I’ve watched this pattern repeat across organizations: a new technology, program, or policy launches with great enthusiasm. Budgets are approved. Dashboards go live. Reality sets in and momentum dies.

When that happens, it’s tempting to blame “resistance.” But more often, the problem is simpler and more human: leaders are making decisions based on a version of reality that isn’t the one people are living.

That gap is what I call the reality delta: the difference between what leaders assume is happening and what people experience as they try to get the work done.

Reality deltas don’t show up in strategy decks or steering committees. Instead, they surface as unseen behaviors and unheard concerns, like:

Reality deltas are early warning lights. When the gap persists, it creates predictable costs:

In short: reality deltas are how well-intended transformation turns into operational friction.

A key reason the reality delta exists, and why it often catches leaders by surprise, is a cognitive bias psychologists call naive realism.

Naive realism is one of the most robust findings in psychology. It is the tendency to experience our own perceptions as objective and complete, and to treat disagreement as evidence that others are uninformed or biased (Ross & Ward, 1996).........

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