A vessel can be pointed toward its destination and still be carried somewhere else.
The heading may be correct. The sails may be properly trimmed. Progress may even appear
steady. But an unseen current can alter the course over time.

Organizations are moved by similar forces. Strategy establishes direction, but incentives,
habits, authority, funding, legacy systems, and established ways of working determine much
of what actually happens.

Course Is Not Track

A vessel’s course is the direction in which it is pointed. Its track is the path it actually
travels. The difference reveals the effect of wind, current, and other conditions.

Organizations often focus on course:

• the approved strategy;
• the transformation roadmap;
• the target operating model;
• the implementation schedule; or
• the future-state architecture.

These documents describe intent. They do not necessarily describe movement.

The organizational track is visible in different evidence: how money is allocated, which
issues receive attention, what behaviours are rewarded, where decisions stall, and which
workarounds continue despite repeated efforts to replace them.

Find the Set and Drift

Mariners describe a current by its set and drift. Set is the direction in which the current
moves. Drift is its speed.

The same distinction is useful when examining organizational forces. It is not enough to
know that a constraint or incentive exists. The important questions are where it pushes the
organization and how strongly.

Examples include:

• funding practices that favour new systems over maintenance;
• performance measures that reward local efficiency rather than shared outcomes;
• procurement rules that separate solution selection from operational ownership;
• governance structures that distribute accountability without distributing authority;
• legacy systems that make familiar workarounds easier than standard processes; and
• leadership attention that shifts before new practices become established.

Each current may be rational when viewed locally. Together, they can move the organization
away from its intended destination.

Do Not Confuse Resistance with Reluctance

When an initiative struggles, the explanation is often reduced to resistance to change.
That conclusion may be convenient, but it frequently overlooks the conditions shaping
people’s behaviour.

Staff may appear reluctant because:

• the proposed process creates additional work without removing existing obligations;
• the new information cannot yet be trusted;
• responsibility is being assigned without corresponding authority;
• the initiative conflicts with the measures by which they are evaluated;
• previous implementations were never completed; or
• the current workaround remains more reliable than the intended solution.

These are not merely attitudes to be corrected. They are currents to be understood.

Compensate Deliberately

A navigator does not eliminate the current. The course is adjusted to account for it.
Organizational change requires the same discipline.

Compensation may involve changing incentives, clarifying authority, reducing competing work,
resolving a dependency, simplifying a process, or demonstrating that the new approach works
better than the old one.

The appropriate response depends on the force involved. More communication will not correct
a funding problem. Additional training will not resolve conflicting accountability.
A stronger mandate will not make unreliable data trustworthy.

Check the Track

Because currents are not always visible, progress should be assessed through evidence rather
than activity alone.

Useful indicators include:

• whether priority workflows are actually changing;
• whether decisions are becoming easier or more defensible;
• whether duplicate effort and workarounds are declining;
• whether ownership is becoming clearer;
• whether trusted information is being reused; and
• whether the organization can sustain the new practice without extraordinary effort.

If the track continues to diverge from the intended course, repeating the plan more firmly
will not correct it. The underlying forces must be reconsidered.

Strategy sets the heading. Organizational forces determine the track.