# Atlas People: Publications (full abstracts and references)

> Atlas People shows leaders whether their organisation can deliver the plan, what could get in the way, and what to address first. Below are the full abstract and the complete reference list, DOIs included, of every Atlas People knowledge paper, for engines that want more than the one-line summaries in llms.txt.

## The Missing Diligence.
People Due Diligence · 2026 · Kevin Bjerring, Philip Myrup

People due diligence is the systematic, pre-close assessment of whether a target company's leadership possesses the specific capabilities, motivational drivers, and team-level composition required to execute a defined value creation plan. It is also the least rigorous component of the typical acquisition process. This paper examines why. The methods currently available to investors each solve a version of the measurement problem. None solves the right version. The measurement gap is compounded by a structural distinction that most approaches ignore entirely: the distance between what a leader can do and what they are energised to do.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/journal/all/the-missing-diligence

References (16):
- AlixPartners. (2018). Misalignment between private equity investors, portfolio company CEOs triggering costly turnover.
- Bain & Company. (2026). Global private equity report 2026.
- Bilgili, T. V., Calderon, C. J., Allen, D. G., & Kedia, B. L. (2017). Gone with the wind: A meta-analytic review of executive turnover, its antecedents, and postacquisition performance. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1966-1997. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316635252
- Cartwright, S., & Schoenberg, R. (2006). Thirty years of mergers and acquisitions research: Recent advances and future opportunities. British Journal of Management, 17(S1), S1-S5. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00475.x
- Hambrick, D. C., & Mason, P. A. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers. Academy of Management Review, 9(2), 193-206. https://doi.org/10.2307/258434
- Heidrick & Struggles. (2025). Closing the leadership gap in private equity.
- Kaplan, S. N., Klebanov, M. M., & Sorensen, M. (2012). Which CEO characteristics and abilities matter? The Journal of Finance, 67(3), 973-1007. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2012.01739.x
- Kaplan, S. N., & Sorensen, M. (2021). Are CEOs different? The Journal of Finance, 76(4), 1773-1811. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13019
- King, D. R., Dalton, D. R., Daily, C. M., & Covin, J. G. (2004). Meta-analyses of post-acquisition performance: Indications of unidentified moderators. Strategic Management Journal, 25(2), 187-200. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.371
- Krug, J. A. (2003). Executive turnover in acquired firms: An analysis of resource-based theory and the upper echelons perspective. Journal of Management & Governance, 7(2), 117-143. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023607012229
- Krug, J. A. (2009). Mergers and acquisitions: Turmoil in top management teams. Business Expert Press.
- Lev, B., & Gu, F. (2024). The M&A failure trap: Why most mergers and acquisitions fail and how the few succeed. Wiley.
- Mackey, A. (2008). The effect of CEOs on firm performance. Strategic Management Journal, 29(12), 1357-1367. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.708
- McKinsey & Company. (2023). The seven habits of programmatic acquirers.
- Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262
- Stahl, G. K., & Voigt, A. (2008). Do cultural differences matter in mergers and acquisitions? A tentative model and examination. Organization Science, 19(1), 160-176. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1070.0270

## The Portability Illusion.
Leadership Systems · 2026 · Kevin Bjerring, Philip Myrup

Private equity's approach to leadership assessment rests on an operationally dominant assumption: that executive capability is an individual attribute, portable across contexts and decomposable into component parts. This assumption persists in assessment practices and governs both pre-close evaluation and post-close talent strategy despite accumulating evidence that performance is substantially context-dependent. Drawing on research on managerial fixed effects, the portability of star performers, external hire performance decay, and team effectiveness, this paper examines the structural consequences of treating leadership as modular when it operates as systemic.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/journal/all/the-portability-illusion

References (14):
- Bertrand, M., & Schoar, A. (2003). Managing with style: The effect of managers on firm policies. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1169-1208. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355303322552775
- Bidwell, M. (2011). Paying more to get less: The effects of external hiring versus internal mobility. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56(3), 369-407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839211433562
- Bilgili, T. V., Calderon, C. J., Allen, D. G., & Kedia, B. L. (2017). Gone with the wind: A meta-analytic review of executive turnover, its antecedents, and postacquisition performance. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1966-1997. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316635252
- Groysberg, B. (2010). Chasing stars: The myth of talent and the portability of performance. Princeton University Press.
- Groysberg, B., Lee, L.-E., & Nanda, A. (2008). Can they take it with them? The portability of star knowledge workers' performance. Management Science, 54(7), 1213-1230. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1070.0809
- Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Harvard Business Press.
- Hambrick, D. C. (2007). Upper echelons theory: An update. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 334-343. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.24345254
- Heidrick & Struggles. (2025). Closing the leadership gap in private equity.
- Huckman, R. S., & Pisano, G. P. (2006). The firm specificity of individual performance: Evidence from cardiac surgery. Management Science, 52(4), 473-488. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1050.0464
- Kaplan, S. N., Klebanov, M. M., & Sorensen, M. (2012). Which CEO characteristics and abilities matter? The Journal of Finance, 67(3), 973-1007. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2012.01739.x
- Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x
- Krug, J. A. (2003). Executive turnover in acquired firms: An analysis of resource-based theory and the upper echelons perspective. Journal of Management & Governance, 7(2), 117-143. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023607012229
- Mackey, A. (2008). The effect of CEOs on firm performance. Strategic Management Journal, 29(12), 1357-1367. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.708
- Quigley, T. J., & Hambrick, D. C. (2015). Has the "CEO effect" increased in recent decades? A new explanation for the great rise in America's attention to corporate leaders. Strategic Management Journal, 36(6), 821-830. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2258

## The Unpriced Risk.
Strategy Execution · 2026 · Kevin Bjerring, Philip Myrup

Every strategic plan is priced for risk before it is approved. Financial risk is modelled across scenarios. Market risk is stress-tested against competitor response. Operational risk is decomposed into named dependencies with named owners and a mitigation for each. People risk appears as a single line, usually labelled change management, which is a mitigation rather than a measurement. This paper examines why the input that most determines whether a plan converts is the one input nobody prices. Personality measured without reference to a situation predicts job performance at a mean validity of .09. Measured against a specified demand, that figure more than doubles. People execution risk is not unmeasurable. It is unmeasured, and every instrument currently pointed at it is aimed at the wrong unit.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/journal/all/the-unpriced-risk

