Every Strategic Change Has a Drift Arc
Why your team or organization turns like a cargo ship, not a sports car
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make when setting ambitious goals — whether it’s a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), a 10x goal, or some other massive strategic shift — is thinking that their organization can just pivot instantly.
But organizations aren’t sports cars. They’re more like cargo ships. And just like a cargo ship, when you try to change direction, you don’t get an immediate, sharp turn.
Instead, you experience what I call the drift arc — the natural lag between the setting of a new destination and when the team actually aligns and moves toward it.
Understanding the Drift Arc
The drift arc happens because organizations don’t change overnight. A team’s current habits, workflows, and commitments create momentum in a particular direction. The moment leadership announces a major change, that momentum doesn’t just stop. Instead, the team begins a slow, curved transition toward the new goal, often taking much longer than expected.
The bigger the organization — or the more ingrained its habits — the longer and wider that arc is going to be.
Here’s what it looks like:
The vision in a leader’s head is:
We set a new goal.
The team pivots.
We go straight toward the new goal.
In reality, what happens is:
We set a new goal.
The team keeps moving in the old direction for a while.
Some parts of the team start adjusting, but unevenly.
There’s a lot of uncertainty, inefficiency, and thrashing as people try to figure out what the new goal means for their work.
The organization eventually aligns — but not in a straight line.
If leaders don’t account for the drift arc, they get frustrated. They assume their teams aren’t aligned, aren’t executing fast enough, or aren’t buying in. In reality, it’s just the physics of organizational change.
Why the Drift Arc Matters for BHAGs
The whole point of a BHAG is to set a long-term, audacious goal that keeps the organization moving in a bold direction. But in many cases, BHAGs fail not because the goal was too big, but because leaders underestimate the drift arc.
Here’s why:
1. Leaders don’t stick around long enough to see a BHAG through. Many BHAGs are set by executives who move on before the organization fully adopts them. A new leader arrives, sets a new BHAG, and the organization never fully follows through.
2. Most organizations don’t change their budgets, commitments, or structures fast enough. BHAGs require radical change, but most teams are still locked into plans and projects from six months ago. If those old commitments don’t change, the BHAG remains an abstract idea rather than an actionable strategy.
3. People resist working in ways they aren’t good at yet. Achieving a BHAG usually requires teams to develop new skills and habits. But people don’t like feeling incompetent, so they tend to stick with what they know — even if it no longer aligns with the new direction.
4. The organization gets caught in a cycle of constant redirection. If leaders keep changing strategic priorities before the team fully adjusts, the organization weaves back and forth between different goals, never fully achieving any of them. It ends up looking like the picture below — a steady stream of drifting but rarely getting to the specified goal:
Leading Through the Drift Arc
To navigate the drift arc effectively, leaders need to do a few key things:
Acknowledge the drift arc. Accept that teams will take time to reorient. Instead of being frustrated, anticipate the curve and plan for it.
Create stability inside the drift arc. Instead of flipping goals too often, define BHAGs in a way that allows for flexibility without making the team feel like they’re constantly changing direction. Example: A leader refocusing from targeting executives to targeting advocates isn’t a total directional shift — it’s an adaptation. A leader moving operations from one state to another is a full-scale realignment. Recognizing the difference helps manage expectations.
Reduce the length of the drift arc. The faster you start adjusting team habits, structures, and budgets, the less pronounced the drift arc will be. Organizations that delay planning and execution create even longer drift arcs because they waste months operating under the old way before making real changes.
Help teams embrace not being great during a major change. Teams will default to doing what they’ve always done unless leadership actively reinforces the new direction repeatedly.
Subtract more than you add. One of the biggest obstacles in navigating a drift arc is that teams are still overloaded with old priorities. Leaders must actively remove outdated projects, meetings, and goals to make space for the new direction.
Applying the Drift Arc to Quarterly Planning
Quarterly planning provides a practical framework for managing the drift arc:
Map your current arc: Where was the team headed last quarter? Where are you trying to go? Plot the gap.
Set realistic mile markers: Don’t expect to be fully pivoted in one quarter. Instead, identify 2-3 concrete shifts you can make (e.g., reallocating 25% of the budget, retraining one team).
Create a “drift dashboard”: Track leading indicators that show whether you’re actually curving toward the new direction or still moving straight ahead in the old one.
While you may not be able to direct or anticipate a big strategic change that sets you and your team off in a new direction, you can at least make sure that bright, shiny objects or ghost plans don’t pull you too far off track of your strategic goal.
The Drift Arc Is Predictable — So Plan for It
Every big organizational change comes with a drift arc. If you don’t account for it, you’ll feel like your team is slow, resistant, or off-course. If you do, you’ll realize that what feels like resistance is just the natural curve of transition.
Organizations aren’t sports cars — they’re cargo ships. But even cargo ships can turn faster with the right adjustments.
So as you set your next big goal, don’t just focus on the destination. Plan for the drift arc.
Is your team navigating their own drift arc? Adjusting your team’s habits is one of the fastest way’s to flatten that curve. Team Habits can help.