The Strategy Skills Podcast: Management Consulting | Strategy, Operations & Implementation | Critical Thinking

Sarah Elk, Senior Partner at Bain & Company and global leader of its operating model work, brings a clear, pragmatic lens to why so many large-scale change efforts fail to stick. Drawing on decades of advising multinational organizations, she diagnoses the structural and behavioral traps that cause transformations to stall, and shares the disciplines that make change durable.   Elk emphasizes that transformation is not a one-off program but an enduring capability that must be “led from the top and embedded in the culture.” She cautions against outsourcing responsibility to a program office: “If the CEO is not leading it and the leadership team isn’t engaged in the change, you might get something done, but it will erode quickly.”   Key Insights from the Conversation: Clarity on Non-Negotiables Many failed transformations lack a shared definition of the “non-negotiables” in the new operating model. Without them, execution becomes fragmented. “You have to be crystal clear on what’s standard and what’s flexib