hange rarely fails at the top. Leaders have the vision. They’re bought in.
It rarely fails on the frontline either. People are smart – they adapt when change makes sense for them.
Transformation fails in the middle. In the managers caught between driving the new and delivering the old. In supervisors who are told to “empower your teams” but judged on the same old measures. In the layers of an organisation where intent and reality collide.
That middle is where change dies quietly. Not through open resistance, but through exhaustion and friction. People asked to live in two worlds at once eventually stop believing in either.
At Obstackl, we design for the middle. Recognised frameworks give structure, but psychology gives energy. You have to tackle the lived reality of people in the middle, or every transformation becomes just another project.
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