The 7 Percent

Clear strategy plus committed funding still loses 30% of transformation value on average.

You sat through the strategy deck. Now you own delivery inside an organisation with more partners, more data, more regulation and more legacy than anyone budgeted for. If the board's confidence feels miles from what you see on the ground, this show is for you.

Andy Haley, CEO of Sullivan & Stanley, opens The 7 Percent with what the research says. Just 7% of execs are confident they capture full value across a transformation programme, whilst 90% of boards believe their strategy is clear. You'll get a plain test for your own programme: do you know the outcome you care about, the variables that drive it, and whether you're set up to influence them? Andy also sets out the four areas an organisation needs to get right to become what he calls an intelligent enterprise.

Expect a frank look at value leakage and the growing number of domains (partners, data, automation, regulators, fast-moving start-ups) that make change harder to steer. Andy covers why AI is a disruptor you have to plan for and never the strategy itself, and why legacy technology is eating change budgets. This is for Directors of Transformation, Chief Transformation Officers and heads of digital change at large enterprises. If you want a vendor tool walkthrough, look elsewhere.

Key Takeaways

• Boards report 90% confidence that their outcomes are clear. Andy's test goes a step further, to whether anyone understands the variables that actually move those outcomes.
• People are now the biggest source of differentiation. As technology gets cheaper for everyone, judgement and psychological safety are where the advantage sits.
• Much of what gets badged as AI is plain automation. Andy explains why AI still earns its own category, and the governance and business-case questions leaders can't yet answer.
• Legacy remediation is consuming a growing share of transformation budgets. Sometimes the best investment is preparing your architecture for the next phase of growth.

Chapter Markers

00:00 Why clear strategy still fails to deliver

00:24 Welcome to The 7 Percent

00:48 The 7% research and 30% value leakage

01:45 Board confidence versus real outcomes

02:19 Why more domains make change harder

03:31 Outcomes, variables and your ability to influence them

05:47 What an intelligent enterprise looks like

06:10 Human intelligence and psychological safety

07:09 AI: disruptor, never the strategy

08:22 Technology intelligence and the legacy budget drain

09:41 Execution intelligence across partners and programmes

10:51 Value as the currency of transformation

11:46 What's coming in the rest of the series

Useful Links & Resources

• Sullivan & Stanley: https://sullivanandstanley.com
• Connect with Andy Haley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-haley-a1691a/

Which of the four areas is your programme weakest on right now: people, AI, technology or execution? Tell us in the comments, along with the one variable you find hardest to influence.

If you're watching value leak between the board deck and delivery, book a conversation with Andy and the Sullivan & Stanley team at sullivanandstanley.com. Then follow The 7 Percent so you catch the future episodes.

#The7Percent #DigitalTransformation #TransformationLeadership #ChangeManagement

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Adrian Mardell's transformation programme hit its £1.5 billion target in three months. He kept it running for two and a half more years and generated £7 billion instead.

You've been handed a transformation mandate and a board that wants shareholder value, but the people who actually have to deliver it don't care about a share price.

Adrian Mardell spent 36 years at Jaguar Land Rover, ending as CEO, before becoming chairman of Sunseeker. He has run cost-extraction, culture, and inventory transformations at a company of 44,000 employees, and led the turnaround that took JLR's revenue to a record £20 billion.

You'll get a working method for finding the biggest sources of value in your organisation before you touch anything else, plus the language that turns a board-level financial target into something 40,000 people will actually act on. Adrian also explains why stopping a transformation the moment it hits its number is the biggest mistake a leader can make.

This episode covers how to size and sequence transformation value, how to win board buy-in for levers they don't understand, and how culture change turns a one-off win into something sustainable. It's built for transformation directors and C-minus-one executives who own delivery, not the strategy slide that came before it.

Key Takeaways

• Adrian's team hit its £1.5 billion target in three months and could have stopped. They ran the programme for two more years instead and generated £7 billion, because stopping early would have meant only 50 people ever changed anything.
• His "boulders versus pebbles" method ranks the five biggest value pools in a fixed order, starting with spend, before a business ever touches culture or customer experience.
• Shareholder value was never the message he took to the shop floor. He explains the specific language that motivated 40,000 employees to give discretionary effort instead.
• On AI, he draws a direct line to the comptometrists spreadsheets made redundant, and argues some roles will go the same way, while new ones get created.

Chapter Markers

00:00 Cold open: the £7 billion result

00:48 Meet Adrian Mardell and the 7% research

02:21 Why value pools define transformation success

03:57 Boulders vs pebbles: sizing up value

07:05 Winning board buy-in for unfamiliar value levers

09:42 Translating shareholder value for 40,000 people

12:11 Building an ecosystem beyond the balance sheet

14:33 The moral responsibility of business leaders

17:20 AI, automation and the future of jobs

20:41 Building a culture that sustains transformation

24:21 The one piece of advice for joining the 7%

Useful Links & Resources

• Sullivan & Stanley: sullivanandstanley.com
• The 7% Club research: original independently commissioned study of 200 UK C-suite leaders on transformation delivery, referenced throughout this episode

Connect with Andy Haley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-haley-a1691a/
Connect with Adrian Mardell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianmardelljlr/

What's the biggest value pool sitting undiscovered in your organisation right now? Tell us in the comments, we read every one.

Head to sullivanandstanley.com to find out how Sullivan & Stanley helps transformation leaders deliver full value, and follow the show so you don't miss the next episode.

#The7Percent #TransformationDelivery #B2BPodcast #JaguarLandRover #ChangeManagement

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The 7 Percent is a new podcast from Sullivan & Stanley, hosted by Group CEO Andy Haley. In this trailer, Andy introduces a show built around the 7% of organisations that deliver the full value of their transformation programmes, and the leaders who make it happen where strategy meets reality.

Sullivan & Stanley's Intelligent Enterprise research found that 93% of transformation programmes fall short of their full value, with the average organisation losing 27% of the value it committed to deliver. Each episode, Andy sits down with senior leaders who have lived it to talk openly about legacy technology, board-level decision-making, AI strategy and the human side of change.

The first two episodes are released on Tuesday 20th October 2026, with new episodes every other Tuesday. Follow The 7 Percent on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube to hear the first episode as soon as it's live.

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