15 Years, 15 Lessons for Change to Work

Key takeaways

• We have prepared 15 lessons from 15 years of management consulting which include lessons from our practice leaders.
• The lessons cover many topics, including tips to build culture in post-merger integration, the importance of good organizational design and decision rights and more.
• Sustaining change is a management routine, not a finish line. Lasting improvement depends on what managers do in an ordinary week after the project winds down.

For 15 years, Burnie Group has helped organizations address some of their most pressing operational challenges: post-merger integration, stronger organizational structures, improved processes, and technology aligned with business strategy. Throughout the years, one question has remained central: how can leaders translate well-founded plans into meaningful, lasting improvements?

As we celebrate our fifteenth anniversary, we wanted to share 15 lessons from 15 years of management consulting. Drawn from our work with clients, these lessons offer practical guidance on setting strategic priorities, designing effective operating models, supporting employees through change and sustaining results.

Whether you are preparing for a major transformation or looking to improve existing operations, we hope these insights help you ask useful questions, make informed decisions, and connect your ambitions to how your organization works.

1. Focus growth on your organization’s strengths

A growth strategy should consider where an organization can create the most value and where opportunities exist. Expanding into more activities is not always the most effective way to advance its goals.

For a senior care organization, this meant placing greater emphasis on long-term care, where it could deliver strongly, while deprioritizing home care, where it was less differentiated. A sharper focus supported both its mission and its financial objectives.

The lesson for leaders is to align growth with capabilities. Make deliberate choices about where to direct attention, people and investment, and be equally clear about which activities will receive fewer resources.

2. Design for future growth and phase investment accordingly

As a business grows, its leadership and organizational requirements evolve. The capabilities that created its initial success may need new experience and expertise to complement them.

In an acquisition-built company with capable local operators, we helped leadership recognize the need for an experienced chief operating officer to support the next stage of growth. The recommendation reflected the demands of a larger organization, rather than a lack of respect for existing leaders’ accomplishments.

To make this work, start by defining what the future organization must be able to do, then work backward. Establish essential capabilities early and tie subsequent investment to clear growth milestones. This helps balance readiness for expansion with appropriate cost discipline.

3. Test strategic assumptions before making major commitments

Independent analysis can strengthen a decision even when it confirms leaders’ initial beliefs. Its value lies in the quality of the evidence and the rigour of the assessment.

In commercial due diligence for a lending business, our five-year market outlook supported the buyer’s acquisition thesis and increased its confidence to proceed. The analysis informed the decision without suggesting that future outcomes could be known with certainty.

Before making a major commitment, identify the assumptions on which success depends and examine the evidence supporting them. Distinguish forecasts from observed results and remain open to findings that challenge expectations. Confidence is most useful when it rests on a well-tested foundation.

4. Reduce uncertainty through timely decisions and clear communication

During a merger or organizational redesign, the timing of decisions can be as important as the decisions themselves. Taking a gradual approach may seem considerate, but extending the process can prolong uncertainty and leave employees questioning their future.

During the integration of two financial institutions, we recommended giving employees early visibility into their future roles rather than spreading organizational changes over an extended period. That clarity helped retain people who were uncertain about their place in the combined organization.

We encourage leaders to weigh the consequences of prolonged uncertainty alongside the risks of moving too quickly. Communicate what has been decided, what remains open and how the outstanding decisions will be made. Where answers are not yet available, explain when employees can expect an update. Timely decisions and clear communication help people plan, stay focused, and contribute to the organization’s next stage.

5. Define decision rights alongside reporting relationships

An organization chart establishes reporting relationships, but it does not necessarily clarify who owns decisions that cross functional boundaries. Without that clarity, capable teams can duplicate effort or delay important work.

We have encountered situations in which two teams each believed they owned the same deliverable and should consult the other. Encouraging greater collaboration alone would not have resolved their conflicting assumptions.

Test organizational designs against actual decisions and activities. Specify who is accountable, who completes the work and whose input is required. Clear decision rights give teams a practical basis for working together and reduce the need to renegotiate responsibilities each time a shared task arises.

