Driving Organizational Change -- Without Abandoning Tradition: To shift entrenched ways of thinking, leaders need to understand and respect where people are coming from.

The article focuses on the challenges of driving organizational change without abandoning tradition, illustrated through Marinella Soldi's leadership at Discovery Networks' Southern Europe business. Soldi, an outsider hired to disrupt and revitalize the company, faced resistance rooted in the organization's "social defenses"—collective efforts to preserve established norms and identities that provide a sense of safety and order. The article argues that successful change requires leaders to understand and respect these traditions by demonstrating care for the organization's core intent, thereby transforming resistance into collaboration. Soldi's eventual success came when she shifted from proving her correctness to showing shared commitment, enabling her innovative strategy to gain approval and lead to significant digital transformation.