Change doesn’t happen by magic. And it sure as hell doesn’t happen by willpower.
(Yes, audible gasps. Stay with me.)
For decades, leaders have been told that willpower is the key to change. Dig deeper. Push harder. Grit your teeth and get it done. The problem? Willpower is finite. It burns hot, then fizzles out. And when it does, leaders are left with guilt, self-judgment, and the crushing weight of “I should have done more.”
That’s a brittle strategy – and brittle breaks.
What actually creates change?
Drillpower.
The daily, deliberate practice of behaviours that matter. The small steps that accumulate. The intentional repetitions that embed new wa
Will + Skill Isn’t Enough
You’ve probably seen the classic Will / Skill Matrix. It’s neat. It’s logical. And it’s incomplete.
What the matrix misses is the third dimension: Drill.
Will is your intent.
Skill is your capability.
Drill is what makes either of them real.
Without Drill, Will withers. Skill stagnates.
I see this play out with leadership teams all the time. They’ve got the Will – they want change. They’ve built Skill – they’ve been trained, coached, upskilled. Yet months later, nothing looks different. Why? Because the Drill never embedded.
“Stuck isn’t the absence of Will. It’s the absence of Drill.”
Fear Eats Willpower for Breakfast
In times of uncertainty, Willpower collapses under the weight of fear, self-doubt, and the enormity of the challenge. It triggers the fight-flight-freeze response. And when leaders freeze? Decisions stall. Performance drops. Value erodes.
Psychiatrist Prof. Steve Peters, in The Chimp Paradox, explains why this happens. Our brains house both the Chimp(emotional, impulsive, protective) and the Human (rational, logical, future-focused). When fear and uncertainty spike, the Chimp hijacks the system – pushing us into fight, flight, or fright (freeze).
Here’s the kicker: the Chimp isn’t bad. It’s trying to keep us safe. But it’s wired to focus on threat and loss, not growth and opportunity.
Leaders I work with see this play out everywhere:
The CEO who delays a decision because “we don’t have enough data.”
The exec who micromanages because they’re addicted to busy – clinging to activity as proof of value, resisting the need to step back and think differently. Why? Because thinking differently creates the unbearable uncertainty they’re desperate to avoid.
The board member who clings to yesterday’s metrics as a shield against tomorrow’s ambiguity.
Busyness is seductive because it feels like progress. But in reality, it’s often just the Chimp at the wheel – keeping us spinning, safe in the illusion of productivity, while the real work of change is deferred again and again.
Recognising when the Chimp is in charge – in yourself and others – is half the battle. The other half? Drillpower.
Daily, deliberate actions are what shift us from emotional reaction to rational response. Drill is what trains the Human brain to step in, again and again, until it becomes the norm.
The Adaptive Engine: Where Drill Meets Strategy
Capital Idea’s Adaptive Engine model is built exactly on this principle. It’s the flywheel of adaptive organisations – where insights, strengths, and scenarios drive action.
The Adaptive Lens helps leaders read the signals – the weak whispers of tomorrow that will shape markets and customer behaviour.
The Adaptive Core grounds the business in strengths – both individual and collective – ensuring Drillpower is channelled into areas where people can perform at their best.
The Adaptive Engine itself is the rhythm of action: deliberate, disciplined, daily.
The Adaptiveness Model frames it all – moving organisations from brittle, hesitant, or reckless toward truly adaptive.
Drillpower is the oil in that engine. Without it, the system stalls. With it, you unlock resilience, growth, and long-term enterprise value.
Strengths as the Foundation for Drillpower
Here’s the kicker – not all Drills are equal.
If you’re a leader with Strategic in your Top 5 CliftonStrengths, your Drillpower will come from scenario-mapping daily. If you lead with Achiever, it’s the discipline of consistent progress check-ins. If you’re high in Relator, your Drillpower comes from daily trust-building conversations.
Strengths give you the natural entry point to Drill. They make the hard work feel lighter, the repetition more rewarding, and the outcomes more sustainable.
Without aligning Drillpower to strengths? Change feels forced, heavy, exhausting. And it fails.
The ROI of Small, Daily Actions
Let’s be clear: I’m not advocating for adding more to your day. Change isn’t about piling on tasks – it’s about choosing different tasks.
Remove noise.
Reduce the clutter.
Re-scope, delegate, defer, dump.
Small daily actions deliver exponential returns. The data is stark: the ROI on small, consistent actions is 18x higher than sporadic grand gestures.
Think of it like compound interest – tiny deposits daily, massive payoff long-term.
Applied Drillpower: Routines, Rhythms, Rituals
This is where leaders need to operationalise Drillpower. Think: routines, rhythms, and rituals.
Routines are the repeatable actions – like starting each day by identifying the three priorities that truly matter.
Rhythms are the cadences – weekly leadership check-ins that focus not on activity but on value created.
Rituals are the cultural anchors – like ending meetings with the one action everyone will take before the next meeting.
Think of elite athletes. They don’t just decide to perform. They drill relentlessly – in training, in recovery, in mindset. Think of musicians: the concert is spectacular, but the mastery comes from scales played a thousand times. Business is no different.
Leadership Drillpower: Model What Matters
As leaders, your job isn’t just to will change. It’s to create the environment where Drillpower thrives.
That means:
Challenging the reflex to add more.
Creating space for focused, deliberate practice.
Rewarding progress, not perfection.
Modelling the discomfort of change yourself.
Because let’s face it: nothing kills a team’s momentum faster than a leader who preaches Will but doesn’t Drill.
Beyond the Individual: System-Level Drillpower
And this isn’t just about you, the individual leader. It’s about the system you create.
Boards and investors don’t just want big strategies – they want confidence those strategies will be executed. Drillpower is what translates bold strategy into enterprise value. It’s what creates the conditions for sustainable growth, resilient cultures, and attractive exits.
If you want your business to move from brittle (over-reliant on certainty), hesitant (frozen by signals of change), or reckless (chasing every shiny thing without insight)… to truly adaptive, then Drillpower is your competitive edge.
Action Before Inspiration
We don’t need more conferences or vision decks gathering dust. We need action.
You’ve probably left a workshop in the last 12 months buzzing with new ideas. How many of them did you actually implement? That gap between intent and action? That’s Drillpower, missing in action.
The businesses that thrive in uncertainty aren’t those with the boldest vision statements. They’re the ones with the fiercest Drillpower – the daily behaviours that embed change until it sticks.
“What gets drilled gets done. What gets done creates value.”
So, What’s Your Drill?
Here’s my challenge to you:
What is one small, repeatable action you can take this week to move your team toward your desired future scenario?
How will you embed it daily – not just for you, but for your leadership team?
Where are you relying on Will when what you need is Drill?
Because nothing changes if nothing changes.
And the only way to act differently… is to act differently.
References & Supporting Ideas
Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (on deliberate practice and perseverance).
Prof Steve Peters, The Chimp Paradox (on managing the emotional vs rational brain in times of stress).
Gallup CliftonStrengths framework (on leveraging natural talents as the foundation for sustainable change).
Capital Idea’s Adaptiveness Model, Adaptive Engine, Adaptive Core, and Adaptive Lens (on building adaptive businesses fit for uncertainty).