Case: Improving Strategic Adoption Inside the Fortune 500

How Network Analysis and Behavioral Economic Thinking Saved $10M and Halved a Fortune 500 Firm's Transformation

Executive Summary: Consultants estimated it would take a decade to complete the digital transformation. It took 2.5 years. In this article, we delve into the network analysis and behavioral economic thinking we used to restore employees’ sense of control and clarity. The result doubled the adoption rate, avoided tens of millions in additional consulting fees, and limited productivity impacts.

Traditional Transformation Falls Short

When a national bank embarked on a firm-wide digital transformation, consultants warned it could take up to a decade. For a complex, multi-product, 15,000-person organization, this was expected but far from ideal.

But in 2.5 years, the bank completed the transformation—half the most optimistic projection, while saving over $10 million in consulting fees and millions more in lost productivity.

The secret? Not more consultants. Not more executive mandates. Instead, the bank leveraged Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) to uncover its real change leaders—not the ones with titles, but the ones with influence. The ones with "earned authority".

"The approach was revolutionary," notes their Head of Strategy and Transformation. "By leveraging key influencers—something no consultant had shown us—we accelerated our change from the bottom up."

Mapping Informal Influence Networks

For decades, business leaders have struggled to beat the odds in transformation efforts. As John Kotter famously established in this magazine three decades ago, 70% of strategic change initiatives fail—not due to flawed strategy, but due to execution breakdowns. More recent research suggests the failure rate remains stubbornly high, often reaching 75% or 80%.

Recent research (Stouten et al., 2018), along with traditional change models, continue to validate Kotter’s insights, emphasizing strong communication, credible change leaders, and deeply embedded cultural anchors. But each of these hinges on human behavior, trust, and influence—elements rarely governed by the organizational chart. Instead, they flow through informal relationships, peer networks, and the political dynamics often hidden from view.

Today, tools like Organizational Network Analysis and insights from behavioral economics allow leaders to map and activate these hidden networks—giving them a practical way to address the very root causes of change failure.

Rethinking the Guiding Coalition

Consider Kotter's concept of a guiding coalition. Traditional approaches often rely on formal authority structures to drive change. ONA, by contrast, identifies employees with genuine social capital—the informal power brokers whose endorsement can legitimize change initiatives throughout the organization.

For this bank, Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) enabled executives to accelerate change by aligning their vision both from the top down and bottom up. It achieved this by:

• Identifying key influencers with high social capital to drive engagement and trust

• Leveraging organic networks to extend reach across organizational silos

ONA further highlights Granovetter's "strength of weak ties," a concept that underscores how connections between otherwise unconnected employees—often from different teams or silos—can be powerful agents of change. These weak ties facilitate the spread of influence, trust, and legitimacy in ways that tightly-knit groups cannot.

Instead of relying solely on hierarchical authority, the company empowered its informal change leaders—those who shape culture and drive behavior—to champion the transformation.

The Psychology of Ownership and Adoption

When leaders invite influential employees into implementation planning, executives gain invaluable operational insights while employees develop a sense of agency and ownership. This aligns with Kahneman's insights on decision-making biases, particularly how individuals are more likely to engage in change when they feel they have a sense of control.

"We weren't just passively accepting the transformation," noted one team leader who emerged as a key influencer in the ONA mapping. "We were defining it and adapting it to work in our specific contexts."

The bank created mechanisms specifically designed to amplify this psychology of adoption:

• Employee-Led Learning: ONA identified knowledge agents to lead a peer-driven academy dubbed "for employees by employees"

• Distributed Ownership: Key influencers who helped shape the strategy emerged as credible early adopters, lending legitimacy to the change

• Social Proof: Gamified learning and publicized certifications boosted engagement and established a sense of control

This approach leveraged Robert Cialdini's principle of social proof—people look to others' behavior to determine appropriate actions, especially during uncertainty. By making skill acquisition visible and rewarding, the bank created positive reinforcement loops that accelerated adoption throughout the organization.

By integrating both psychological insights and Kotter's change leadership principles, the bank created an environment where employees actively shaped the transformation—making it feel like an evolution rather than a forced shift.

Limitations and Considerations

While ONA provides critical insights, it is not a panacea. It serves as a descriptive statistic, capturing social dynamics at a particular moment in time. As Cialdini demonstrated, influence is shaped by subjective factors like trust, credibility, and likeability—elements that vary depending on context.

Actual persuasion and change execution still depend on human relationships. ONA serves as a powerful tool for identifying influencers and tracking sentiment shifts, but its effectiveness ultimately relies on how well organizations leverage these insights in real-world execution.

Applying ONA Beyond Transformation

Today, ONA is more accessible than ever, available through specialized consulting or do-it-yourself software-as-a-service platforms. The utility of ONA extends beyond organizational transformation to any situation where social norms and psychology play a material role.

After one firm's founder decided to retire, for example, the board used ONA to analyze how trust and influence manifested within the organization. "ONA revealed crucial insights not visible on any org chart," the Board Chairman explained. "It identified potential successors with high social capital, ensuring that power dynamics aligned with our strategic goals."

The Future of Organizational Change

For executives facing transformation challenges, the lessons are clear:

1. Find your true change agents. Use ONA to identify employees with high social capital—the ones colleagues actually listen to and trust.

2. Don't rely solely on hierarchy. Top-down mandates struggle to gain traction. Instead, leverage informal influencers to legitimize change.

3. Design for psychological ownership. Employees embrace change when they feel they are shaping it, not just receiving it.

By moving beyond traditional change management playbooks and tapping into real influence networks, executives can transform smarter, faster, and with greater employee buy-in.

References:

Cialdini, R. B. (1984). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Harper Business.

Creasy, T (2025). Best Practices in Change Management. Prosci.

Ellmer, et al. (2024): How to Create a Transformation that Sticks. Boston Consulting Group

Granovetter, M (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology.

Greiner, L. (1972): Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow. Harvard Business Review

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kotter, J. (1995): Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review

Maor, D, et al. (2021) Losing From Day One. McKinsey and Company

Stouten, J, et al (2018): Successful Organizational Change: Integrating The Management Practice and Scholarly Literatures. Academy of Management Annals.

*Since you’re still here, you may be interested in the reading the origin story of organizational network analysis and its modern day applications, like the above. In the below story, I take you back to the 18th century to witness the creation of graph theory, the integration of archeology and psychology in the 20th century, and the modern day social and organizational implications. You can find it on the 3Fold Outcomes Substack: