DC63 - How Boards Shape Change, and Why Many Get It Wrong
Part 1 in a 5 part series on what really matters when turning an org around
This series of posts is aimed at those working at the board level, either directly or as strategic advisors. The 5 part series has the following posts:
How Boards Shape Change—and Why Many Get It Wrong (this post)
Why boards must engage with culture, tone, and systemic design—not just strategy and performance KPIs.The Metrics That Matter—And How to Keep Them Honest
The five key metrics for growing a customer-based organisation (NDR, CAC Payback, LTV/CAC, Product Velocity, Platform Scalability), and how agile systems prevent gaming and misalignment.Governing Change: Risk, Ethics, and Strategic Control Through Agile Practice
How boards can use agile principles and cadences to embed risk visibility, ethical oversight, and adaptive governance into daily operations.Aligning People with Purpose: Reducing Turnover and Unlocking Ownership
How agility boosts retention, psychological safety, and operational alignment—and how your Enterprise Change Pattern supports this systemically.Purpose, People, Process, Profit: A Strategic Framework for Board-Level Agility
This final post brings together the core themes of the series into a practical, board-relevant model. It explores how agility, when understood as a strategic mindset—not a delivery tool—supports clarity of purpose, alignment of people, adaptability of process, and sustainable profit. You’ll see how agile principles can help boards lead with coherence across all dimensions of the organisation, ensuring that vision, culture, and execution remain connected as the business grows.
How Boards Shape Change—and Why Many Get It Wrong
“Change doesn’t fail because people resist it. It fails because the system isn’t aligned to support it, and that system begins at the top.”
Over the past two decades, I’ve worked with some of the world’s largest and most complex organisations, financial services, government, retail, tech, supporting them through transformation programs designed to shift not just how they work, but how they think and grow.
In that time, I’ve seen this simple but overlooked truth play out again and again:
Boards and executive teams don’t just sponsor change. They shape the very conditions under which change either flourishes, or quietly fails.
Yet too often, boards behave as if they are outside the transformation.
They approve strategy, sign off on budgets, and track performance KPIs.
But they rarely engage with the cultural, structural, and psychological conditions they themselves are creating.
And this, more than any agile framework, re-org, or leadership initiative, determines the success or failure of organisational change.
The Real Influence of the Board on Change
Here’s what I’ve consistently seen when brought in to assess or advise a struggling transformation effort:
A beautifully designed strategy, ignored or misunderstood at the operational level.
A delivery model under pressure, teams burning out or disengaging.
A disengaged board, surprised by poor outcomes, doubling down on KPIs and control.
In almost every case, the board had:
Set strategic goals, but not engaged in how those goals would be experienced down the organisation.
Measured outcomes, but not sensed the conditions that shaped those outcomes.
Assumed culture would “come right” once delivery improved, instead of realising that culture is the delivery system.
The Cultural Signals Boards Send
Culture is not a poster on the wall.
It is what people believe is expected, rewarded, tolerated, and punished.
And those beliefs are heavily shaped by what people observe from leadership, especially the board.
Boards send cultural signals, whether they mean to or not.
Here are a few examples I’ve seen first-hand:
These contradictions aren’t always conscious.
But when they are left unexamined, they shape the organisation in ways that are hard to undo.
The Cost of a Disconnected Board
A disengaged or overly operational board doesn’t just miss opportunities.
It becomes a blocker to change, often unintentionally.
The costs are real:
Slower strategy execution
Higher attrition in critical teams
Increased operational risk
Cynicism and disengagement from staff
Surface-level “agility” with no real adaptability
I’ve been brought in more than once to advise on transformation programs that were floundering, only to discover the root cause wasn’t in delivery, but in governance. The system was sending mixed messages. The leadership was out of sync with what it claimed to value.
Examples from the Field
Case 1: The Over-Controlling Board
A large financial services firm launched a product transformation strategy.
Teams were encouraged to take ownership, move fast, and experiment.
But board governance mechanisms remained rigid, every decision required sign-off.
Result?
Delays, friction, and a culture of “just ask permission.”
The board assumed failure was at the team level.
We traced the problem back to strategic misalignment: the behavioural intent of the board didn’t match its stated strategy.
Case 2: The Absent Board
A public-sector org launched a bold digital transformation, supported by consultants, new hires, and a large budget.
The board rarely engaged beyond quarterly check-ins and expected change to “land” from the top down.
Result?
Staff confusion, initiative overload, and poor uptake.
No cultural shift, just structural noise.
The transformation was technically complete, but culturally ignored.
The Boards That Get It Right
The boards I’ve seen succeed at transformation take a different posture. They:
Treat culture as a strategic lever, not a side effect.
Sense beyond dashboards, asking how change is experienced, not just reported.
Align their own behaviours and oversight rhythms with the outcomes they expect.
Engage with strategy as a living system, not a static plan.
They understand that they are not separate from the system.
They are shaping it constantly.
Introducing the Board-Level Cultural Diagnostic
To help boards navigate their influence on transformation, I created the Board-Level Cultural Diagnostic.
It’s a two-tier model that highlights the strategic tensions at board level and their downstream effects on team culture and delivery behaviour. It’s designed to reveal what traditional metrics miss, and offer a language for seeing culture not as a mystery, but as a manageable system.
Tier 1: Strategic Tensions at the Board Level
These are the polarities boards must balance. They are not problems to solve, but tensions to hold with awareness.
Tier 2: Cultural Dynamics at the Team and Delivery Level
These reflect how strategic tensions show up in the real, lived experience of work.
The model shows downstream effects from board decisions into culture, and upstream feedback from delivery patterns back into board insight.
How Boards Can Use the Diagnostic
Run it as a quarterly reflection or board workshop
Include it in diligence or integration planning
Use it to identify cultural blockers to strategy execution
Incorporate it into conversations with advisors, execs, and NEDs
It works not because it offers easy answers, but because it surfaces the right tensions to talk about.
Final Thoughts
If you’re a board member, investor, or senior executive responsible for growth and transformation, here’s what I’d leave you with:
Change doesn’t fail in delivery.
It fails in the space between strategy and culture.
And that space is yours to hold.
You don’t need to micromanage.
You need to understand the system you’re shaping, and whether it supports the outcomes you expect.
The Board-Level Cultural Diagnostic gives you a way to see that system, steer it with intention, and hold the tensions that growth demands.
Coming Next:
Post 2: The Metrics That Matter, And How to Keep Them Honest
We’ll explore the five critical metrics every board should understand (NDR, CAC Payback, etc.) and how agile operating systems can keep them grounded in reality, not vanity.
If you're looking for strategic advisory, due diligence support, or NED input that blends cultural insight with growth and governance, I'm open to conversations.
Let’s shape the conditions where transformation can truly take root.
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