References (22):
- Bell, S. T. (2007). Deep-level composition variables as predictors of team performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 595-615. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.3.595
- Bertrand, M., & Schoar, A. (2003). Managing with style: The effect of managers on firm policies. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1169-1208. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355303322552775
- Cândido, C. J. F., & Santos, S. P. (2015). Strategy implementation: What is the failure rate? Journal of Management & Organization, 21(2), 237-262. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2014.77
- Carpenter, M. A., Geletkanycz, M. A., & Sanders, W. G. (2004). Upper echelons research revisited: Antecedents, elements, and consequences of top management team composition. Journal of Management, 30(6), 749-778. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jm.2004.06.001
- Easterbrook, J. A. (1959). The effect of emotion on cue utilization and the organization of behavior. Psychological Review, 66(3), 183-201. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047707
- Fee, C. E., Hadlock, C. J., & Pierce, J. R. (2013). Managers with and without style: Evidence using exogenous variation. The Review of Financial Studies, 26(3), 567-601. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhs131
- Grove, W. M., Zald, D. H., Lebow, B. S., Snitz, B. E., & Nelson, C. (2000). Clinical versus mechanical prediction: A meta-analysis. Psychological Assessment, 12(1), 19-30. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.12.1.19
- Groysberg, B., Lee, L.-E., & Nanda, A. (2008). Can they take it with them? The portability of star knowledge workers' performance. Management Science, 54(7), 1213-1230. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1070.0809
- Hambrick, D. C., & D'Aveni, R. A. (1992). Top team deterioration as part of the downward spiral of large corporate bankruptcies. Management Science, 38(10), 1445-1466. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.38.10.1445
- Hambrick, D. C., & Mason, P. A. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers. Academy of Management Review, 9(2), 193-206. https://doi.org/10.2307/258434
- Kahneman, D., Sibony, O., & Sunstein, C. R. (2021). Noise: A flaw in human judgment. Little, Brown Spark.
- Kaplan, S. N., Klebanov, M. M., & Sorensen, M. (2012). Which CEO characteristics and abilities matter? The Journal of Finance, 67(3), 973-1007. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2012.01739.x
- Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals' fit at work: A meta-analysis of person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 281-342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00672.x
- LePine, J. A. (2003). Team adaptation and postchange performance: Effects of team composition in terms of members' cognitive ability and personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1), 27-39. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.1.27
- Mankins, M. C., & Steele, R. (2005). Turning great strategy into great performance. Harvard Business Review, 83(7/8), 65-72. https://hbr.org/2005/07/turning-great-strategy-into-great-performance
- Meyer, R. D., Dalal, R. S., & Hermida, R. (2010). A review and synthesis of situational strength in the organizational sciences. Journal of Management, 36(1), 121-140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309349309
- Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. (2022). Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection: Addressing systematic overcorrection for restriction of range. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2040-2068. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000994
- Schwabe, L., & Wolf, O. T. (2009). Stress prompts habit behavior in humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(22), 7191-7198. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0979-09.2009
- Shaffer, J. A., & Postlethwaite, B. E. (2012). A matter of context: A meta-analytic investigation of the relative validity of contextualized and noncontextualized personality measures. Personnel Psychology, 65(3), 445-494. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2012.01250.x
- Sull, D., Homkes, R., & Sull, C. (2015). Why strategy execution unravels, and what to do about it. Harvard Business Review, 93(3), 58-66. https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-strategy-execution-unravelsand-what-to-do-about-it
- Tett, R. P., & Burnett, D. D. (2003). A personality trait-based interactionist model of job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 500-517. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.3.500
- Virany, B., Tushman, M. L., & Romanelli, E. (1992). Executive succession and organization outcomes in turbulent environments: An organization learning approach. Organization Science, 3(1), 72-91. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.3.1.72

## When Culture Becomes Predictive, Not Descriptive.
Culture & Integration · 2026 · Kevin Bjerring, Philip Myrup

Culture is the single most frequently cited barrier to meeting integration value targets. Yet culture remains one of the least rigorously measured variables in the integration process. When investors describe a failed integration as a “culture clash,” they are naming an outcome, not a cause. This paper examines why this pattern persists and proposes a shift from descriptive to predictive cultural measurement: from “what does this organisation's culture look like” to “how does this specific leader perceive the culture, and what behaviour does the gap predict.”

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/journal/all/when-culture-becomes-predictive

References (13):
- Bilgili, T. V., Calderon, C. J., Allen, D. G., & Kedia, B. L. (2017). Gone with the wind: A meta-analytic review of executive turnover, its antecedents, and postacquisition performance. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1966-1997. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316635252
- Brown, A., & Maydeu-Olivares, A. (2011). Item response modeling of forced-choice questionnaires. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 71(3), 460-502. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164410375112
- Byrne, D. (1971). The attraction paradigm. Academic Press.
- Cable, D. M., & Judge, T. A. (1997). Interviewers' perceptions of person-organization fit and organizational selection decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(4), 546-561. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.4.546
- Cameron, K. S., & Quinn, R. E. (2006). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture. Jossey-Bass.
- Chatman, J. A. (1991). Matching people and organizations: Selection and socialization in public accounting firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36(3), 459-484.
- Chatterjee, S., Lubatkin, M. H., Schweiger, D. M., & Weber, Y. (1992). Cultural differences and shareholder value in related mergers: Linking equity and human capital. Strategic Management Journal, 13(5), 319-334. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250130502
- Kristof, A. L. (1996). Person-organization fit: An integrative review of its conceptualizations, measurement, and implications. Personnel Psychology, 49(1), 1-49. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1996.tb01790.x
- Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals' fit at work: A meta-analysis of person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 281-342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00672.x
- Krug, J. A. (2003). Executive turnover in acquired firms: An analysis of resource-based theory and the upper echelons perspective. Journal of Management & Governance, 7(2), 117-143. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023607012229
- Krug, J. A. (2009). Mergers and acquisitions: Turmoil in top management teams. Business Expert Press.
- Rivera, L. A. (2012). Hiring as cultural matching: The case of elite professional service firms. American Sociological Review, 77(6), 999-1022. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412463213
- Salgado, J. F., & Tauriz, G. (2014). The Five-Factor Model, forced-choice personality inventories and performance: A comprehensive meta-analysis of academic and occupational validity studies. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 23(1), 3-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.716198

# Atlas People: Field notes (answers and sources)

## Cutting costs without breaking execution
Field note · 2026-09-25 · Kevin Bjerring

To cut costs without breaking execution, protect the handoffs, decision owners and key people the remaining plan depends on, and cut work before cutting capacity. Research on cost programmes finds that savings often fail to last, and research on downsizing links it to higher voluntary turnover among those who stay, which can erode the capacity the plan still needs.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/cutting-costs-without-breaking-execution

### What should be decided before any cut is made?
What the plan still has to deliver after the cuts, and therefore which capabilities, handoffs and people it cannot lose. A cost programme changes the organisation that carries the rest of the strategy. Deciding what to protect first turns the programme from a percentage target into a choice about the future business.

