Good Intentions Are Not an Operating System
Welcome to TL;DR Leadership, a weekly note for leaders who want one useful leadership idea but can’t read every book or listen to every podcast. And for some fuel you’ll also get one reminder that there is still good in the world, and one quote or scripture to carry into the week.
The goal is simple: less leadership theater, more practical movement.
Because most leaders do not need another LinkedIn post that tells them to “lean into transformation” without explaining what that means on a regular Tuesday when people are tired and the meeting agenda is already too long.
So let’s start here.
TL;DR Leadership
This week’s idea comes from a recent HBR IdeaCast episode, “The Leadership Skills That Make Transformation Stick,” featuring Julia Dhar of Boston Consulting Group.
The part leaders should actually use is this:
Most change does not fail because the strategy was ugly. It fails because leaders spend too much time designing the change and not enough time making sure people can actually adopt it.
That distinction matters.
HBR has also cited McKinsey’s research showing that roughly 70% of transformation efforts fail. That number gets repeated a lot, sometimes a little too casually, but the point is still useful: most organizations are not short on ambition. They are short on the conditions that help change stick.
A lot of leaders are very good at naming the destination. They can explain the vision, the goals, the strategic priorities, the board-approved language, the new initiative, the beautiful slide with the tasteful icons.
But then the plan hits real life.
People are busy. Managers are uneven. Expectations are fuzzy. Incentives point in competing directions. Trust is thinner than leaders realized. The old way of working still feels easier. The new way sounds good in the meeting, but no one has made it practical enough to survive the week.
This is where leaders are tempted to call it a follow-through problem.
Sometimes it is. But often, follow-through is the symptom.
The deeper issue is adoption.
Have people been given clear expectations? Do they know what behavior is actually supposed to change? Do they have the skill, time, tools, authority, and support to do it? Do they understand why it matters? Have obvious barriers been removed? Does the system reward the new behavior or quietly punish it?
This is where good intentions fall apart.
And I say that with affection, because good intentions are lovely. Big fan. Very pro-good intentions.
But good intentions are not an operating system.
They do not clarify ownership. They do not make decisions visible. They do not remove barriers. They do not turn a meeting conversation into a next step. They do not make hard feedback easier. They do not automatically create trust.
Good intentions are the starting point. They are not the structure.
If you are leading meaningful work right now, ask yourself this before you blame your team for weak follow-through:
Have we made the change adoptable?
Not inspirational. Not impressive. Not theoretically aligned.
Adoptable.
Here are four questions to use this week:
What behavior actually needs to change?
What would make that behavior easier to do?
What is currently making it harder than it needs to be?
How will we know, in the next two weeks, whether it is starting to stick?
These questions are annoyingly simple, which is usually a sign that leaders should be asking them more often.
Because most teams do not need more speeches about alignment. They need clearer expectations, fewer competing priorities, better meeting follow-through, and a way to see what is moving, what is stuck, and what needs attention.
That is where transformation becomes less magical and more manageable.
Less “everyone get on board.”
More “what would make this possible for real people doing real work inside the organization we actually have?”
That is leadership.
Not the glamorous part, necessarily. No one is embroidering “remove obvious barriers” onto a throw pillow.
But it is the part that makes meaningful work move.
One move to try this week
Before your next leadership meeting ends, take five minutes and ask:
What are we asking people to do differently, and have we made that change clear, possible, and worth it?
If the answer is vague, do not move on yet.
Vague change creates vague ownership. Vague ownership creates vague follow-through. And vague follow-through creates the very special leadership hobby of chasing updates until your soul leaves your body.
No thank you.
Make the behavior clear. Name the owner. Remove one barrier. Decide when you will review progress.
That is how movement starts.
Still Good in the World
Here in Fresno, Bullard High senior Sam Makely made it back onto the baseball field less than a year after a traumatic crash left him relearning how to walk.
After the crash, Sam was dealing with a traumatic brain injury and dissociative amnesia. He had to rebuild basic pieces of his life, including his memory, his movement, and eventually, his place on the field.
ABC30 reported that relearning to walk eventually turned into position drills in the hospital hallway. Eight months after the accident, Sam was back in the lineup. This season, he became Bullard’s starting first baseman.
I love this story because it is not clean comeback-movie stuff.
It is slower than that. Harder than that. More human than that.
It is family, doctors, coaches, teammates, repetition, courage, and probably a lot of days that did not feel inspiring while they were happening.
That is the kind of good worth noticing.
Not just the big moment back on the field, but the long stretch of support and structure that made the moment possible.
Hope matters.
But hope with people around it can move.
Fuel for the Week
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
Galatians 6:9
Not because the work is easy, but because the work matters.
Until next Monday, go move the good work,
Nikki
Sources
HBR IdeaCast: “The Leadership Skills That Make Transformation Stick,” featuring Julia Dhar.
HBR: “When Senior Leaders Lack People Skills, Transformations Fail.”
