The most successful transformations of business performance occur when executives mobilize and sustain energy within their organizations and communicate their objectives clearly and creatively, according to a new online survey conducted by The McKinsey Quarterly.¹ Executives further improve their chances for success if they significantly raise employee expectations, actively change people's behavior, and engage the attention of individuals at all levels of the organization, from top management to the front line.

These and other insights into the change-management process emerge from the survey, in which executives were invited to assess and characterize one transformation they had been involved in during the previous five years. For this purpose, we defined a transformation as a coordinated program, in companies or business units, that typically involves fundamental changes to the organization's strategy, structures, operating systems, capabilities, and culture.