### Why cut work before cutting people?
Because removing people without removing their work leaves the same demand on fewer shoulders. The remaining teams absorb it through longer hours, slower handoffs and dropped commitments. Taking out whole activities, reports, meetings and approval steps first makes the capacity reduction match a real reduction in demand.

### Which people does a cost programme put at risk?
Often the ones it intends to keep. Trevor and Nyberg found that downsizing predicts higher voluntary turnover among the organisation's remaining employees, through lower commitment. Practices that embed people or signal fair process softened the effect, and career development practices strengthened it. The people most able to leave can be the ones the plan relies on most.

### Why do cost savings so often fail to last?
Often because the underlying work and habits return. McKinsey found that only about one in four large companies sustained an improvement in G&A costs relative to sales, and Bain found that nearly 60% of executives pursuing cuts of 20% or more acknowledged missing their goal. Savings tend to last when the work behind the cost is removed or redesigned.

### How does pressure change the way leaders decide?
Under threat, leadership teams tend to concentrate decisions at the top and narrow the information they use. That can help in a crisis. It can also slow the organisation just when it needs to move. Watching for it, and agreeing in advance which decisions stay delegated, protects execution.

### How do you cut costs without hurting performance?
Start from what the plan still has to deliver, protect the capabilities, handoffs and people it depends on, and remove work before removing capacity. Cuts that follow the strategy and take whole activities out tend to hold. Uniform percentage cuts spread the reduction across work the plan still needs.

### Why do cost reduction programmes fail to sustain savings?
McKinsey found that only about one in four large companies sustained an improvement in G&A costs relative to sales. The work and habits behind the cost tend to return when decision rights, approvals and reporting are left unchanged. Savings last when the underlying work has been removed or redesigned, rather than simply reallocated to fewer people.

### Do layoffs make remaining employees more likely to leave?
Research suggests they can. Trevor and Nyberg found that downsizing predicts higher voluntary turnover rates, through lower commitment, and that practices which embed employees or signal fairness reduce the effect. The employees most able to leave are often those the organisation most needs, so retention should be planned before cuts are announced.

### What should leaders protect during a cost-cutting programme?
The capabilities the revised plan depends on, the people who hold critical knowledge or relationships, single points of failure in key handoffs, and the decisions that should stay delegated. Naming these before the programme is designed prevents cuts that save little and put the recovery plan at risk.

### How does a profit warning affect the organisation?
It usually increases pressure on leaders. Research on threat rigidity finds that groups under threat tend to concentrate control and narrow the information they use. Some of that helps. Too much of it slows the organisation, so agreeing which decisions remain delegated is one of the most useful early moves after a warning.

Sources (4):
- Alexander Edlich, Heiko Heimes and Allison Watson, Can you achieve and sustain G&A cost reductions?, McKinsey Quarterly (2016). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/can-you-achieve-and-sustain-ga-cost-reductions
- Peter Guarraia, Hernan Saenz and Emilia Fallas, Sustained cost transformation: Delivering savings that stick, Bain & Company (2012). https://www.bain.com/insights/sustained-cost-transformation/
- Charlie O. Trevor and Anthony J. Nyberg, Keeping Your Headcount When All About You Are Losing Theirs, Academy of Management Journal (2008). https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2008.31767250
- Barry M. Staw, Lance E. Sandelands and Jane E. Dutton, Threat Rigidity Effects in Organizational Behavior: A Multilevel Analysis, Administrative Science Quarterly (1981). https://doi.org/10.2307/2392337

## What a board should ask about execution risk
Field note · 2026-10-06 · Kevin Bjerring

Board oversight of strategy execution works when the board asks, before approval, what the plan depends on inside the organisation and who owns each dependency, and then returns to those answers at each review. Directors rate their boards most effective at strategy and least effective at organisational health and talent, which is where most execution risk sits.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/what-a-board-should-ask-about-execution-risk

### Where is a board's blind spot on execution?
In the organisation between the plan and the numbers. Boards see the strategy and the results. They rarely see the handoffs, decision owners and leadership capacity the strategy relies on, and directors say so: in McKinsey's research they rated their boards least effective at organisational health and talent management, and spent three days a year on it.

### What should the board ask before approving a plan?
Four things. Which handoffs between functions does the plan depend on, and who owns each? Which decisions move, and to whom? Which roles carry the plan, and what happens if one is empty for six months? And what evidence, beyond management's confidence, supports the answers? A plan that cannot answer these is not ready, however good the numbers.

### What should the board look at after approval?
The same four answers, at each review point, with evidence of whether they still hold. Did the named handoff owners stay in post? Did the decisions that were meant to move actually move? Are the roles that carry the plan filled and stable? Reviewing these alongside the financials gives the board an early reading, before the numbers move.

### What evidence should the board ask management for?
Something independent of the plan's narrative. Management's confidence is an input, not evidence. The board can ask for a reading of the organisation against the plan: where the demand on teams and leaders exceeds what they presently support, which interfaces are fragile, and what argues against the reading. The form matters less than the fact that it exists before approval.

### Whose job is this on the board?
The chair's, in setting the agenda, and the committee that owns people matters, in following up. Remuneration and nomination committees already look at the leaders who carry the plan. Adding the question of whether the organisation around them can carry it is an extension of their remit, and it puts execution risk on the agenda before it becomes a crisis.

### What is the board's role in strategy execution?
To test, before approval, what the plan depends on inside the organisation and who owns each dependency, and to return to those answers at each review. The board does not run execution. It makes sure the questions about handoffs, decisions and roles were asked, answered with evidence, and revisited when something material changes.

