Delivering business transformation within an established organisation requires more than a compelling strategy. It demands leadership, stakeholder commitment and the ability to navigate complexity.
In this guest article for Gallop Executive, Dean Harris, Head of Co-op Media Network, and Retail Media Leader of the Year 2025, shares four principles drawn from his experience building a new business capability within one of Britain’s most established organisations.
How To Build a New Business Inside an Existing One – Think Slow, Execute Fast.
Most transformations fail inside the organisation, not in the market.
There is no shortage of advice on how to launch a new business, product or capability. Most of it focuses on customers, competitors, technology, funding or routes to market. All those things matter. However, far less is written about what happens when you’re trying to build something new inside an organisation that already has established priorities, processes and ways of working.
Having spent the last few years building Co-op Media Network inside a 180-year-old business, I’ve become convinced that the greatest challenge is rarely the proposition itself. More often, the challenge is creating the conditions that allow the proposition to grow. Established organisations are designed to provide consistency, governance and control. New capabilities often require agility, experimentation and a tolerance for uncertainty. In many ways, transformation leaders are not simply building something new. They’re helping an existing organisation make space for it.
While every organisation is different, there are a handful of principles that I’ve repeatedly found helpful when building something new inside something old.
- Think Slow, Execute Fast
One of the most common mistakes I see in transformation programmes is the assumption that speed automatically creates progress.
Leaders understandably want momentum. There is pressure to launch, pressure to demonstrate results and pressure to maintain stakeholder confidence. Yet many teams ultimately move slower because they rushed the thinking.
I’ve found that the most effective transformations invest significant effort upfront to understand where they’re trying to get to, which barriers are likely to emerge and what decisions will be needed along the way. That doesn’t mean analysis paralysis. It means planning several moves ahead so execution can become sequential rather than repeatedly stopping for governance, approvals and rework.
One practical example is investment planning. Many teams achieve an early success only to discover that every subsequent request for headcount, technology or budget requires another lengthy approval process. Momentum slows, opportunities are missed and the organisation mistakes bureaucracy for diligence.
A better approach is to agree decision pathways and stage gates in advance. If the business reaches a defined commercial milestone, additional investment or resource is automatically unlocked. In simple terms: if we achieve X, we unlock Y. The hard work is done upfront so the organisation can move quickly later.
The same principle applies to target setting. New ventures rarely move in a straight line. Markets change, priorities shift and one of the many plates being spun inevitably wobbles and demands attention.
That’s why I’ve always preferred creating floors and ceilings rather than tightropes. Teams need accountability, but they also need room to balance growth, customer experience, profitability and investment. Tightropes leave little room for judgement. Floors and ceilings provide direction whilst recognising that transformation rarely follows a perfectly linear path.
- Win the Building Before You Win the Market
Many leaders focus their attention on external audiences first. Customers. Competitors. Partners. Investors. Yet when you’re building a new capability inside an existing organisation, your first audience is often internal. Before you win in the market, you need to win the building.
That means building endorsement through relationships, incentives and organisational design, not simply through a compelling business case. Over time, I’ve found internal endorsement tends to be strongest when three things align: personal motivation, team incentives and organisational structures.
Individuals need to want the initiative to succeed. Teams need to see how its success helps them succeed. And organisational structures, such as KPIs, governance processes and decision-making forums, need to reinforce the desired outcome rather than pulling in a different direction.
Alongside this, leaders need to remember that a spreadsheet earns approval, but a story creates belief. Business cases justify investment and build credibility, but people rarely commit themselves emotionally to a financial model. They commit to a story they want to be part of.
I’ve often found successful transformations combine three ingredients: a bold ambition worth backing, belief that the proposition can succeed, and a practical role people can play in helping build it. When all three are present, momentum tends to become self-sustaining.
The strongest transformations create ownership well beyond the immediate delivery team. I remember presenting a slide to our wider marketing organisation that listed every individual who had contributed to building Co-op Media Network. There were around forty people directly involved in the function itself, but more than two hundred names appeared on that slide.
Many of those people weren’t responsible for delivering the outcome, but they had helped make it possible. People support what they help create. The wider you share ownership, the easier it becomes to sustain momentum.
- Commitment Over Consensus
One of the most useful lessons I’ve learned is that commitment is more important than consensus. Many leaders spend significant time attempting to achieve universal agreement before making a decision. While well intentioned, this can become a major source of delay. Meaningful transformation affects priorities, budgets, resources and responsibilities, so it is entirely normal for intelligent people to reach different conclusions about the best path forward.
The objective should not be eliminating disagreement. The objective should be ensuring disagreement improves the quality of the final decision.
Moving quickly doesn’t mean ignoring alternative viewpoints. Quite the opposite. People need to feel heard. Concerns need to be understood. Risks need to be acknowledged. Sometimes feedback should change the decision. Sometimes it should simply improve the execution plan.
Either way, stakeholders need confidence that their perspective was genuinely considered.
What people can tolerate remarkably well is a decision they initially disagreed with. What they struggle with is uncertainty, ambiguity and endless debate. Once people believe they have been listened to properly, most are prepared to commit to a direction even if it wasn’t their preferred option.
In my experience, transformation accelerates when people are committed. It slows dramatically when everyone is still waiting for consensus.
- Build Leaders, Not Dependencies
The final principle is perhaps the most important. Transformation cannot scale if every decision flows through one person.
A common symptom of struggling programmes is hearing questions such as, “What do you want me to do this week?” Whilst seemingly harmless, it often signals that people are operating from tasks rather than outcomes.
I’ve come to think about this as the difference between permission and intent. In organisations where transformation struggles, people ask, “Can I?”. In organisations where transformation thrives, people say, “I intend to…”
The difference sounds subtle, but it fundamentally changes accountability, empowerment and pace.
Instead of asking for permission, people bring plans. Instead of escalating every option, they bring decisions. Instead of waiting for direction, they take ownership. That shift creates greater accountability, but it also creates greater engagement because people derive far more satisfaction from owning progress than simply completing assigned tasks.
Of course, this only works when strategy, vision and objectives are exceptionally clear. People cannot exercise judgement if they do not understand where they are heading.
Closing Summary
Building something new inside an established organisation is rarely constrained by the quality of the idea. More often, it is constrained by the organisation’s ability to support it.
The leaders who succeed are often those who do the hard work early. They think carefully, build support deliberately, create commitment rather than consensus and invest as much in people as they do in plans.
Do the hard work today so that execution becomes easier tomorrow. Think slow. Execute fast.
