The 7 Percent

Your transformation plan has KPIs, milestones and a budget for tech. It almost certainly has nothing on how your people feel about any of it. Your board says culture is blocking the programme. Your teams say they're exhausted, yet nobody looks overworked. And the new AI tooling has half the room excited and the other half quietly fearing for their jobs. Jane Bates has spent 35 years leading people change, starting with 18 years at Tesco before senior roles at Bupa and Co-op. She now runs The Koru Collective, is a non-executive director at LSSL and sits on the Sullivan & Stanley transformation advisory board. Jane gives Andy Haley a practical answer to why so many transformation programmes stall on people. You'll hear how to read the emotional state of an organisation before change starts, and why leaders need to examine their own beliefs first. You'll also hear how to bring sceptics and early adopters together around AI adoption. Andy and Jane cover cultural resistance, psychological safety, change fatigue and the human side of technology change. This one is for transformation directors and change leaders who own delivery and suspect the plan is missing something. If you want a technical guide to tooling, look elsewhere. Key Takeaways Exec boards that blame culture are often holding the belief that is doing the damage. Jane names the phrases in leadership communications that give it away. "Everyone's tired but nobody's busy" usually signals emotional exhaustion. People working out of obligation burn energy performing the version of themselves they think is expected. Technologists now have to handle fear and opportunity in the same room. Jane's story of the best cashier in the store shows why the kit is the easy part. Staying silent about the jobs AI will replace is, in Jane's words, "utter nonsense." Pair your early adopters with the colleagues who are more concerned. Chapter Markers 00:00 Why the human side of change matters more now 00:59 Introducing Jane Bates 01:38 From 18 years at Tesco to The Koru Collective 02:48 Is people change finally on the leadership agenda 04:10 Self-awareness: the piece change plans miss 06:10 How COVID and new technology collided at work 08:33 Technologists who now have to lead people change 09:25 Fear and opportunity in the same room 12:01 Research: 30% cite cultural resistance as a blocker 12:37 Stakeholder analysis, co-creation and change weariness 15:47 Leaders, check your own belief cycle first 16:55 Spotting emotional exhaustion in your teams 17:47 Motivational states and listening posts 21:01 Why the value isn't trapped in the tech 21:34 How AI is landing with people 24:32 What Jane is most excited about Useful Links & Resources Jane Bates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-bates1971/ Andy Haley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-haley-a1691a/ The Koru Collective: Jane's advisory and coaching practice https://www.koru-collective.co.uk/ Sullivan & Stanley: https://sullivanandstanley.com Our podcast featured on https://www.playpodcast.net/ | https://www.bestpodcasts.co.uk/podcast/the-7-percent/ Has a change programme ever stalled because leaders assumed people would just get on with it? Tell us in the comments. We'd also like to hear how your organisation is handling the people side of AI adoption. If cultural resistance is holding back your transformation programme, book a conversation with Andy and the Sullivan & Stanley team at sullivanandstanley.com. #The7Percent #Transformation #ChangeManagement #PeopleAndCulture #AIAdoption Send us a message

Clear strategy plus committed funding still loses 30% of transformation value on average. You sat through the strategy deck. Now you own delivery inside an organisation with more partners, more data, more regulation and more legacy than anyone budgeted for. If the board's confidence feels miles from what you see on the ground, this show is for you. Andy Haley, CEO of Sullivan & Stanley, opens The 7 Percent with what the research says. Just 7% of execs are confident they capture full value across a transformation programme, whilst 90% of boards believe their strategy is clear. You'll get a plain test for your own programme: do you know the outcome you care about, the variables that drive it, and whether you're set up to influence them? Andy also sets out the four areas an organisation needs to get right to become what he calls an intelligent enterprise. Expect a frank look at value leakage and the growing number of domains (partners, data, automation, regulators, fast-moving start-ups) that make change harder to steer. Andy covers why AI is a disruptor you have to plan for and never the strategy itself, and why legacy technology is eating change budgets. This is for Directors of Transformation, Chief Transformation Officers and heads of digital change at large enterprises. If you want a vendor tool walkthrough, look elsewhere. Key Takeaways Boards report 90% confidence that their outcomes are clear. Andy's test goes a step further, to whether anyone understands the variables that actually move those outcomes. People are now the biggest source of differentiation. As technology gets cheaper for everyone, judgement and psychological safety are where the advantage sits. Much of what gets badged as AI is plain automation. Andy explains why AI still earns its own category, and the governance and business-case questions leaders can't yet answer. Legacy remediation is consuming a growing share of transformation budgets. Sometimes the best investment is preparing your architecture for the next phase of growth. Chapter Markers 00:00 Why clear strategy still fails to deliver 00:24 Welcome to The 7 Percent 00:48 The 7% research and 30% value leakage 01:45 Board confidence versus real outcomes 02:19 Why more domains make change harder 03:31 Outcomes, variables and your ability to influence them 05:47 What an intelligent enterprise looks like 06:10 Human intelligence and psychological safety 07:09 AI: disruptor, never the strategy 08:22 Technology intelligence and the legacy budget drain 09:41 Execution intelligence across partners and programmes 10:51 Value as the currency of transformation 11:46 What's coming in the rest of the series Useful Links & Resources Sullivan & Stanley: https://sullivanandstanley.com Connect with Andy Haley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-haley-a1691a/ Which of the four areas is your programme weakest on right now: people, AI, technology or execution? Tell us in the comments, along with the one variable you find hardest to influence. If you're watching value leak between the board deck and delivery, book a conversation with Andy and the Sullivan & Stanley team at sullivanandstanley.com. Then follow The 7 Percent so you catch the future episodes. #The7Percent #DigitalTransformation #TransformationLeadership #ChangeManagement Send us a message