### What questions should a board ask before approving a strategic plan?
Which handoffs between functions the plan depends on and who owns each. Which decisions move and to whom. Which roles carry the plan and what happens if one is empty for six months. And what evidence beyond management's confidence supports those answers. A plan that cannot answer them is not ready for approval, whatever the financial case says.

### Why do boards miss execution risk?
Because they see the plan and the results but not the organisation between them. Directors rate their boards least effective at organisational health and talent management and spend only a few days a year on it, in McKinsey's research. Management knows more about execution capacity than the board does, which is why the board's questions matter.

### How often should a board review execution risk?
At every review point the plan already has, and whenever something material changes: a new strategy, new ownership, a new operating model, new pressure, a new dependency or new evidence. The review is short if the answers given at approval are tracked as standing items. It is long and late if they are reconstructed after the numbers have moved.

### Should the board commission its own assessment of the organisation?
When the plan is material enough that the board would not accept the sponsor's assurance on its financing, it should not accept it on the organisation either. An independent reading of the organisation against the plan, with the evidence for and against it, gives the board the same standard of evidence it applies to the accounts.

Sources (4):
- McKinsey & Company, Toward a value-creating board, McKinsey Quarterly (2016). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/toward-a-value-creating-board
- McKinsey & Company, A time for boards to act, McKinsey Quarterly (2018). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/a-time-for-boards-to-act
- McKinsey & Company, The Board Perspective: A collection of McKinsey insights focusing on boards of directors (2017). https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/leadership/the%20board%20perspective/the-board-perspective.ashx
- Russell Reynolds Associates, Three Areas Where Boards Spend Their Time But Don't See Results, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (2025). https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/03/16/three-areas-where-boards-spend-their-time-but-dont-see-results

## What to assess before a carve-out
Field note · 2026-10-06 · Kevin Bjerring

What to assess before a carve-out is the work the business will have to do alone that the group did for it: which decisions, services and handoffs cross the new boundary, who will own them on day one, and which leaders have run a function without a parent behind them. Separation risk sits in those dependencies, not in the perimeter.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/what-to-assess-before-a-carve-out

### Where should a carve-out assessment start?
With the boundary, not the org chart. List everything the business receives from the group today: shared services, systems, approvals, people whose time is split, and customers or suppliers contracted at group level. Each item is a dependency that must be rebuilt, bought or formally kept, and each has a date by which it must work.

### Which decisions change hands on day one?
Every decision the group used to take for the business: pricing authority, capital approval, hiring above a grade, legal sign-off, IT changes. On day one each needs a named owner inside the carve-out with the information and the mandate to take it. Decisions that nobody claims in the planning phase become the delays of the first quarter.

### Which leaders have run a function without a group behind them?
Often fewer than the organisation chart suggests. A divisional finance lead who relied on group treasury, a plant manager who never negotiated a supplier contract, or an HR lead who used group policy and systems has a real job to learn. The question is not whether they are capable but which demands are new to them.

### What happens when transition services end?
The business finds out which dependencies it rebuilt and which it only renamed. TMF Group's research found that, among acquirers with transition service agreements, two-fifths of private equity firms and 30% of corporates said the carve-out was not operationally ready when the agreements expired. The expiry date is a review point, not an administrative detail.

### When should the leadership team be assessed?
Before the separation plan is final, because the plan should be built around the team that will run it. An assessment after close can only confirm what the first missed milestone already showed. Before signing, it can change the perimeter, the transition terms, the hires made before day one and the order in which services are cut over.

### What is the biggest risk in a carve-out?
The dependencies the business does not know it has. Services, decisions and contracts that the group provided quietly only become visible when they stop. TMF Group's research found that a substantial share of carve-outs were not operationally ready when their transition service agreements expired, which is the point at which those hidden dependencies are tested.

### How long should a transition service agreement last?
Long enough for each service to be rebuilt or replaced, with a readiness test before the end date rather than an automatic renewal. The length matters less than the plan behind it. Agreements that run on because nobody tested readiness delay the moment the business has to stand on its own without making it easier.

### Should the carve-out's management team be assessed before the deal?
Yes, against the plan it will carry alone rather than against its record inside the group. Leaders who performed well with a parent behind them face new demands when the parent is gone. Assessing before signing leaves time to hire, develop or restructure, while an assessment after close can only explain a missed milestone.

### What is the difference between a carve-out and a post-merger integration?
An integration combines two organisations and has to settle who owns each decision across them. A carve-out separates one organisation from its parent and has to rebuild what the parent provided. Integrations stall on duplicated ownership. Carve-outs stall on missing ownership, where a service or decision has no home once the boundary is drawn.

### What should a seller prepare before marketing a carve-out?
A map of every dependency on the group, a named owner for each decision the business will take alone, and a leadership team tested against the standalone plan. Buyers price the risk they find late. A seller who can show a business that stands on its own protects both the price and the timetable.

Sources (3):
- TMF Group, Cross-border carve-outs: Why one third fail and how to get them right (2020). https://www.tmf-group.com/globalassets/pdfs/publications/tmf_carve_outs_2020_report_lr_spreads_final.pdf
- Caterina Moschieri and Johanna Mair, Research on corporate divestitures: A synthesis, Journal of Management & Organization (2008). https://doi.org/10.5172/jmo.837.14.4.399
- EY, Unlocking fresh business value through well-designed carve-outs and spin-offs (2025). https://www.ey.com/en_pl/insights/mergers-acquisitions/unlocking-fresh-business-value-through-well-designed-carve-outs-and-spin-offs

## What to assess before a restructuring
Field note · 2026-09-25 · Kevin Bjerring

Before a restructuring, assess what the new design asks of the organisation: which decisions move, who will own them, which handoffs are created, and what current ways of working will resist. Leave alone what the new strategy does not load. Many redesigns fall short on the connections between the boxes.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/what-to-assess-before-a-restructuring

### Where should the assessment start?
With the plan the restructuring serves. A new operating model is justified by what it lets the business do differently, so the first question is which decisions, handoffs and priorities have to change for that to happen. The structure is the answer to that question, and it can only be judged against it.

### Which decisions move in the new design, and who will own them?
List the decisions that change hands, and name an owner for each before the new structure goes live. A redesign that moves decision rights without saying so leaves two leaders who both believe they own the same call, or none who do. Either usually shows up as slower decisions.

