How to Be Change Ready: Building the Foundations to Navigate Complexity
We brought together executives from across our Communities to explore one of the most pressing challenges facing organisations today: how to move beyond change confidence to genuine change readiness. This interactive session combined live exercises, peer insights and real-world data, and what follows is a summary of the themes and discoveries that emerged.
The difference between confidence and readiness
We've all seen the pattern. The bold vision. The high-energy town hall. The confident declarations of a "new era." And yet, six months later, the energy has faded, deadlines have slipped and people are unsure what matters most. The transformation that once felt unstoppable is quietly losing momentum.
This isn't about poor intent. Most change starts with real belief. But there's a crucial difference between confidence and readiness.
Confidence is how you feel in the moment.
Readiness is your system's actual ability to deliver change—especially when things don't go to plan.
Change readiness as a living system
Change readiness isn't a checklist or a collection of strong departments. It's a living system made up of six foundations that work together: Strategy, Leadership & Culture, Customer, Technology, Delivery and Value.
As Russell Ackoff reminds us: "A system is never the sum of its parts. It's the product of their interactions."
Most transformation failures don't start with dramatic collapse. They begin with small disconnects—a goal that isn't fully understood, a decision made without the right input or a gap in alignment that quietly grows. These seemingly minor disconnections can completely neutralise strengths elsewhere in the system.
A brilliant strategy doesn't go far if people don't believe in it. High-performing delivery teams can still miss the mark if value isn't clearly defined. Tech investments fall flat if they're not aligned to customer needs. The system is only as strong as its weakest connection, and even small misalignments can create systemic failure under pressure.
What we discovered together
During our session, we asked participants to map their organisations against the six foundations using a simple exercise: place green dots on your strongest areas and red dots on your weakest. The results were telling:
- Green dots (strengths) clustered around Customer, Strategy and Leadership & Culture—areas where organisations typically feel strongest
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Red dots (weaknesses) appeared predominantly on Technology and Value—revealing common blind spots across sectors
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The connections between foundations showed even more strain when we examined the interdependencies
One executive from the charity sector shared how their technology feels "so disconnected with everything—it's the biggest red dot." But more importantly, they highlighted how brilliant individual areas don't connect: "Leadership is brilliant, but it's not necessarily leadership in service of the strategy. The strategy is brilliant, but it's not necessarily strategy aligned with our capability."
Another participant from professional services noted the challenge of value measurement: "We have different areas of the business that are great at measuring key performance indicators and objectives. We have other elements that are more focused on how they use data to drive decisions, but in terms of consistently using it across the whole business and the whole system, we struggle with that."
This captures what we see time and again across industries: readiness lives in the connections, not the parts.
Five insights from real-world data
From over 500 CR6 diagnostics across different industries, we’ve identified five systemic patterns:
1. One strong area doesn't make you change ready
Strength in isolation isn't enough. If you're delivering fast but can't clearly define value, you're at risk. If you've got a great strategy but no cultural buy-in, things stall. Strong areas can't carry the system alone—and sometimes they even mask weakness elsewhere.
2. Value is everyone's blind spot
Across industries and functions, value is where organisations stumble most. Not because they don't care about it, but because they often can't see it clearly. When we ask teams if they see value being tracked, delivered or reviewed regularly, the answer is usually "not really."
During our session, we explored what consistent value delivery looks like. We asked participants about "regular drops of value"—delivering measurable outcomes at least every 90 days rather than waiting 18 months for a big reveal. Very few organisations consistently demonstrate this pattern.
This disconnect between value creation and value visibility is what we call the "canary in the coal mine." When teams can't clearly articulate what success looks like, it signals deeper systemic issues.
3. Leadership perception gaps are common
When leaders operate from one view and the organisation lives another reality, readiness gets distorted. What's assumed to be understood is often unclear. What feels aligned at the top can feel disconnected on the ground.
We shared the story of a financial services organisation, where a live assessment with the board revealed stark contrasts between leadership and team perspectives. Leaders rated themselves highly, but their teams described confusion and inconsistency. One exec called it "a mic-drop moment." To their credit, they leaned in, not away, and made leadership their first mission.
4. Awareness beats optimism
Optimism is natural, especially in leadership. But optimism can become a trap if it stops us hearing what's really happening. In healthy organisations, people feel safe to speak up, name blockers and highlight misalignment.
When we asked participants what invisible blockers they wished people talked about more, responses included "individual fear of failure," "relationships and groupthink," and "lack of value measurement that matters early." These aren't comfortable topics, but they're essential conversations.
5. Readiness lives in the connections
The most change ready organisations aren't perfect, but they're well connected. They see their system clearly, understand where the dependencies are and act early before small cracks become major failures.
From insight to action
Seeing more of your system is just the beginning. Here's what you can do:
Shift from scorekeeping to sense-making. Stop asking "How are we doing?" Start asking: "How well is this working as a system?" When you look at any single foundation, ask how it connects to the others.
Look for strong-but-struggling patterns. Where are you delivering hard but not making progress? Where's strategy strong but decisions still unclear? These disconnects often signal systemic issues rather than individual foundation problems.
Bring more voices into the room. The strain often lives between teams, levels, or functions—not within them. Ask: "Who sees the system differently than I do?"
Focus on the connections, not just the parts. Traditional change approaches often optimise individual areas. But transformation happens in the spaces between these foundations. How well does leadership enable delivery? How clearly does strategy guide technology investment?
Building your change ready system
Change readiness isn't about having six perfect foundations. It's about understanding how they connect and ensuring the system works as a whole.
Small disconnects compound quickly. In complex systems like organisations, small misalignments don't just slow progress—they multiply. A strategy that isn't clearly translated leads to confused delivery priorities. Confused delivery priorities lead to technology that doesn't support business goals. Each weak connection amplifies the others.
The organisations thriving in today's complex environment aren't just confident about change, they're genuinely ready for it. They've built the connections, created the awareness, and developed the capability to deliver outcomes that matter. They can sense when something isn't working and respond before it becomes a crisis.
Want to explore how change ready your organisation is? Get in touch with us to discuss how the change ready system could help you see your transformation challenges more clearly and build the connections that drive lasting change.
Interested in joining our communities? We host monthly cross-Community events like this one, bringing together executives from across sectors to share insights on the future of work, transformation challenges and emerging business trends. Whether you're interested in our CEO, Women in Transformation, Leaders in Transformation, or Tech, Information & Digital Exec Communities, we'd love to connect with you.
Rebecca Abrahams
Marketing Executive