South Africa, June 22 -- It has too often been reduced to a predictable pattern: top-down announcements, generic communications, mandatory training, and feedback loops that rarely lead to visible action.

In that model, it becomes a process requirement, not a strategic capability.

McKinsey's long cited finding that 70% of transformations fail is often used as an indictment of change management. It points to something else: organisations consistently underestimate what it takes to make change work.

Transformation does not fail because organisations focus too much on change.

It fails because they start too late, treat it too lightly, or define it too narrowly as communication rather than adoption.

At its core, the work is simple to defi...