### Which new handoffs does the redesign create?
A reorganisation cuts some old dependencies and creates new ones. Map the handoffs the plan will rely on after the change, especially those between units that did not previously work together, and give each an owner. New interfaces tend to carry more execution risk, because nothing about them is yet routine.

### What should be left alone?
The parts the new plan does not put under more demand. A team that works well and whose work the strategy does not change is a reserve, not a target. Redesigning it spends change capacity the organisation needs elsewhere, and adds strain without adding anything the plan requires.

### When should individual leaders be assessed?
After the design, the decision rights and the handoffs are settled, and against the roles as they will be. Assessing people first judges them against a job that no longer exists. Assessing them against the new demand shows who fits the new role, and where the role itself needs more support.

### What should be assessed before a reorganisation?
The decisions that will change hands and who will own them, the new handoffs the design creates, the priorities the organisation will carry during the change, and only then the leaders against the new roles. Starting from the plan the reorganisation serves keeps the assessment focused on what the new design has to deliver.

### Why do so many restructurings fail?
In McKinsey's 2014 survey, executives reported that three-quarters of redesigns fell short of their objectives and of improving performance. Common reasons include focusing on the chart instead of how work and decisions flow, and underestimating the strain on the organisation. Redesigns that settle decision rights and handoffs before launch give themselves a better starting point.

### Should leaders be assessed before or after the new structure is designed?
After. Assessing leaders against the old roles tells you little about the new ones. Once the design, decision rights and handoffs are settled, each leader can be read against what the new role demands, which also shows where a role needs more support rather than a different person.

### How do you decide which parts of the organisation to leave alone?
Look at where the new plan increases demand. Teams whose work the plan does not change, and that are performing well, can usually be left as they are. Redesigning them spends change capacity that the organisation needs for the areas the new plan will load most heavily.

### How long does an organisational redesign take?
Longer than most plans assume. In McKinsey's research, nearly 30% of fully implemented redesigns took more than twelve months from the decision on objectives to full implementation. Planning for a period of slower decisions, and naming owners early, reduces the cost of that transition.

Sources (3):
- McKinsey & Company, The secrets of successful organizational redesigns: McKinsey Global Survey results (2014). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-secrets-of-successful-organizational-redesigns-mckinsey-global-survey-results
- McKinsey & Company, The secrets of successful organizational redesigns: McKinsey Global Survey results (2014). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-secrets-of-successful-organizational-redesigns-mckinsey-global-survey-results
- McKinsey & Company, Decision making in the age of urgency (2019). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/decision-making-in-the-age-of-urgency

## When a plan depends on one person
Field note · 2026-10-06 · Kevin Bjerring

Key person dependency is the condition where a plan's handoffs, knowledge or decisions run through one individual, so that their absence stops work nobody else can pick up. Network research finds that ideas, information and influence concentrate in a few people who bridge groups, and turnover research finds that when one of them leaves, colleagues follow.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/when-a-plan-depends-on-one-person

### What does key person dependency actually look like?
Not a hero on the org chart but a person at a crossing point. The planner who is the only working link between sales forecasts and production. The engineer who understands the legacy system. The manager whom two teams route decisions through. The plan never names them, which is why the dependency survives every review until the person is away.

### Why do new plans create key person dependencies?
Because a new plan creates new handoffs, and the first version of every new handoff runs through whoever understood both sides. A strategy launch, an integration or a system change asks people to connect work that was previously separate, and the few who can do it become the route. The dependency is a by-product of the plan working, early on.

### What happens when the key person leaves?
The work they bridged stops, and the people around them start looking. Felps and colleagues, studying 45 bank branches and over a thousand hospitality departments, found that colleagues' job embeddedness and job search behaviour predicted individual quitting beyond what other factors explained. Turnover travels through the same network that made the person central.

### How do you find a key person dependency before it bites?
Ask about handoffs, not job titles. For each handoff the plan depends on, name who gives, who receives and who else could do it tomorrow. Where the third answer is nobody, you have found a single point of failure. Then look at the calendars: the people most in demand across teams are usually the ones the plan quietly depends on.

### How do you reduce the dependency without losing the person?
Add a second span to the bridge. Give the handoff a named deputy who does it some of the time, write down what the key person knows that nobody else does, and move some decisions that route through them to the people who could take them. Protect the person's workload while this happens. Overloaded bridges are the ones that leave.

### What is key person dependency?
A situation where a plan's handoffs, knowledge or decisions run through one individual, so that their absence stops work that nobody else can pick up. It usually forms around people who bridge groups, and it rarely appears on an organisation chart, because the chart shows roles and the dependency lives in the handoffs between them.

### How do you identify key person risk in a business?
List the handoffs the plan depends on and ask, for each, who else could do it tomorrow. Where the answer is nobody, there is a single point of failure. Then check who is most in demand across teams, because the people everyone turns to are usually the ones the plan quietly relies on.

### Does one resignation lead to others?
Research says it can. Felps and colleagues found that colleagues' job embeddedness and job search behaviour predicted individual quitting, and Porter and Rigby's review of 42 studies concludes that employees tend to imitate the turnover-related attitudes and behaviour of their co-workers. The risk is highest around people others depended on, because their departure changes everyone's work.

### Is a retention bonus the right response to key person risk?
It buys time, not resilience. A bonus may keep the person, but it leaves the plan as dependent on them as before and can add to their load as recognition brings more requests. The structural response is to add a deputy to the handoff, document what only they know, and move some of the decisions that route through them.

### Why do key people end up overloaded?
Because being the bridge between groups attracts work. Burt's research found that ideas, evaluations and promotions concentrate in people whose networks span structural holes, and Cross, Rebele and Grant document how collaborative demand has grown and lands on the people others turn to. The position that makes someone valuable also makes them the default route.

