Phil Le-Brun: The biggest misconception is viewing transformation as a finite project rather than a continuous journey. Leaders often approach change like a building demolition—wire the organization with an explosive, detonate, and expect a rebuilt structure to emerge from the dust. This “big bang” mentality typically delivers short-term disruption, but limited lasting impact.

Instead, successful transformations require creating the conditions for continuous evolution, or what we call a “day 1” culture in Amazon. This means developing organizational muscles for constant adaptation rather than treating change as a one-time event. It’s like training for a marathon rather than sprinting to a finish line. It’s about always being dissatisfied with the status quo and striving to create a better version of yourself and your organization every day.

Le-Brun: There’s an understandable temptation to try and copy what worked elsewhere, especially when you see competitors succeeding with certain approaches or structures. But culture is so context-specific that it doesn’t work. What does work is understanding the principles of how to transform and adapting them to your unique context.

Take Amazon’s two-pizza concept, the idea that every internal team should be small enough to be fed with two pizzas, for example. Many organizations try to implement this model without recognizing that it requires dozens of supporting changes across areas like decision-making processes, funding models, and organizational structure. Success comes from understanding the principles behind the practice—autonomous teams, clear ownership, changes to leadership, and rapid decision-making—and thoughtfully applying them to your environment.

Le-Brun: These three elements form the foundation of sustainable transformation. Clarity means ensuring everyone understands not just what needs to change, but why. It’s about creating a compelling vision that connects to organizational goals as well as individual purpose.

Ownership is about moving to true psychological ownership of outcomes. When people feel genuine ownership, they’re motivated to solve problems and drive improvements without being directed.

Curiosity is perhaps the most undervalued element. Organizations that cultivate curiosity through psychological safety, experimentation, and learning from failure are better equipped to identify opportunities and adapt to changes in their environment.

Le-Brun: Metrics and culture are intimately connected, but many organizations get the relationship backward. They try to change culture through metrics, rather than ensuring their metrics reinforce desired cultural attributes. For example, how many decisions need to be referred “upward” or how many are pushed closer to the customers?

The key is identifying metrics that truly matter—ones that drive behaviors aligned with your desired culture and outcomes. For instance, if you want to foster innovation, measuring and rewarding only short-term efficiency metrics will undermine that goal.

Le-Brun: The future belongs to organizations that can make adaptation a core capability rather than a periodic event. This requires three fundamental shifts in thinking.

First, take a lesson from systems thinking, or the approach to dealing with complex systems. Move from project-based transformation to building systems and structures that enable continuous evolution. This includes creating feedback loops that help you sense and respond to changes in your environment.

Second, invest in developing leaders at all levels who can navigate complexity and ambiguity. The old command-and-control model simply can’t keep up with the pace of change in today’s business environment. Ensure these leaders remain curious and focus on continuous communication to drive alignment across the organization.

Finally, foster a culture where change is seen as an opportunity rather than a threat. This means celebrating learning from failure, encouraging experimentation, and rewarding behaviors that drive continuous improvement.

The organizations that will thrive in the future aren’t necessarily the ones with the best initial strategy or the most resources, but those that can adapt most effectively to changing circumstances. As leaders, our job is to create conditions where this adaptation can happen naturally and continuously, rather than through periodic, disruptive transformations.

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Phil Le-Brun is the director of enterprise strategy at Amazon Web Services and former corporate vice president of global technology development and international CIO at McDonald’s Corporation. He advises global executives on organizational transformation and technology strategy.