The Methodology
The Shift That Sticks
A practical four-practice methodology for leading when conditions change. See what is happening, clarify what matters, turn priorities into practice, and help change hold.
Built from practice. Informed by research.
The Shift That Sticks brings together the patterns that repeated across Think Tanks, executive coaching, workshops, and conversations with executives in local government and beyond. Decades of leadership-development study and current research stand behind the same patterns.
The result is a repeatable way to work through change, not a one-time program or a fixed sequence. The four practices work together, and leaders can return to them as conditions shift.
Four Practices
The practices work as a continuous discipline. A leader or team may enter where the need is clearest, then return to the others as the work develops.
Face the Truth
Build a clearer shared view of what is happening before deciding what to do.
Define What Matters
Clarify the values and priorities that should guide difficult tradeoffs.
Make It Real
Translate priorities into decisions, roles, routines, and follow-through.
Reinforce the Change
Notice drift early and strengthen the rhythms that help change hold.
Where is the pressure showing up?
The four practices work together. One of these situations may offer a useful place to begin.
- People are acting from different versions of what is happening. Begin with Face the Truth
- A decision keeps returning to unresolved priorities or tradeoffs. Begin with Define What Matters
- A priority is understood, but follow-through still depends on reminders or workarounds. Begin with Make It Real
- Progress is visible, but older habits or routines are beginning to return. Begin with Reinforce the Change
The work rarely stays inside one practice. Adaptive leaders draw on all four as a system, starting where the pressure is clearest and returning as conditions change.
Three ways to begin
The starting point depends on who is in the room. One leader can begin privately. A team can take one practice and use it at once. A leadership team can work through all four together.
One leader, privately
Try the first practice privately
The Shift Mirror
A self-guided AI conversation that shows a leader what they are too close to see. The conversation stays private, and it is one way to try Face the Truth before deciding whether to go further.
With a team, in three hours
Practice one shared diagnostic
Face the Truth Workshop
In a facilitated session, participants examine the gap between leadership intentions and impact, practice a shared diagnostic twice, and leave with a rhythm for continuing the work.
With the leadership team, across all four practices
Apply the full methodology to how the team operates
Leadership Team Workshop
A structured engagement for the CAO and direct reports. The team uses all four practices to put its own operating patterns on the table, decide what it will protect, turn priorities into systems, and build the reinforcement that carries beyond the room.
The evidence behind the methodology
The practices rest on published research and on what practitioners reported in the sessions. The primary sources are public.
From the room
Rob Duncan, who founded Imagine That Performance, drew the four practices from more than 250 sessions with city managers and county administrators.
Not sure which path fits?
Talk it through with Rob. Thirty minutes on what you bring. The conversation puts the situation on the table and settles whether a tool, a workshop, or another form of support fits. If nothing does, he says so, and points to a more useful next step when one is clear.