Sources (4):
- Ronald S. Burt, Structural Holes and Good Ideas, American Journal of Sociology (2004). https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/421787
- Will Felps, Terence R. Mitchell, David R. Hekman, Thomas W. Lee, Brooks C. Holtom and Wendy S. Harman, Turnover Contagion: How Coworkers' Job Embeddedness and Job Search Behaviors Influence Quitting, Academy of Management Journal (2009). https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2009.41331075
- Caitlin M. Porter and James R. Rigby, The turnover contagion process: An integrative review of theoretical and empirical research, Journal of Organizational Behavior (2021). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.2483
- Rob Cross, Reb Rebele and Adam Grant, Collaborative Overload, Harvard Business Review (2016). https://hbr.org/2016/01/collaborative-overload

## When to reforecast a plan
Field note · 2026-09-25 · Kevin Bjerring

Reforecast a plan when something material changes: a new strategy, new ownership, a new operating model, new pressure, a new dependency or new evidence. Finance already reforecasts when assumptions change. The organisation expected to deliver the plan deserves the same discipline, on the same triggers, before friction turns into failure.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/when-to-reforecast-a-plan

### Why reforecast the organisation, and not just the numbers?
Because the numbers depend on it. A financial reforecast updates revenue and cost when assumptions change, and the plan behind those figures still relies on the same teams, owners and handoffs. When the change also affects who decides, who delivers or what they must prioritise, the organisation needs its own second look.

### What are the six moments that should prompt a reforecast?
New strategy, new ownership, new operating model, new pressure, new dependency and new evidence. Each changes what the plan asks of the organisation, or what is known about it. Any one of them is reason enough to update the view of where execution will stall and what to change first.

### How often should a plan be reforecast?
Often enough that each update is small. Forecasting research finds that the most accurate forecasters revise in frequent, small steps, while weaker ones hold on to their first view or make infrequent, large changes. An annual review of the organisation is a large, infrequent revision by design, and it tends to arrive after the cost.

### What does a reforecast actually change?
The judgement about where the plan will stall, the confidence in it, and the next move. A good reforecast says what changed, what that means for the organisation, where attention should now go, which condition to change first, and when to look again. It keeps the earlier view visible, so the change can be seen and learned from.

### How do you adapt a plan without losing the strategy?
By treating adaptation as a decision with an owner and a trigger, rather than as drift. Sull and colleagues found that many organisations either react too slowly to seize opportunities or react quickly but lose sight of the strategy. Tying reforecasts to named moments keeps the response fast and anchored to the plan.

### When should a business reforecast its plan?
When a material assumption changes. For the organisation behind the plan, six moments are reliable prompts: a new strategy, new ownership, a new operating model, new pressure, a new dependency and new evidence. Between those moments, a light review at an agreed point checks whether the evidence has moved.

### What is the difference between a forecast and a reforecast?
A forecast gives the first view of where a plan is likely to stall and what to change first. A reforecast updates that view after the plan, the context or the evidence changes, and keeps the earlier view on record so the organisation can see what it expected and learn from the difference.

### How often should forecasts be updated?
Frequently and in small steps. Research from a four-year forecasting tournament found that the most accurate forecasters made frequent, small updates. An organisational view reviewed only once a year tends to change in large, late jumps, after the organisation has already absorbed the cost.

### Why reforecast the organisation if finance already reforecasts?
Because the financial numbers rest on organisational assumptions: who decides, who delivers and which handoffs work. A change that moves those assumptions can make a financially sound reforecast undeliverable. Reviewing both on the same trigger keeps the plan and the organisation expected to carry it consistent.

### Who should own a reforecast?
The executive who owns the plan, with input from the people closest to the changed conditions. Ownership matters because a reforecast ends in decisions: what to resequence, who takes over a critical handoff, when to look again. Without a named owner, those decisions drift back into the regular calendar.

Sources (2):
- Pavel Atanasov, Jens Witkowski, Lyle Ungar, Barbara Mellers and Philip Tetlock, Small steps to accuracy: Incremental belief updaters are better forecasters, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2020). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597819300949
- Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, Why Strategy Execution Unravels and What to Do About It, Harvard Business Review (2015). https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-strategy-execution-unravelsand-what-to-do-about-it

## Why matrix organisations slow decisions
Field note · 2026-10-06 · Kevin Bjerring

Most matrix organisation problems come down to one question nobody answered: who decides when the two lines disagree. Research among managers in matrix structures finds unclear roles, ambiguous authority and misaligned goals at the top of the list, and matrixed employees are less likely to know what is expected of them. Decisions slow where authority is shared without being assigned.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/why-matrix-organisations-slow-decisions

### Where do matrix organisations usually slow down?
At the points where two reporting lines meet and neither holds the decision. A country head and a global product lead both have a legitimate claim on a pricing, hiring or investment call. When the design did not say who decides, the decision escalates, or gets made twice. The structure is not the problem. The unassigned decision is.

### Who feels the problem first, and why does the top team miss it?
Middle managers feel it first and most. In the same study, 87% of mid-level managers cited unclear roles and responsibilities as a major issue, against 23% of top-level managers. The top team designed the matrix and knows what it intended. The managers inside it live with what was actually assigned, which is less.

### Do matrix organisations get anything in return?
Yes, and that is why they persist. McKinsey's analysis of Gallup data on nearly 4,000 US workers found that matrixed employees reported better collaboration than their non-matrixed peers, and at the same time were less likely to know what was expected of them. The trade is real. The question is whether the clarity side of it was ever designed.

### Why does the matrix need an owner?
Because nobody inside either line has an incentive to resolve the conflicts between them. Sy and D'Annunzio named the lack of a matrix guardian as one of the five challenges: a role that monitors how the matrix performs, surfaces the decisions that stall and settles the disputes neither line will raise. Without it, conflicts are settled by escalation or attrition.

### Can the slowdown be fixed without another restructuring?
Usually, and usually faster. The fix is to assign the decisions, not redraw the boxes: list the decisions that stalled or were taken twice, give each one owner, state what the other line is consulted on, and review the list quarterly. A matrix that stalls has usually skipped this step, not chosen the wrong structure.

### What are the most common problems with matrix organisations?
In Sy and D'Annunzio's study of 294 managers in seven multinationals, the top five were misaligned goals, unclear roles and responsibilities, ambiguous authority, the lack of a matrix guardian and silo-focused employees. Most reduce to decisions that were shared between two lines without being assigned to either, which is where the structure slows.

### Why are decisions slow in a matrix organisation?
Because a decision with two legitimate claimants and no named owner has nowhere to go except upward or into a meeting. Each escalation adds days and loads the executive team with calls it should not be taking. Assigning the decisions that carry the plan to one line, with the other consulted, removes most of the delay.