Adrian Mardell's transformation programme hit its £1.5 billion target in three months. He kept it running for two and a half more years and generated £7 billion instead. You've been handed a transformation mandate and a board that wants shareholder value, but the people who actually have to deliver it don't care about a share price. Adrian Mardell spent 36 years at Jaguar Land Rover, ending as CEO, before becoming chairman of Sunseeker. He has run cost-extraction, culture, and inventory transformations at a company of 44,000 employees, and led the turnaround that took JLR's revenue to a record £20 billion. You'll get a working method for finding the biggest sources of value in your organisation before you touch anything else, plus the language that turns a board-level financial target into something 40,000 people will actually act on. Adrian also explains why stopping a transformation the moment it hits its number is the biggest mistake a leader can make. This episode covers how to size and sequence transformation value, how to win board buy-in for levers they don't understand, and how culture change turns a one-off win into something sustainable. It's built for transformation directors and C-minus-one executives who own delivery, not the strategy slide that came before it. Key Takeaways Adrian's team hit its £1.5 billion target in three months and could have stopped. They ran the programme for two more years instead and generated £7 billion, because stopping early would have meant only 50 people ever changed anything. His "boulders versus pebbles" method ranks the five biggest value pools in a fixed order, starting with spend, before a business ever touches culture or customer experience. Shareholder value was never the message he took to the shop floor. He explains the specific language that motivated 40,000 employees to give discretionary effort instead. On AI, he draws a direct line to the comptometrists spreadsheets made redundant, and argues some roles will go the same way, while new ones get created. Chapter Markers 00:00 Cold open: the £7 billion result 00:48 Meet Adrian Mardell and the 7% research 02:21 Why value pools define transformation success 03:57 Boulders vs pebbles: sizing up value 07:05 Winning board buy-in for unfamiliar value levers 09:42 Translating shareholder value for 40,000 people 12:11 Building an ecosystem beyond the balance sheet 14:33 The moral responsibility of business leaders 17:20 AI, automation and the future of jobs 20:41 Building a culture that sustains transformation 24:21 The one piece of advice for joining the 7% Useful Links & Resources Sullivan & Stanley: sullivanandstanley.com The 7% Club research: original independently commissioned study of 200 UK C-suite leaders on transformation delivery, referenced throughout this episode Connect with Andy Haley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-haley-a1691a/ Connect with Adrian Mardell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianmardelljlr/ What's the biggest value pool sitting undiscovered in your organisation right now? Tell us in the comments, we read every one. Head to sullivanandstanley.com to find out how Sullivan & Stanley helps transformation leaders deliver full value, and follow the show so you don't miss the next episode. #The7Percent #TransformationDelivery #B2BPodcast #JaguarLandRover #ChangeManagement Send us a message

The 7 Percent is a new podcast from Sullivan & Stanley, hosted by Group CEO Andy Haley. In this trailer, Andy introduces a show built around the 7% of organisations that deliver the full value of their transformation programmes, and the leaders who make it happen where strategy meets reality. Sullivan & Stanley's Intelligent Enterprise research found that 93% of transformation programmes fall short of their full value, with the average organisation losing 27% of the value it committed to deliver. Each episode, Andy sits down with senior leaders who have lived it to talk openly about legacy technology, board-level decision-making, AI strategy and the human side of change. The first two episodes are released on Tuesday 20th October 2026, with new episodes every other Tuesday. Follow The 7 Percent on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube to hear the first episode as soon as it's live. Send us a message