Truly understanding the magnitude and nature of change is core to successful strategy. Change is implicit in the execution of every strategy and could encompass structural, operational, behavioral, and cultural change.
This is the third area of the Middle Ground®. And here’s the reality: you cannot diagnose the true extent of change without first having built out the plan.
Why Change Assessment Depends on the Plan
Understanding and guiding the implementation of change requires diagnosis if promises are to be met. It is in the Middle Ground® planning that the extent of change can be assessed.
When you’ve built your Middle Ground® plan with strategic pillars and initiatives clearly articulated, something powerful happens. You can finally see what you’re actually asking people to do differently.
The plan forces specificity. “Expand into new markets” remains abstract until you build it out into initiatives: “Establish presence in three new regions,” “Build regional teams,” “Adapt offerings for local requirements,” “Develop regional partnerships.”
Only then can you assess: What structural changes are required? What operational shifts need to happen? What behavioral changes are we asking for? What cultural evolution is necessary?
The Four Buckets of Change
Change tends to fall into four buckets—asking people to stop doing something, start doing something new, or increase or decrease doing something.
The Middle Ground® is where all negotiations occur—where the trade-off decisions and choices are made. This can’t happen at the conceptual level of strategy and equally can’t occur at the task level.
One organization focused on a “From-To” shift: “From measuring activity… To measuring what matters—outcomes and impact against pre-determined goals that support the strategy.”
This powerful shift only became real when they looked at their plan and asked: What does this mean for how we plan and prioritize initiatives within each pillar? How we measure success? How we have performance conversations? How we award bonuses?
Without the plan providing structure, this remained a nice sentiment. With the plan, it became a transformation roadmap.
The Diagnosis Requirement
Without the plan, change management becomes generic. With the plan, you can be surgical about where change matters most.
Look at your strategic pillars. Which ones require the most significant behavioral shifts? Which initiatives will be most disruptive to current ways of working? Where are you asking people to develop entirely new capabilities?
The plan allows you to sequence change thoughtfully. You might tackle the pillar requiring the least behavioral change first to build momentum. Or you might address the most critical capability gap first, even though it’s harder, because other pillars depend on it.
Similarly, scenarios for how to adapt to changes and prioritize are frequently forgotten. Then missed targets need to be escalated to be dealt with rather than being handled at the lowest level possible. The plan makes these adaptation scenarios visible and manageable.
From-To Shifts Emerge from the Plan
After the core plan is established, identifying key “From-To” shifts becomes possible. These shifts highlight significant and essential changes that will support success.
But you cannot identify these shifts in a vacuum. They emerge when you look at your plan and ask: “What’s the biggest behavioral barrier to executing these initiatives? What mindset shift would accelerate these three pillars simultaneously?”
The Bottom Line
The Middle Ground® plan is where you face into the reality of what your strategy is actually asking people to do differently. Until you’ve built out that plan with pillars and initiatives, you’re guessing about change. Once you have it, you can diagnose precisely and act accordingly.
Have you built out your plan with enough specificity to truly understand what you’re asking your organization to change?