### Do matrix organisations work?
They deliver what they are built for. McKinsey's analysis of Gallup data found matrixed employees reported better collaboration than non-matrixed peers, while being less clear about what was expected of them. A matrix works when the organisation puts the clarity back deliberately, through assigned decisions and a role that watches how the matrix performs.

### What is a matrix guardian?
A role, named in Sy and D'Annunzio's research, that owns the health of the matrix itself: it monitors how the structure performs, surfaces decisions that stall between the lines and settles ownership disputes that neither line will raise. In practice it is often held by a chief operating officer with a standing review of stalled and duplicated decisions.

### Should we replace the matrix with a simpler structure?
Not before the decisions have been assigned. A matrix that slows has usually skipped that step, and a restructuring that skips it too will produce the same stall in a new shape. Assign the decisions that carry the plan, review what still escalates after two quarters, and only then ask whether the design itself is wrong.

Sources (4):
- Thomas Sy and Laura Sue D'Annunzio, Challenges and Strategies of Matrix Organizations: Top-Level and Mid-Level Managers' Perspectives, Human Resource Planning (2005). https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Challenges-and-Strategies-of-Matrix-Organizations:-Sy-D'Annunzio/381b381f543737bbd2eea6868df958c4d9f86112
- Thomas Sy and Laura Sue D'Annunzio, Challenges and Strategies of Matrix Organizations: Top-Level and Mid-Level Managers' Perspectives, Human Resource Planning (full text) (2005). https://theleadershipedge.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Challenges_Strategies_of_Matrix_Orgs.pdf
- McKinsey & Company, Revisiting the matrix organization, McKinsey Quarterly (2016). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organization/our-insights/revisiting-the-matrix-organization
- Stanley M. Davis and Paul R. Lawrence, Problems of Matrix Organizations, Harvard Business Review (1978). https://store.hbr.org/product/problems-of-matrix-organizations/78303

## Why post-merger integrations stall
Field note · 2026-09-25 · Kevin Bjerring

Post-merger integrations often stall on the organisation that has to deliver the synergy case: leaders who leave or disengage, decisions without a clear owner across the two companies, and new handoffs between teams that have not worked together before. A meta-analysis of acquisition research found executive turnover and the level of integration to be the most significant of the factors it examined.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/why-post-merger-integrations-stall

### What does a synergy case assume about the organisation?
That the combined organisation will make the decisions and handoffs the case depends on, at the pace the case assumes. Revenue synergies need two sales teams to share accounts. Cost synergies need someone to decide which system, site or team is kept. Each is an organisational event with an owner, a sequence and a risk.

### Why does leadership turnover matter so much after an acquisition?
Because acquired-firm leaders often carry the knowledge, relationships and informal authority the integration relies on. Bilgili and colleagues' meta-analysis found executive turnover among the most significant factors in post-acquisition performance, and that CEO and top-team turnover have opposite effects, so what matters is which leaders leave.

### Who owns the decisions during an integration?
Often it is unclear, and that is a frequent early source of delay. Two leadership teams, two sets of habits and a new governance layer can leave the same decision with several owners or with none. Naming the owner of each integration-critical decision before day one prevents weeks of informal negotiation.

### Where do integrations break down day to day?
At the new interfaces between teams from the two companies. People in each organisation know how to get things done in their own system. The integration asks them to rely on colleagues they do not know, through processes that are still being designed. That is where commitments slip.

### What should be assessed before the deal closes?
The leaders the value creation plan depends on, read against what the plan will ask of them, and the decisions and handoffs the synergy case assumes. People due diligence brings this into the deal process, so the investment committee sees organisational risk alongside the commercial and financial work.

### Why do post-merger integrations fail?
Research points to the organisation as much as the economics. A meta-analysis of 112 studies found executive turnover and the level of integration among the most significant factors in post-acquisition performance. Unclear decision ownership and new handoffs between teams from both companies are where the synergy case most often loses pace.

### Should acquired-company leaders be retained?
It depends on what the integration plan needs from them. CEO and top-team turnover affect performance in opposite directions in the research, so a blanket retention policy is a poor guide. Identify which leaders hold the knowledge and relationships the plan relies on, and focus retention there.

### What is people due diligence in an acquisition?
It is the assessment, before closing, of where the leaders and organisation a deal depends on are likely to strain against the value creation plan. It sits alongside financial and commercial diligence and gives the investment committee a view of organisational risk while the integration plan can still be changed cheaply.

### What should happen in the first hundred days after an acquisition?
The integration-critical decisions should get named owners and due dates, the leaders the plan depends on should know their roles, and the handoffs the synergy case relies on should be mapped and owned. Pace in the first hundred days depends heavily on clear decision rights.

### How do you know an integration is stalling?
Look for repeated escalation of the same decisions, synergy milestones slipping at the same handoff, and acquired leaders who are consulted less than their role implies. These signals usually appear before the synergy numbers move, and they point to where ownership or interfaces need attention.

Sources (3):
- T. V. Bilgili, C. J. Calderon, D. G. Allen and B. L. Kedia, Gone With the Wind: A Meta-Analytic Review of Executive Turnover, Its Antecedents, and Postacquisition Performance, Journal of Management (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316635252
- T. V. Bilgili and colleagues, Gone With the Wind, Journal of Management (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316635252
- Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, Why Strategy Execution Unravels and What to Do About It, Harvard Business Review (2015). https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-strategy-execution-unravelsand-what-to-do-about-it

## Why strategies stall in execution
Field note · 2026-09-25 · Kevin Bjerring

Strategies often stall between functions, where one team depends on another to deliver its part. Research on strategy execution finds that managers can usually rely on their own reporting line, and far less often on colleagues elsewhere. Before a launch, check the handoffs the plan relies on, who owns each one, and which priorities have the resources to carry them.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/why-strategies-stall-in-execution

### Where does a strategy usually stall?
More often between units than inside them. A strategy is approved as one decision, and then carried by many teams whose work depends on each other. Those dependencies are where commitments slip, because a team can be held to account for its own targets while the handoff it needs from another team has no clear owner.

### Why is the first explanation for a stall so often wrong?
Because friction arrives looking like a people problem. A slow decision reads as a leader without pace, a missed milestone as weak discipline, conflict as a team out of alignment. Each is a hypothesis. The same signs are produced by split authority, late evidence, or a plan that rewards incompatible outcomes across functions.

