Make Change Social (3/3): Strategy That Sticks

Most change efforts don’t die because people disagree. They die because the work gets handed off and disappears. A decision leaves a meeting and lands nowhere. A new process depends on “someone” and becomes no one’s job. Momentum isn’t motivation. It’s a system that survives handoffs.

The psychology is diffusion of responsibility and social loafing. When ownership is shared or unclear, effort drops. People assume someone else will pick it up, especially across functions where norms differ and accountability is fuzzy. Add context switching and competing priorities, and the handoff becomes a quiet graveyard for good intentions.

A Momentum Map is a simple way to fix this. Draw the chain of handoffs that make the change real, from trigger to completion. For each step, name the owner, the exact input they receive, the definition of done, and the next recipient. Then find the weak links. Where do tasks arrive without a clear trigger. Where is the output ambiguous. Where is the next step optional. Those are the points to harden.

Consultant move: don’t add more governance. Add friction in the right place. Make the handoff visible with one shared board, a single “handoff template,” and a rule that every task moves with an owner and a due date. Start meetings by clearing the stuck handoffs first. If the chain is clear, the work keeps moving even when energy dips. That’s what “strategy execution” looks like in real life.