Why Even the Best Strategies Drift

Most strategic plans look great on paper, but the moment delivery begins, reality intrudes. Competing priorities, unclear roles, cultural misalignment, and decision bottlenecks begin to erode even the most carefully crafted strategies.

The alarming part is this: drift isn’t dramatic. It’s quiet and creeps in through missed deliveries, diluted focus and unclear accountability. Overtime, these small fractures compound into costly delays, disengagement, performance erosion, and missed growth potential.

Recent research suggests that a significant share, often estimated between 60 - 90%, of strategies and transformations fail to realize their intended results (Harvard Business Review, 2022 & Bain, 2024). This is not always a failure of leadership, but rather a failure on tools and fragmented data. Organizations historically have relied on lagging indicators that explain the past but cannot anticipate the future. Absent predictive intelligence, organizations risk misfiring strategic plans which result in delayed implementations, cultural erosion, and costly rework.

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