6. Centralize where shared capabilities create value

Centralization is most useful when it enables improvements that separate business units would struggle to achieve independently. These may include consistent standards, specialist expertise, common technology or the reuse of effective solutions.

Our work with a large national insurer to centralize forms management created a foundation for consistent digitization and intelligent document processing across business units. The benefit came from common ownership of a shared capability, not simply from moving teams on an organization chart.

Be specific about what a central function must improve. Consider which activities benefit from common ownership and where differences reflect genuine customer or business needs. A centre of excellence should have a clear purpose and accountability for delivering it.

7. Combine operational data with direct observation

Operational data provides an essential starting point for improvement. Direct observation helps leaders understand the context behind the numbers and identify work that systems may not fully capture.

In bank branches, transaction volumes did not reveal the full complexity of serving small and medium-sized businesses. Observing employees and customers showed why some branches needed different skills, roles and staffing arrangements.

Before redesigning a process, take time to understand how it operates in practice. Follow a customer request, observe handoffs and ask employees where delays or unnecessary effort arise. Combining these observations with data produces a more complete basis for decisions about capacity, service and efficiency.

8. Measure completed outcomes, not just activity

Performance measures influence how people prioritize their work. A useful test is whether an employee could improve a reported result without improving the underlying outcome.

At a claims administrator, cases could count as closed even when they were not fully resolved and would later reopen. Revising how reopened cases affected performance helped direct attention toward genuinely completed work. Alongside lean process and performance-management changes, the three-month pilot improved throughput by more than 50%.

Review what your measures reward, what they overlook and how they shape daily decisions. When reported performance differs from customer or employee experience, examine the definition of success before asking people to increase their effort.

9. Define the operational target state before selecting technology

Effective technology decisions begin with a clear understanding of how an organization needs to operate. Interest in AI or automation should prompt a discussion about the outcomes the business wants to achieve and how work needs to change, rather than an immediate choice of tools.

For an investment services organization, missed handoffs and unclear ownership highlighted the need for a centralized workflow capability. Defining the target-state process for managing incoming client requests translated these operational challenges into clear requirements for evaluating and selecting a workflow platform. Those requirements helped the team choose a solution suited to the organization’s specific needs. The selected platform was intended to provide visibility into requests from receipt to resolution, support reliable handoffs and establish clear accountability at each stage.

Start by defining the intended customer outcome, the process required to deliver it, the people responsible and the information they need. Then assess how workflow, automation or AI can support that design. Technology strategy and operating model design should reinforce each other, with technology choices grounded in how the organization intends to work.

10. Build a reliable foundation for scaling technology

A successful technology project demonstrates what technology can do. Expanding it across an organization also requires reliable infrastructure, common standards and clear operational ownership.

One client’s automations ran on laptops kept in a meeting room. They stopped over a weekend after a cleaner switched off the computers to save electricity. The incident exposed a weakness in the operating setup, not an error in the cleaner’s judgement.

Our work establishing an automation centre of excellence addressed the broader requirements: shared platforms, secure infrastructure, consistent methods, training and reusable solutions. Before scaling technology, establish how it will be supported, maintained and extended beyond the team that first developed it.

11. Improve productivity by reducing customer effort

Better customer experiences and greater efficiency can share a common starting point: removing unnecessary steps from the same process.

Our contact centre work has identified opportunities to reduce repeated authentication as customers move between queues and to resolve more requests during the first interaction. Both address sources of effort for customers and employees.

Examine the complete customer journey, rather than assessing each team’s performance in isolation. Where must customers repeat information, explain an issue again or make another call? Distinguish necessary controls from repetition caused by disconnected systems or processes. Reducing avoidable effort can improve service while allowing employees to spend more time on work that matters.

12. Use benchmarking to guide specific improvements

Benchmarking helps leaders understand performance relative to peers and identify opportunities that internal reporting may not reveal. Its practical value depends on the action taken in response.