### What should a leadership team check before launching a strategy?
Five things the plan depends on: that people know which strategy now applies, what to choose and what to drop, what their own contribution is, who decides and who delivers, and which interfaces carry the result. The plan tends to give way at the weakest of the five in Atlas's reading, and dependency is the one research most often finds weak.

### Does it matter how many priorities a strategy carries?
Yes, because priorities compete for the same people. Sull and colleagues found that only 11% of managers believe all their company's strategic priorities have the financial and human resources they need. When everything is a priority, teams choose for themselves, and they choose differently.

### What are the early signals that a strategy is stalling?
Repeated escalation of the same kind of decision, work arriving late at the same handoff, and a growing amount of informal coordination that keeps things moving despite the structure. Each shows people absorbing a gap between what the plan asks and what the organisation currently supports.

### What is the most common reason strategies fail in execution?
Research points to coordination across functions and units rather than alignment within them. Sull, Homkes and Sull found that only 9% of managers can rely on colleagues in other units all the time. Plans depend on those handoffs, and a handoff with no clear owner is where commitments often slip first.

### Is strategy execution failure a leadership problem?
Sometimes, but it is rarely the first thing to conclude. Slow decisions and missed milestones are also produced by split authority, late evidence and competing priorities. The useful move is to check those structural explanations before a judgement about a leader, because the structural fixes are cheaper and faster to try.

### How many strategic priorities should a company have?
Few enough that each has the money and people it needs. Only 11% of managers in Sull's research believed all their priorities were properly resourced. A shorter list with an explicit set of things the strategy stops doing usually executes better than a long list that teams have to ration themselves.

### When should execution risk be checked?
Before the strategy is launched, and again when something material changes: new ownership, a new operating model, new pressure, a new dependency or new evidence. Checking before launch keeps the cheaper options open, such as reassigning ownership or resequencing work, before the organisation has started compensating for the gap.

### What does translating a strategy mean in practice?
It means that people can say what they will decide differently because of it. A strategy is translated when its priorities have changed specific decisions, owners and handoffs in the teams that carry it. Until then it remains an announcement, however clearly it has been communicated.

Sources (3):
- Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, Why Strategy Execution Unravels and What to Do About It, Harvard Business Review (2015). https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-strategy-execution-unravelsand-what-to-do-about-it
- Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, Why Strategy Execution Unravels and What to Do About It, Harvard Business Review (2015). https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-strategy-execution-unravelsand-what-to-do-about-it
- Gallup, The Great Detachment: Why Employees Feel Stuck (2024). https://www.gallup.com/workplace/653711/great-detachment-why-employees-feel-stuck.aspx

## Why transformations lose momentum
Field note · 2026-10-06 · Kevin Bjerring

Transformations lose momentum when the load of change outgrows the organisation's capacity to absorb it. Transformation fatigue is the measurable result: research links it to exhaustion, lower commitment and intentions to leave, and the number of changes people have lived through predicts it. The second year stalls on capacity, not on belief in the case.

URL: https://atlaspeople.io/field-notes/why-transformations-lose-momentum

### Where does a transformation's momentum actually go?
Into the same people. Most transformations run as a portfolio of initiatives, each with a sponsor, and each drawing on the same middle managers, finance partners and IT teams. McKinsey's research found value lost at every phase, from target-setting to after implementation. The loss is rarely one failed initiative. It is accumulated overload across all of them.

### What is transformation fatigue, and is it real?
It is a measurable state, not a mood. Bernerth, Walker and Harris developed a six-item scale for change fatigue and found it positively associated with exhaustion, which in turn predicted lower commitment and higher intentions to leave. The people who carry a transformation can be worn down by it before any single initiative fails.

### Does the number of changes matter more than their quality?
The count carries more weight than leaders expect. De Vries and colleagues studied an organisation that had been reorganised repeatedly and found a strong relationship between the number of reorganisations employees had experienced and their degree of change fatigue. Successful earlier changes did not soften the effect. Each change spends capacity, however well it went.

### Why is the usual explanation for a stall wrong?
Because it names resistance when the mechanism is competition for attention. When a transformation slows, the standard reading is that people resist change and need more communication. More often several strategic shifts are competing for the same attention and capacity, and no amount of messaging adds capacity. The fix is in the plan's sequencing, not in its narrative.

### What are the early signals that momentum is going?
Milestones that slip across several initiatives at once, decisions that queue for the same few people, workstream leads who stop raising risks, and good managers leaving teams that sit at the crossing point of initiatives. None of these appears on an initiative dashboard. All of them appear in the calendars of the people the plan relies on.

### What is transformation fatigue?
A state in which people perceive that too much change is taking place. Bernerth, Walker and Harris measured it with a six-item scale and found it associated with exhaustion, lower commitment and intentions to leave. It differs from resistance: a fatigued team is not arguing with a particular change, it has run out of capacity to absorb any change well.

### Why do transformations lose momentum in the second year?
Because the load accumulates while capacity does not. Early waves spend the attention and goodwill of the teams that carry several initiatives at once, and research finds that the number of changes people have been through predicts their fatigue regardless of how well those changes went. Later waves land on an organisation that is already partly spent.

### Is more communication the answer to a stalling transformation?
Only if the problem is understanding. If the problem is capacity, more communication adds load without adding hours. The useful test is whether the teams at the centre of the slowdown can say what the transformation means for their work. If they can, and are still behind, the plan is asking more of them than they can carry.

### How do you measure transformation fatigue?
Directly, with validated scales such as the six-item measure developed by Bernerth, Walker and Harris, and indirectly, by mapping how many initiatives draw on each team in each quarter. The second method is available to any transformation office from its own plans and usually shows the overload before the first method would.

### Should a stalling transformation be paused?
Rarely all of it. The better move is to resequence: delay or merge the initiatives that land on the same overloaded teams, protect the people who sit at the crossing points, and keep the initiatives those teams are not involved in on schedule. A blanket pause loses momentum everywhere to fix a problem that is local.

Sources (3):
- Jeremy B. Bernerth, H. Jack Walker and Stanley G. Harris, Change fatigue: Development and initial validation of a new measure, Work & Stress (2011). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02678373.2011.634280
- Machteld S. E. de Vries and colleagues, Repetitive reorganizations, uncertainty and change fatigue, Public Money & Management (2021). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540962.2021.1905258
- McKinsey & Company, Losing from day one: Why even successful transformations fall short (2021). https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/successful-transformations