1 · The problem, stated plainly
Strategic change is no longer episodic — it is the permanent operating condition. Yet transformations routinely fail to produce durable performance, and the evidence shows the cause is rarely flawed strategy: it is the erosion of alignment between strategic objectives, HR systems, workforce capability and employee well-being over time. Strategy escalates continuously; the human systems carrying it are recalibrated episodically. The gap between them compounds silently — job insecurity, workload pressure and role ambiguity rise, engagement and adaptive capacity fall — until performance erosion makes it visible, late.
2 · The framework: adaptive coherence
Published in Strategic Change (Wiley, 2026), the framework defines adaptive coherence as a dynamic organisational condition: sustained cross-level alignment between strategic objectives, workforce capabilities and employee well-being over time. It differs from every prior alignment construct in three respects — it is temporal (does alignment hold under repeated, overlapping change waves), multilevel (macro strategy, meso HR systems, micro workforce behaviour must agree), and bounded by human sustainability (well-being is a viability constraint, not a soft outcome).
| Construct | Temporal logic | Level focus | What it misses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategic fit | Static | Macro | Sustainability under continuous change |
| HR–strategy alignment | Semi-static | Macro–Meso | Well-being as a constraint |
| Dynamic alignment | Dynamic | Macro | Micro-level enactment and strain |
| Ambidexterity | Dynamic | Macro | Human depletion risks |
| Adaptive coherence | Stability under continuous change | Macro–Meso–Micro | — (addresses sustainability failures) |
Strategic intent
Deliberate repositioning under competitive, technological and regulatory pressure. Intent alone guarantees nothing — it must be enacted through systems and people.
SHRM as enabling infrastructure
Job design, skill development, evaluation and relational climate translate intent into workforce conditions. When HR lags strategic escalation, misalignment emerges here first.
Workforce agility, three dimensions
Skill adaptability · behavioural responsiveness · cognitive–behavioural readiness. The enacted capacity to realign work with evolving demands — sustainable only with systemic support.
Well-being · digital acceleration
Well-being bounds what agility can deliver: compromised well-being weakens every gain. AI-enabled acceleration multiplies the cost of whatever misalignment already exists.
3 · The index: how ACI computes coherence
ACI operationalises the framework as a multi-rater instrument. Leadership reports strategic intent; HR reports the enabling systems; a workforce sample reports enacted agility and well-being — no level grades itself, which structurally excludes the optimism bias of self-assessment. Digital acceleration is reported as contextual intensity by leadership and HR.
Construct scores are item means on 7-point scales rescaled to 0–100. Cross-level alignment falls as the three levels drift apart; the well-being multiplier moderates the whole composite; and an amplification penalty charges high acceleration landing on incomplete alignment — the exact mechanism by which AI-era transformations break. The full computation is disclosed in every report: no black box.
4 · What a wave delivers
One wave — typically two to three weeks — produces: the ACI composite with verdict band; the full decomposition (capability, alignment, well-being moderation, acceleration penalty); a seven-construct profile with respondent counts; a diagnostic reading naming the lagging level and the recalibration priority for the next wave; and the disclosed methodology. Workforce data appears only as aggregates at a minimum cell size of five, and reports carry a designation — Verified (Dalla & Partners review) or Self-Administered — that cannot be removed. Because coherence is temporal, the instrument's value compounds with repetition: wave-over-wave movement is the finding.
5 · Engagement paths
Interactive model — free
The full computation, live, with hand-set inputs. Convince yourself of the mechanism before committing anything.
Guided Self-Assessment — £3,500 / wave
Run it in-house; a 90-minute review of respondent structure and readout issues the Verified report, with debrief.
Organisation Licence — £6,000 / year
Unlimited waves for one entity up to 250 FTE, with emerging reference ranges as the dataset develops. Larger entities and groups on application.
Practitioner & portfolio — on application
Certified-practitioner licences for consultancies; standardised portfolio deployment with comparable readouts for operating partners.
Licences are per organisation, never per respondent. Standard licences contribute anonymised aggregates to the ACI benchmark and research programme; a restricted-data licence is available at a 20% premium. The first twelve licensed organisations lock founding rates permanently.
The strategy survived the board. Measure whether it survives the organisation.
Thirty-minute scoping call, no charge. If ACI isn't the right instrument for your situation, we'll say so.