When a benchmark identified weak first-call resolution at a bank, the response included frontline training, managerial coaching, call listening, quality assurance and operating model changes. The comparison provided direction; the subsequent work addressed the causes.

Use benchmark findings to investigate which gaps matter, what explains them and how they should be addressed. Apply the same discipline when comparing technologies or practices. The objective is to identify improvements suited to your organization, rather than to pursue a ranking or copy another business without considering context.

13. Define the culture you want to create

When organizations merge, leaders need a shared view of how the combined business should work, as well as how it should be structured. Leaving culture to develop without deliberate attention introduces unnecessary uncertainty.

Culture surveys, interviews and focus groups have helped us understand different organizational perspectives and support agreement on an aspirational culture. These tools make a potentially abstract discussion more specific and inclusive.

Defining the desired culture is a starting point, not evidence that it has been achieved. Use that shared direction to guide leadership behaviour, employee engagement and integration decisions. A deliberate approach gives people a clearer understanding of the organization they are helping to build.

 14. Give change management dedicated resources and a clear plan

Successful implementation depends on how well people understand, prepare for and adopt new ways of working. Change management should therefore have dedicated resources, a structured workplan and clear accountability, rather than being treated as a secondary responsibility within a broader project.

In our work to integrate two large national financial services organizations, we established dedicated change management resources and a detailed, stand-alone workplan. The plan incorporated change management tools and activities, including a culture survey. These elements gave the team a structured way to address the people and cultural dimensions of change alongside the project’s operational requirements.

We encourage leaders to plan for adoption from the outset. Assign clear ownership, provide sufficient capacity and develop a change management workplan that is distinct from, but closely coordinated with, the broader implementation plan. Giving change management the same discipline and attention as operational and technical delivery helps employees adopt change.

15. Sustain improvement through standardized daily management practices

A new process or operating model needs consistent management attention to become part of normal operations. The routines established after implementation are central to sustaining progress.

In our operations excellence work, short daily huddles helped teams review performance and set priorities. Coaching conversations incorporated relevant measures, forecasts informed scheduling, and staff were shared across departments to respond to changes in demand.

These practices connect improvement goals to decisions managers make each day. Before completing a transformation, establish what managers will do differently during an ordinary week, how they will identify emerging issues and how they will support their teams. Lasting improvement requires a practical way to maintain and build on the initial changes.

Applying 15 years of experience to your next business challenge

These 15 lessons from 15 years of management consulting show that even a sound strategy can fall short when you underestimate the practical demands of execution. Issues that receive insufficient attention at the outset can become significant obstacles once implementation is underway, putting the intended results at risk. Anticipating these challenges and drawing on relevant experience to address them before they disrupt progress gives leaders a stronger foundation for turning ambition into results.

We are grateful to the clients and colleagues whose trust and collaboration have shaped these insights. Their experience informs our ambition to be the first call for leaders facing complex business challenges. Contact us to discuss how we can help your organization apply these lessons to improve performance and make change work.

Frequently asked questions

1. Is the advice mainly about strategy or about execution?

Both, but the weight sits on execution. The closing section is explicit that “even a sound strategy can fall short when the practical demands of execution are underestimated,” and issues that get too little attention early become significant obstacles later.

2. What’s the single most common failure the article describes?

Choosing a solution before defining the problem. Lesson 9 states it directly — start with the intended customer outcome, the process to deliver it, the people responsible, and the information they need, then assess workflow, automation or AI. Technology strategy and operating model design should reinforce each other.

3. How can leaders make change and improvement last?

Three things, working together: give the change its own dedicated resources such as a structured workplan, clear accountability, and a plan for adoption from the outset, rather than treating it as a secondary responsibility inside a broader project; turn the new way of working into ordinary management routine, with short daily huddles to review performance and set priorities, coaching conversations built around relevant measures, forecasts feeding scheduling, and staff moved between departments as demand shifts; and keep checking that what you measure rewards genuinely completed work.