The Global Change Readiness Report 2026

Strategy sets direction. Structure redraws the reporting lines. Behavior decides whether change lands.

880 senior leaders across 11 markets on the gap between how ready organizations think they are for major change and what the evidence shows.

880 senior HR and people leaders across 11 markets on the gap between how ready organizations think they are for major change and what the evidence shows.

Change is no longer episodic.
It is ambient.

Restructures. Acquisitions. AI acceleration. Operating model shifts. Strategy resets.

Organizations now go through significant change every 3.2 years on average, with half experiencing it every two to three years. Many are still recovering from one major change when the next arrives.

Most organizations know this. Most believe they are handling it.

96% have frameworks for discussing leadership behavior and working styles. Only 33% use them consistently and widely.

The gap between having frameworks and embedding them is what this report is about.

Global Change Readiness Report

Be first to read the Global Change Readiness Report 2026

Published September 2, 2026. We will email you the report the day it's published.

The report answers
four questions

1

Does anticipating disruption protect you from it?

No. The data shows that many organisations accurately anticipate disruption yet still fail to prepare effectively for its human impact.

2

What do organisations actually prepare for?

Structure, logistics and communication. We asked which preparation activities are most common, and which are most strongly associated with holding performance. They are not the same list.

3

Are leaders behaving well under pressure?

63% were seen to behave more positively than usual. That is where the story starts, not where it ends.

4

What separates the organisations that hold performance from those that lose it?

Five behavioural readiness practices grounded in the data and demonstrated by the organisations reporting the strongest outcomes.

Behavioral readiness is the most underestimated performance risk in organizational change. 

 

Every significant change arrives with a plan behind it. A structure, a timeline, a communication cascade, a set of milestones.

What the plan assumes is that the people delivering it will hold steady: that leaders will stay consistent, teams will stay aligned and people will adapt as the ground shifts beneath them. That assumption is rarely prepared for and almost never measured.

Behavioral readiness is the ability of leaders and teams to remain clear, consistent and constructive when change puts pressure on them and the way they work together.

It is measurable. It is consequential. And it is closable, but only if organizations recognize it exists.

If you lose the people; you lose the emotional challenge, and you won't win the rational challenge of change.


 If change is your remit, this is your risk register 

The Global Change Readiness Report

For heads of change and transformation

The report quantifies the behavioral risks that sit outside the program plan but derail performance anyway: decision-making confusion, leadership misalignment, fatigue and loss of trust.

For HR, people and
L&D leaders

It provides evidence for what you've long suspected but rarely been able to measure: the human side of change is not a parallel concern to delivery. It is the condition delivery depends on.

 

 

Change readiness is not a talent you have.
It's a choice you make