99: Why Transformations Die Just Before They Succeed

About this episode

The episode discusses the critical moment in organizational transformations just before success, featuring insights from Anders Wengelin on leadership and change management.

The most dangerous moment in a transformation isn't the start, it's the stretch right before behaviours actually start sticking. Build your own CTO Playbook at www.theCTOplaybook.com - the leadership platform built for the full CTO journey. Coaching, podcast, and community to help you lead with clarity, confidence, and strategic impact. My guest is Anders Wengelin, partner at Friktion in Malmö, who spends his weeks inside large Swedish healthcare organizations trying to help them build new core capabilities without reaching for a neat plan. Leaders kill change at the exact moment it's about to take hold. Not because the work is failing, but because nothing visible has shipped yet. Anders walks through how his team thinks about behaviours as the only concrete thing in an organization, and why operating models, maps and rollout plans are abstractions people hide behind. If you've ever felt the pull to add structure the moment ambiguity shows up, this one will sit with you. Three questions, nine parts, and one uncomfortable truth about what real change looks like inside large, regulated organizations. You'll Learn: [0:00] Introduction [2:40] Why large, compliance-heavy organizations…

People in this episode

Host: Adam Horner

Guest: Anders Wengelin

Topics covered

• organizational transformation
• leadership
• change management
• healthcare
• adaptivity
• complexity

Keywords

• transformation
• leadership
• change
• healthcare
• adaptivity
• operating models
• complexity
• behaviors

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Friktion, Swedish healthcare organizations, theCTOplaybook.com

Places: Malmö

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