Frame it, prove it, get out of the way

Leaders reach for control. Program charters. Milestone charts. RAG statuses. The illusion that if the plan is precise enough, the outcome is guaranteed.

Then come the consultants, with frameworks and cascades and operating models. All very neat. All partly right. None sufficient.

Because organisations are not machines. They are tribes. And tribes don’t trust words. They trust what they see.

A peer celebrated.

An executive fired.

A reporting line cut.

Proof, not PowerPoint.

So: frame the game. That is intent. Not a slogan, not a script - the point. What matters most. What’s out of bounds. The hill you’re asking them to take. If intent is vague, people stall. If intent is sharp, they act.

Then: governance. Who decides. Who holds the pen. Who is on point - by name. Not a committee. Not a sponsor. A leader, visible and accountable. Without that, nothing moves.

Then: incentives. At minimum, stop rewarding the old behaviour. At best, pay in line with the new. Nothing corrodes trust faster than telling people one thing while rewarding another.

Then: proof. Acts that show this time is real. The frontline worker raised up. The senior cynic cut down. The visible signal that says: believe it, because it happened.

Most of the work sits in the fog. Blockers who won’t yield. Systems that grind slow. Political capital spent one decision at a time. That’s why proof is costly: because proof means consequence. Someone loses, someone wins, and everyone else sees which way the wind is blowing.

Most people aren’t advocates or blockers. They’ve seen it all before. They wait. They watch. And they follow proof.

That is execution.

Frame it. Prove it. Get out of the way.