2025 in Review: What This Year Taught Us About Change, Performance and Being Human

Nicholas Stewart
18 hours ago
4 min read

If 2025 could be summed up in one line, it would be this:

Strategy has never been more ambitious. But the real differentiation lies in teams that can deliver without burning out.

Across resources, utilities, government and not for profits, we’ve spent the year listening to leaders, working alongside teams, and continuing our People, Productivity and Performance research.

This isn’t a victory lap. It’s a reflection on what we’ve seen, what we’ve learned, and what this year demanded of us as leaders and as people.

2025 Exposed a Gap We Can’t Ignore

One message came through clearly this year. Teams are busy, but not always moving the needle on the things that matter most.

Through our research with more than 100 Australian organisations, a consistent pattern emerged. We call it Strategic Delivery Drift.

Strategies are usually clear on paper. Portfolios are full. Yet the connection between strategy, portfolio priorities and team rhythms often becomes fragile.

We saw this play out in many ways:

Competing priorities across growth, decarbonisation and digital transformation.
Every initiative branded as a priority, but no shared language to decide what stops so something else can start.
Leaders exhausted by constant change without clear end states.

2025 made it clear. Most organisations don’t need more projects. They need stronger systems for focus, alignment and follow through.

What Our Work With Clients Revealed

A privilege of this year has been working with teams determined to close that gap not through slogans, but through tangible change.

In one large organisation, the shift came from moving away from a crowded portfolio toward a more deliberate set of strategic choices. Visibility was not enough. Progress required courage and governance to keep saying no as new demand arrived.

In emissions reduction work, progress accelerated when teams created shared stories, clear priorities and a definition of done that everyone understood.

And in another engagement, real improvement came when leaders introduced a regular review rhythm that surfaced constraints rather than hiding them.

Across every example, the lesson was the same. Tools help, but the shift happens when leaders change how they meet, decide and hold each other to account.

What the People, Productivity and Performance Research Is Showing

Our research has continued across sectors this year, with a strong focus on Western Australia. Four themes stood out.

People are committed but stretched. Most teams don’t lack effort, they lack cohesion.
Productivity is often seen too narrowly, focused on efficiency instead of enablers like clarity, safety and ways of working.
Performance is being measured but not always meaningfully managed. Dashboards are common, but ownership and timely action are not.
Change remains constant yet is rarely owned as a system. It’s still treated as an event, not a capability.

People, productivity and performance cannot rise in isolation. They move together or not at all.

The Five Non Negotiables of Change That Works

Earlier this year we formalised the five conditions that consistently make change work.

A real problem to solve
A practical and understood way of working
Ongoing commitment to action
A system and owner to steer progress
A rhythm of accountability and adjustment

We saw these hold true across resources, utilities and community sectors. Wherever these five existed, change sustained. Where they didn’t, it faded.

What This Year Demanded of Me

This has been one of my most rewarding years professionally and one of the most stretching personally.

Like many leaders, I found my own version of delivery drift. Too many commitments. Not enough recovery. It reminded me that health is not a side quest. It is a leadership asset.

That experience changed how I show up in our work. I am more direct about the cost of overcommitment, more deliberate about balance, and more focused on what is sustainable.

A trip to Europe mid year reinforced perspective. The challenges we face here in Western Australia are global, but our scale allows us to respond faster and build stronger links between strategy, delivery and culture.

This year confirmed something essential about our purpose at Twenty2 Collective. Organisations rarely fail because of a lack of expertise or planning. They fail when human, organisational and system elements are misaligned.

Our work exists to close that gap. Not by being the smartest people in the room, but by helping leaders see their systems clearly, make braver choices, and build rhythms that turn strategy into performance.

Looking Ahead to 2026

As we move into 2026, a few questions are worth holding.

Where is delivery drift showing up in your organisation?
What are your non negotiables for change next year?
How will you protect the people doing the work?
What will you stop doing to make space for what matters most?

Strategy is as much about subtraction as it is about addition.

A Final Thank You

To the leaders who invited us into your organisations this year, thank you. You trusted us with your teams, your portfolios and your ambitions.

To the Twenty2 Collective team and our partners, thank you for your energy, care and craft.

And to you reading this, I hope you find time to pause, reflect and reset. Because high performance and happiness are not outcomes we reach once. They are patterns we practise over time.