The Halfway Point: An Honest Health Check for Your Change Programme
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
We're now approaching the midpoint of the year and for many organisations, that means one thing on the change agenda: it's time to look honestly at how the transformation plan you signed off in January is actually landing.
Not the version in the steering committee deck. The real one, the one playing out in delayed milestones, half-adopted new ways of working, and the gap between what leadership believes is happening and what teams on the ground are actually experiencing day to day.
This pause is uncomfortable for a reason. The research on transformation is sobering, and it's been consistent for thirty years.
The numbers haven't moved much in three decades.
In 1995, Harvard Business Review published John Kotter's now-famous study of more than 100 companies attempting to reinvent themselves through restructuring, reengineering and cultural change. A few of those efforts succeeded, a few were stark failures, and most landed somewhere in between but with a distinct tilt toward the lower end. Kotter's conclusion, still widely cited today, was that around 70% of corporate transformation efforts are doomed to fail. For those of us in Transformation, it's a stat that looms large and we're trying every day to be the exception to.
It would be reassuring to think that, twenty-five years on, organisations have got better at this, especially as transformation becomes a more recognised part of everyday business. Sadly, it's not the case. A more recent HBR piece on enterprise transformation cites a McKinsey survey of nearly 3,000 executives finding failure rates above 60%, alongside HBR's own research suggesting more than 70% of transformation efforts fail. Digital transformation fares no better: HBR contributor Didier Bonnet reports that studies from academics, consultants and analysts put the failure rate of digital transformations at 70–95%, averaging around 87.5%. More recent industry analysis from Bain puts the figure for business transformation broadly at 88%.
The exact percentage matters less than the pattern underneath it: most transformation programmes don't fail in a single jaw-droppingly dramatic moment. They drift, slowly, quietly and for some almost imperceptibly. The middle of the year, after the launch energy has faded and before year-end reporting forces a reckoning is exactly when that drift becomes visible, if anyone is looking for it.
Why programmes lose their way by July
Kotter's original diagnosis still holds up well as a checklist for what to look for at the halfway mark:
The urgency has evaporated. The case for change that felt compelling in the January kick-off meeting is now competing with twelve other priorities, and nobody has restated it since. There's simply other stuff that feels more pressing.
The vision is fuzzy in practice. Leaders can describe the destination, often in a beautiful slide, but teams further down the organisation can't describe what it means for how they work on Tuesday afternoon.
Communication has been a sprint, not a campaign. A launch announcement and a few updates don't come close to the sustained, repeated communication that changing behaviour actually requires. Think you've said enough? You probably need to say it another thirty times before it really lands.
Obstacles haven't been removed. Old structures, incentives, and a handful of leaders who quietly haven't bought in are still standing exactly where they were in January, undermining the plan from the inside. Do you know who they are? I assure you, they exist.
More recent HBR research on what separates the organisations that do succeed adds a fifth factor: transformation tends to work when it's treated as a continuous, actively managed effort rather than a project with a start and end date which is precisely the discipline a mid-year review is designed to enforce.
If any of this sounds familiar, that's not a verdict on your organisation it's just the normal physics of change. The question that matters now isn't "did we get it perfectly right in January?" It's "what are we going to do about it before December?"
The cost of waiting until Q4 to find out
There's a strong temptation to let a wobbling programme run until the next formal review point, hoping momentum will return on its own. If we're honest with ourselves we know that it rarely does. Every month a misaligned transformation continues unchecked, three things compound: the sunk cost grows, the credibility of the change agenda with sceptical teams erodes further, and the realistic window to course-correct before year-end targets bite gets smaller.
A genuine mid-year check-in done properly, with honest input from the people actually delivering the change, not just those reporting on or overseeing it, is one of the best interventions available to anyone leading strategy or transformation. It converts a vague gut feel that "things feel off" into a clear, evidenced view of where the plan needs to flex, where leadership needs to re-engage, and where extra capability or capacity is genuinely required.
What a good halfway intervention looks like
A useful mid-year reset usually involves three things:
An honest, facilitated look at reality. Getting the right stakeholders in a room (or several rooms) to surface what's actually happening (not the sanitised version) and re-align on priorities and next steps before drift becomes pending failure.
Support for the leaders carrying the change. Leading a transformation that's lost momentum is genuinely hard, and very isolating. Leaders need space to think clearly, test their next moves, and rebuild conviction and confidence, not just create more reporting templates or be slightly more insistent in tone.
The right capability, applied where it's needed, for as long as it's needed. Sometimes what's missing isn't a new strategy: it's focused, experienced delivery capacity to get a stalled workstream moving again, without the cost or delay of a permanent hire.
How Great Oaks Transformation helps
This is exactly the gap Great Oaks Transformation is built to close. We work with organisations, leaders and teams at precisely this point: part way through a journey, needing an honest outside perspective and practical help to get back on track.
Facilitation & Planning - to bring stakeholders back together, re-align on direction and priorities, and turn a drifting plan into a deliverable one.
Coaching- to give the leaders carrying the change the space, clarity and accountability to find momentum and perhaps even confidence again.
Mentoring- to build the skills and resilience needed at pace to navigate the second half of a demanding change programme.
Fractional & Short Term Support- focused, experienced delivery capability exactly where your transformation needs it, without the overhead or lead time of a permanent hire.
The research is clear that most transformation programmes fail quietly, by drifting, long before anyone calls it a failure outright. The halfway point of the year is the moment to check whether yours is drifting and if it is, to do something about it while there's still runway left to change the year's ending.
No commitment, no jargon — just an honest conversation about where your change programme really stands. Book a free 30-minute call with Great Oaks Transformation to talk through your starting point and whether we're the right partner to help you close out the year on track.
