How Change Really Works

Change now, faster, smarter. The imperative to transform your business only gets more urgent. BCG leaders provide a science-based playbook for beating the odds and doing it right.

AI. Market volatility. Regulation and policy uncertainty. Supply chain disruption. The business landscape requires change more than ever before—and global companies are continually announcing change programs. Most fail, wasting employees' time and energy, shareholders' capital, and consumers' patience. What's more, the high failure rate has stayed constant for decades, with mind-boggling costs to businesses and the economy.

But some companies succeed. In How Change Really Works, Boston Consulting Group experts Julia Dhar, Kristy Ellmer, and Philip Jameson show that these successes are not random—they are connected by a common set of principles and practices. Interweaving illuminating examples, decades of behavioral science research, and new interviews with executives and employees, as well as the authors' own experiences leading change with BCG, they offer seven principles that constitute the core of a truly human-centered approach to successful organizational change. These range from "Get true agreement, not false alignment" to "Give people agency, not just involvement" to "Expect take-up to be earned, not automatic."

The second part of the book shifts into execution mode, providing a five-phase practical manual for putting the principles to work that is filled with tips, checklists, advice, and smart hacks for helping your transformation beat the odds, succeed, and stick.

Change doesn't fail because people resist—it fails because leaders misunderstand how people really change. Whether you're launching a new initiative, stuck in a stalled transformation, or trying to rescue a failing one, How Change Really Works is your essential leader's guide.