The Gap White Paper
How to unintentionally destroy value and exhaust yourself in the process
Over the past 15 years, my colleagues and I have been obsessed with business and leadership transformation, understood through stories of success. When I say transformation, I mean how otherwise ordinary leaders, teams and organizations become extraordinary.
The one thing this fifteen year obsession has taught me above all else is that transformation is not a matter of intention; it’s a matter of alignment. Why do I say that? All leaders have noble intentions. I’ve never met a leader who aspires to destroy shareholder value, irritate customers, and alienate staff. And yet, 70% of all change efforts fail.
Having lived my professional life at the intersection of large scale business transformation and the personal journey of the CEO, I have been granted a unique vantage point from which to study the gap between intention and reality. I have come to understand that this gap is a primary source of value destruction in organizations, and exhaustion in leaders.
In this short white paper, I outline four ways we may unwittingly destroy value, and exhaust ourselves in the process.