Execution that Sticks
We’ve reached Week 4 and the final week of our articles series: Real Talk to Real Results.
If there’s one lesson that has echoed through every transformation I've led or read, it’s this: great strategies mean nothing if they don’t stick.
We’ve talked about leadership accountability, cut through the myths of governance, and shifted our mindsets from features to focus on the outcomes. But none of that matters if the execution doesn’t hold.
Transformation isn’t about the launch day, the vendor’s slide deck, or the kickoff applause.
It’s about what’s still working after the excitement fades.
Too many organizations hit the ground running only to stall when the discipline of execution fades. They declare victory too soon, measure progress for the short term, and watch the results erode just as quickly as they appeared. The brutal truth is this: transformation dies in the gap between what leaders say they want and what the organization can actually sustain.
Why Execution Falls Apart
Most digital transformations don’t fail because of bad ideas or weak intentions. They fail because people stop doing the right things when the spotlight moves on.
Research from Boston Consulting Group shows that roughly 70% of transformation programs fail to meet their stated objectives (BCG, 2020). Not because the strategies were wrong, but because execution discipline faded.
Your employees will burn out from initiative fatigue. Leaders can dilute ownership across too many hands. And then governance quietly drifts as rules bend in daily chaos. Metrics lose visibility once go-live celebrations end. And culture, the hardest, most human layer pushes back until the “new way” quietly becomes the “old way” again.
Oehmen and O’Connor (2022) put it bluntly: digital transformations rarely fail in the design. They fail in execution, where weak follow-through, poor feedback, and lack of accountability collide.
Transformation is hard because sustaining change is harder.
What does “Execution That Sticks” Look Like?
Execution that sticks isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing consistently. It turns transformation from a campaign into a way of working.
Organizations that sustain outcomes share a few common threads:
- leadership that stays visible,
- outcomes that become routine,
- and cultures that learn as they go.
It is about building muscle memory, not chasing momentum.
When execution sticks, the results compound. Trust builds. Teams stop asking, “Is this another initiative?” and start saying, “This is how we work now.”
So how do you make that happen?
Let’s walk through The Four Disciplines of Execution That Sticks:
a practical framework for leaders who want transformation to endure.
The Four Disciplines of Execution That Sticks
Step 1: Provide Continuous Accountability
Leaders can’t vanish after kickoff. Execution dies the moment sponsorship turns passive. Sustained transformation demands visible, ongoing presence from leadership—showing up in reviews, decisions, and course corrections.
John Kotter’s research on organizational change shows that visible leadership engagement is the number one predictor of long-term transformation success (Kotter, 2012). People don’t stay committed because of posters or memos; they stay committed because their leaders are right there, shoulder to shoulder, reinforcing priorities through actions, not words.
When leaders disappear, momentum does too. Accountability must be modeled before it can be expected.
Don't vanish after the kickoff. You are just as responsible for the success.
Step 2: Let the Outcomes Drive
Real success isn’t the first dashboard...it’s the same dashboard still being used six months later. It’s when metrics continue to inform decisions long after project teams move on.
O’Higgins (2023) found that organizations that embed outcomes directly into their business architecture see sustained benefits long after rollout. When measurement lives inside daily routines, business reviews, operational scorecards, and leadership dashboards; outcomes become automatic.
This is how execution turns from “the initiative of the month” into part of muscle memory.
Success isn’t celebrated once; it’s sustained daily.
Hold yourself accountable to doing the same things you expect of your teams. Being intentional is powerful.
Step 3: Don't let the Learning Loops Close
Execution that sticks is never one-and-done.
The strongest organizations build learning loops; or feedback cycles that connect outcomes, insights, and action.
Agile practices hardwire this principle: retrospectives, iteration, and continuous improvement. The Agile Business Consortium (2024) stresses that learning loops keep execution alive, allowing teams to test, adjust, and refine without losing momentum.
The pattern is simple: learn fast, adjust faster, repeat.
The organizations that treat every cycle as a learning opportunity are the ones that never stop improving.
Create an environment to constantly learn and improve.
