Every leader I have ever worked with knows, intellectually, that change takes time. And almost every one of them, somewhere around week six, wants the results now.
I understand the impulse. Payroll doesn’t wait. Boards don’t wait. But effort and results rarely move in a straight line, and the gap between the two is where a lot of good work gets abandoned.
A few years ago I was brought into a company to fix a set of operational problems. Quality was inconsistent, waste was high, and people were leaving faster than they could be replaced. We didn’t start with anything dramatic. We started with a checklist: a simple, boring discipline that made the right way of doing things visible, repeatable and hard to skip.
The checklist quietly took hold. People started using it without being asked. Handoffs got cleaner. Fewer things fell through the cracks.
Six weeks into a twelve-month contract, I was let go. The reason given: no measurable impact on the KPIs. On paper, that was true. The numbers hadn’t moved yet.
Eight months later, the CEO called. Quality was up. Waste was down. Turnover and absenteeism had both improved, noticeably. He paid out the remainder of the contract in full, which he did not have to do, and which I have always respected him for.
I don’t tell that story to complain about being let go early. I tell it because it is the clearest example I have of something I see constantly: the work that changes an organization often looks like nothing is happening while it takes root. The habits form first. The numbers follow.
If you are six weeks into a change and the KPIs haven’t moved, that is not necessarily a sign the work is failing. It might be a sign the work is still becoming part of how people operate.
The uncomfortable question is not “why aren’t the results here yet?” It is “would we recognize the early signs of the results if we saw them?”