From risk to resilience: How to deliver transformation without breaking the business

Our managing partner, Jurjan Klep, shares practical, often overlooked, ways to reduce transformation risks while protecting day-to-day business performance. 

Executive summary

Protect the business while you transform it. Here are five actions you can take to support implementation without breaking the business.

1. Governance blind spots → Governance loop (two-way flow) → Strategic alignment & operational realism
2. Leader overload → 20/80 focus rule → Stability & sustainable transformation
3. Risk blindness → Listen to delivery teams → Early risk detection & higher trust
4. Lack of engagement → Transparent scoreboard → Motivation, momentum & ownership
5. Capacity bottlenecks → Temporary resources → Maintain quality without overload

Introduction

In my previous article, Transformations that destroy: why execution is the real risk, I explored the pitfalls that derail even the best transformation strategies. The conclusion was clear: the greatest threat to transformation isn’t the ideas, its poor execution caused by misaligned priorities, overstretched leaders, lack of change capacity, and weak governance.

This second article moves from diagnosis to action. It’s about practical, often overlooked, ways to reduce transformation risks while protecting day-to-day business performance. Many of these mitigations aren’t rocket science, they’re about how you structure and execute your projects and programs.

A recurring theme is balance. Specifically balancing top-down clarity with bottom-up reality. Here are five actions you can take to support implementation without breaking the business.

1. Governance as a loop, not a cascade

Most transformation programs push strategy down the hierarchy and expect execution to follow. But without a way for real-world insights to flow back up, leadership can lose sight of operational reality.

Recommendations:

1. Design governance as a two-way loop. Strategy flows down; progress and pain points flow up.
2. Establish cross-level steering groups with HQ leaders, business unit heads, and key operational managers.
3. Schedule regular, specific review cycles to adjust plans before issues escalate.

Benefit: Decision-making aligns with both the strategic intent and operational reality, reducing execution friction.

2. Protect business leaders’ bandwidth

One of the most common mistakes is overloading the leaders responsible for day-to-day business with transformation responsibilities. When their time is split too thin, both areas suffer.

Recommendations:

Allow a maximum of 20% of a business leader’s time for transformation tasks.

1. Limit transformation tasks at 20% of a business leader’s time
2. Protect the other 80% for running the business and delivering “short-term” results.
3. If the transformation demands more, find solutions and appoint for example dedicated transformation leads or redistribute work.

Benefit: Operational stability is protected, and leaders can contribute to transformation without compromising core performance.

3. Listen to the people delivering the business

Frontline and operational leaders often see challenges before they show up in reports. But in transformation programs, uncomfortable truths are sometimes ignored.

Recommendations:

1. Create structured listening forums where operational leaders can raise concerns without fear of being labeled “resistant”.
2. Treat their input as early-warning signals, even when it challenges the transformation narrative.
3. Make it a governance to log, review, and respond to these insights.

Benefit: You identify execution risks early and build trust that transformation is a shared responsibility.

4. Build transparency with a scoreboard

Progress is easier to sustain when it’s visible. A clear, public scoreboard can track momentum, engage people drive, and boost confidence across the organization.

Recommendations:

1. Create a simple, visual scoreboard that tracks transformation milestones, business performance, and risk indicators.
2. Update it regularly and visibly, in leadership meetings, on dashboards, and in internal comms.
3. Use it to celebrate success and signal where help is needed or momentum can be accelerated.

Benefit: Transparency reduces uncertainty, creates shared ownership, and turns transformation into a visible, collective journey.

5. Allow for temporary resources when needed

When capacity becomes a bottleneck, leaders often face a false choice: slow down transformation or sacrifice quality. Think about customers first and let quality prevail.

Recommendations:

1. Have a process for flexible resourcing in critical roles.
2. Consider a central tactical team that can be deployed to local urgent tasks but use it selectively.
3. Accept that sometimes slowing down is the fastest way to sustainable success.

Benefit: Key deliverables maintain quality, and leaders avoid burnout, keeping the transformation on track for the long term.

A note of perspective

These five actions won’t guarantee success. Transformation is never that simple. Change is complex and brings a significant leadership challenge. At its core, transformation is about people, and people make it succeed or fail. Many things can go wrong, from unclear strategy to cultural resistance or external shocks.

But these practices give you a strong foundation to reduce risk, protect performance, and build momentum toward a transformation that sticks.

Call to action

The success of transformation isn’t just about hitting milestones, it’s about whether your business emerges stronger, more competitive, and more resilient.

Ask yourself:

• Do we have a governance loop that brings operational reality into strategic decision making?
• Are our leaders’ priorities balanced to protect both the transformation and the core business?
• Are we listening and acting on what frontline leaders tell us, even when it’s inconvenient?
• Is our progress visible and celebrated?
• Do we have the flexibility to add capacity when needed to protect quality?

If you can answer “yes” to these, you’re building a transformation system that delivers results while protecting your business from unintended damage.

This article was written by Jurjan Klep.