how leaders debate instead of embracing the transformation

A Personal Observation from the Field

This isn’t theory or consulting jargon—it’s a pattern I’ve lived through firsthand while leading supply chain and digital transformation initiatives in large, complex organizations. After years of building strategies, roadmaps, and business cases, one truth keeps repeating itself: transformation rarely stalls because of technology. It stalls because of leadership behavior. The best metaphor I’ve found is simple—trying to help a company drive forward with a flat tire while everyone argues about the air pressure.

The Flat Tire Moment

The signals are obvious. Long-lead components. Expedite freight. Excess buffers. Missed commitments. Plans refreshed weekly instead of in real time. The car is wobbling. Everyone feels it. Yet instead of pulling over and changing the tire, we form a task force.
“Where’s the hole?”
“Who caused it?”
“Can we get more analysis?”
“Let’s write another strategy deck.”

Meanwhile, the vehicle keeps drifting toward the guardrail.

Recognizing the Symptoms

The operational symptoms are predictable: disconnected systems that don’t reconcile, reports that contradict each other, and confusion around basics like clean master data and standard processes. Teams compensate with heroics—spreadsheets, emails, manual reconciliations, and late-night calls. There’s resistance to modern, simpler ways of working: integrated planning, data-driven decisions, and shared accountability. The organization looks busy and sophisticated on the outside, but underneath it’s reactive, fragile, and expensive.

Respect the Legends—But Retire the Museum

Here’s the irony. Many legacy tools and processes exist for good reasons. They are the duct tape, clever hacks, and heroic workarounds that helped scale the business from startup to enterprise. Some are true legends and absolutely worth keeping.

But not everything deserves a lifetime achievement award.

At some point, yesterday’s genius workaround becomes today’s bottleneck. That “temporary” spreadsheet from 2009 is now mission-critical. That custom system only one person understands is treated like sacred scripture. We start preserving artifacts like museum pieces: “Don’t touch it—it’s how we’ve always done it.”

The problem? You can’t win a Formula 1 race with a vintage engine. Nostalgia doesn’t scale. You cannot out-innovate world-class capabilities with macros and heroics, no matter how smart the team is. Pragmatism wins: build what truly differentiates you, buy the rest.

A Call to Leaders

For leaders, the mandate is straightforward: manage outcomes, not opinions. Tie every initiative to growth, productivity, service, and risk. Fund small, fast pilots instead of yearlong studies and prioritize visible wins that build momentum. Start by fixing the foundation—clean and standardize your data first. Not everything has an immediate ROI; some actions are simply table stakes. I still remember from my Six Sigma Black Belt days at GE: you don’t launch a project to justify replacing a flat tire—you just replace it. Data and process discipline are the same. Simplify workflows. Modernize capabilities with proven solutions. Protect people’s dignity—but don’t protect outdated tools.

By Alejandro De Leon Salas

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