Idea in Brief

The Problem

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, companies need to understand their capacity for change. But until now that capacity hasn’t been easy to determine, because we’ve lacked effective tools for measuring it.

The Solution

To gauge the capacity for change, the authors have created a system that rates companies on nine common traits and abilities. These ratings illuminate strengths and weaknesses—and allow companies to determine their overall change power

The Benefits

Change power is a strong predictor of performance. Companies with high change power scores are more profitable, grow revenue faster, offer better shareholder returns, have leaders and cultures that are more highly rated, and are home to more-engaged employees.

It was a month like no other that Delta Air Lines had ever experienced: March 2020. Travel bans and rising coronavirus fears sent bookings into negative territory—more customers were canceling upcoming trips than booking new ones—and at the nadir the airline cut 85% of its flights. Not even the terrorist attacks of 9/11 had precipitated such a sharp drop in business, and the decline was accelerating each day.

A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2021 issue of Harvard Business Review.