Step 4: Create a Culture that Carries the Change
At the end of the day, the real test of execution is cultural.
When new behaviors become default behaviors, transformation sticks.
MIT Sloan (2023) calls this the cultural layer of transformation: where fairness, purpose, and trust embed change into how people think and act. It’s the difference between compliance and commitment. Between performing change and living it.
Culture is where execution either compounds or it collapses.
If you can get culture to carry the change, you’ve built something that endures.
Making It Real
Here’s a simple test: think of a company that wants to automate their Accounts Payable.
At launch, the metrics shine. Error rates drop by 40%, cycle times shrink, efficiency improves.
But six months later, exceptions spike again, reports fall behind, and no one knows who owns what.
That’s execution that didn’t stick.
Now think of a company that treats that same automation as the beginning, not the end.
They embed ownership into ongoing roles: process owners, not project teams. They tie KPIs to performance reviews. They review metrics weekly, celebrate wins, and adjust where needed.
Six months later, error rates stay low. Teams trust the system. Leaders trust the numbers.
Same tool. Same goals. Different discipline.
That’s execution that sticks.
How Leaders Make It Stick
Leaders who sustain transformation do a few things differently:
- They anchor outcomes in daily routines.
- If success isn’t part of the operating rhythm, it won’t last.
- They embed accountability in roles, not projects.
- Projects end. Roles endure.
- They over-communicate wins and lessons.
- Visibility builds belief.
- They prune what doesn’t work.
- Sticking doesn’t mean clinging: it means being intentional about where energy goes.
Deloitte (2020) calls this visible reinforcement: when leaders consistently communicate progress and celebrate learning, trust and momentum grow.
The same is true in reverse...silence erodes confidence faster than failure ever could.
The Brutal Truth
Without execution discipline, transformation becomes a cycle of launch-and-forget. Tools gather dust. Governance fades. Outcomes erode.
Employees stop believing that “this time will be different.” Vendors still get paid, but the organization doesn’t move forward.
And every time a new initiative fails to stick, it chips away at the next one before it even begins.
But when execution sticks, transformation compounds.
Every success builds on the last. Trust continues to grow stronger. The pace of improvement accelerates.
That’s the difference between digital theater and digital progress. One looks good in a PowerPoint. The other actually changes how a business runs.
The Real Result
Execution that sticks isn’t flashy. It’s not about grand unveilings or big launches. It’s the quiet discipline of doing the right things, again and again, until they stop feeling new and start feeling normal.
It’s about leaders who stay visible long after kickoff. Teams who take ownership beyond project end dates. Metrics that keep showing up in business reviews, not just in slide decks.
Transformation doesn’t fail because we can’t design it.
It fails because we stop living it.
So if you want your transformation to endure, build the discipline for it.
Start small. Reinforce often. Learn faster than you forget.
Because that’s what real execution looks like.
It’s the bridge between strategy and results, the place where talk becomes traction.
Let’s get real.
Real talk. Real strategy. Real results in digital transformation.
References
Agile Business Consortium. (2024, October 17). The importance of focusing on outcomes in project management. https://www.agilebusiness.org/resource/blog-the-importance-of-focusing-on-outcomes-in-project-management.html
Boston Consulting Group (BCG). (2020, October 29). Flipping the odds of digital transformation success. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/increasing-chances-of-success-in-digital-transformation
Deloitte. (2020). Digital transformation 2020: The importance of leadership and culture. Deloitte Insights. https://www2.deloitte.com
Hanisch, C., Lindeque, J., & Sütterlin, S. (2023). Digital governance: A conceptual framework. Journal of Business Research, 160, 113765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113765
Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change. Harvard Business Review Press.
MIT Sloan Management Review. (2023). Leadership’s digital transformation: Leading purposefully in an era of context collapse. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/leaderships-digital-transformation
Oehmen, J., & O’Connor, R. V. (2022). The execution gap in digital transformation. International Journal of Project Management, 40(6), 567–579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2022.05.004
O’Higgins, D. (2023). Impacts of business architecture in the context of digital transformation: An empirical study using PLS-SEM approach. arXiv preprint. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.11845