverse perspectives, and meaningful change.Discover the seven dimensions that define conversational spaces, the pitfalls of toxic and overly safe environments, and ten actionable strategies to cultivate braver conversations in your organization.

• Learn how braver conversations drive innovation and collaboration.
• Understand why "safe spaces" can limit growth and honest dialogue.
• Get practical tips to create a culture of trust, engagement, and psychological safety.

Ready to transform your team’s conversations? Download the full article now. (This article appears in Rotman Management Winter 2025.)

5 make-or-break moments that shape the success (or failure) of Mergers and Acquisitions

Analysts say 2025 will be the year that the multi-trillion-dollar Mergers and Acquisition floodgates will open once again.

For us at BTS, these key moments are an exciting opportunity to witness how strategy, culture and leadership play together. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) represent some of the highest-stakes decisions an organization can make. Analysts scrutinize billion-dollar deals, executives promise ambitious synergy targets, and employees at all levels must adapt to new realities that are often thrust upon them. The success of your integration doesn’t just depend on strategy—it hinges on the ability of thousands of individuals to embrace new teams, tools, structures, and ways of working.

The human side of integration is often underestimated, yet plays a crucial role in the success or failure of mergers and acquisitions.  

Recent research shows that 70% of successful M&A deals involved a proactive approach to managing cultural differences.  

Why? Beneath the surface, overlooked factors such as differing beliefs, cultural tensions, and a lack of real strategic alignment often derail even the best-laid plans. From years of guiding organizations through these transformations, we’ve identified five make-or-break moments that define whether an acquisition thrives—or falls short.

1. The “first impression” moment

When two companies come together, senior leaders often reduce first impressions to oversimplified assumptions: “They’re just like us” or “We share the same customer-first mentality.” While these statements may calm initial concerns, they often ignore deeper operational and cultural differences that can create friction later.  

• ‍An example: A communications company acquiring a company of similar size to expand their portfolio and reach. Both claimed to be “customer-centric,” but their definitions were fundamentally different. The organization being acquired prioritized the customer no matter the cost, while the acquiring company prioritized the customer within clear economic boundaries. This subtle but critical difference nearly derailed key decisions in customer crisis moments, where both organizations’ approaches clashed.

At BTS, we’ve seen success when organizations use a more thorough and objective culture diagnostic early in the M&A process to get ahead of possible differences like these, surfacing how work actually gets done, rather than providing a commentary on employee sentiment. Differences can then be worked through proactively before real customer value is on the line.  

2. The “communicating the deal rationale” moment

Acquisitions are ripe with uncertainty, especially for employees of the acquired company, who often fear layoffs or cultural upheaval. Without clear communication of the reasons behind the merger, mistrust can take root, damaging morale and productivity.  

• ‍An example: An oil and gas company learned this the hard way during its acquisition of a smaller regional competitor. Despite leadership's intent to streamline and grow operations in the region, employees of the acquired company assumed the deal was purely to squeeze out cost and sell it to the highest bidder. Distrust spread quickly, undermining cooperation and progress. ‍
• Another example: In contrast, a technology company that made a large acquisition took a radically transparent approach. Leaders engaged employees from both organizations early, co-creating a narrative that focused on shaping the future together and emphasizing shared innovation goals. By addressing concerns directly and collaboratively, they built buy-in and enthusiasm on both sides, setting the stage for a seamless transition.

3. The “bringing senior teams together” moment

Initial meetings between teams from merging companies are often fraught with tension. Often, the bias many leaders have towards action leads to a singular focus on tactical planning—hammering out integration checklists and deliverables—while overlooking the human dynamics in the room.

• ‍An example: In one case, two food and beverage companies merging to take advantage of their complementary product portfolios approached their first meeting with a different focus. Instead of diving straight into strategy, the leadership teams spent the first day exploring cultural alignment, discussing their values and histories, and building personal connections.
  
  This intentional shift paid dividends. As one CEO later remarked, “If we hadn’t started with the culture and leadership conversation, we never would have made so much progress on our strategy.” By fostering trust and understanding, the two teams created a foundation for productive collaboration and accelerated progress on their shared goals.

4. The “let’s activate new ways of working” moment

Senior leaders can align on a vision, but translating it into daily actions across thousands of employees is where integrations often stumble. Over-reliance on one-way communication—announcements and emails—leaves employees unclear on how to work together.

• ‍An example: A biopharma company that acquired a tech firm to enhance patient outcomes was clear about the rationale for the acquisition, but did not spend enough time working through what this combined organization would look like in execution. Two years later, both organizations were still operating as two separate units, unable to deliver on their shared vision. ‍
• Another example: In contrast, a global manufacturing company took a proactive approach during its acquisition. Leaders hosted cross-functional workshops, guiding employees through real-world collaboration scenarios. These sessions surfaced key operational gaps and helped teams align on practical ways to achieve their vision. As a result, integration accelerated, and the combined teams quickly launched a suite of new, co-developed products.

5. The “turning resistance into momentum” moment

As an integration progresses, some organizations try to quickly get to “business as usual”. Senior leaders, who typically have had more time to get ‘on the bus’ of the integration are often keen to move on from the integration. While this impulse is understandable, the challenge is that ceasing to pay attention to evolving dynamics and culture challenges can cause leaders to ignore small signals that can ultimately foreshadow bigger problems. Indeed, proactively seeking out and engaging with resistance can unlock new potential for growth.

• ‍An example: Consider a software company that acquired a cloud-services provider to expand its portfolio. Early friction arose as teams struggled to reconcile their differing approaches to customer support. Instead of letting the tension fester, the leadership teams paused, brought the issues to the surface, and co-created a new customer engagement model.
  
  By openly addressing challenges and aligning on shared practices, the companies not only resolved their differences but also built a stronger, unified approach. Without this intervention, the integration could have been frustrated by years of lingering inefficiencies and resentment.

Greater than the sum of parts: Achieving success beyond the merger

M&A deals are extraordinary opportunities to accelerate growth, redefine industries, and create lasting value. But the statistics don’t lie: up to 90% fail to meet expectations. The difference often comes down to overlooked intangibles—cultural alignment, trust, and the willingness to navigate tough conversations.  

‍The organizations that succeed understand this. They don’t just manage checklists; they embrace the human elements of integration. They foster trust, build alignment, and co-create a shared future.

The real value of M&A lies in these make-or-break moments. When leaders approach integration with intentionality and openness, they unlock the potential for their organizations to be truly greater than the sum of their parts—and deliver on the promise of the deal.