The deck opens with what IRG calls the humanized growth equation: colleague value, customer value, community value and capital market value, multiplied together rather than traded off. Short termism sits underneath as the pressure working against it.
The rest of the material is about how a leader gets there. IRG frames driving humanized growth as a change management journey, notes that seventy percent of change journeys fail, and then walks through eight steps with concrete guidance under each.
Key findings
- Value for four groups is treated as a product, not a portfolio. Colleagues, customers, communities and the capital markets appear multiplied together.
- The base rate is bad. Seventy percent of change journeys fail, which is the reason the deck treats method as seriously as ambition.
- The coalition is meant to be broad and volunteer led, not a small appointed committee, and the guidance is explicit about leaving egos out of it.
- The vision starts from the business strategy rather than beside it, and is written to appeal to hearts.
- Early wins are to be piloted, found and celebrated, and then used as proof to iterate the strategy itself.
- The warning at the end of the journey is against declaring victory too soon.
Starting the journey
The first step is urgency. The guidance is to leverage energy and never waste a crisis, to make the case outside in and personal, and to educate people around one version of the truth rather than several competing accounts.
The second step is the guiding coalition. IRG’s version leans on volunteerism and on a diverse many rather than a limited few. It also says to invite in the lions, meaning the people with real weight who might otherwise obstruct.
Vision, communication and enlistment
The strategic vision is built from the business strategy, painted so it appeals to hearts, and then integrated into strategic planning so it survives the next budget cycle.
Communicating it is treated as a marketing job done on the organization itself. Brand it, market it, manage it. Use external media as well as internal channels. Be a broken record, everywhere.
Removing barriers and proving it works
Enabling action means leading by example at the top, equipping the coalition with new capabilities, and inspiring ideas from the bottom up. The barrier being removed is usually the organization’s own habit, not a missing budget line.
Short term wins are piloted, found and celebrated, and used as proof that feeds back into the strategy. Lead markets and lead brands are the place to run them.
Making it stick
Sustaining acceleration is a patience problem. Maintain momentum, do not celebrate too early, and count on neuroplasticity: the organization’s habits change slowly and only with repetition.
The last step institutes the change. Cascade it horizontally and vertically, build an ecosystem with influencers around it, and foster a growth mindset so the next change is easier than this one.
Scope and limitations
The deck is guidance, not evidence. The one number it carries is the failure rate of change journeys, stated at seventy percent without a source, and the eight steps are presented as a sequence rather than as a tested result.
Source
This page summarises Leading Humanized Growth, by Institute for Real Growth, 2025-12-10.