Sara Fenske Bahat On How To Manage A Workforce That Is Not Mission Aligned

When 64% of employees are disengaged, according to Gallup, organizations face critical business impacts. This disengagement directly reduces productivity, increases turnover, and damages customer relationships.

“Sometimes not everybody wants to come along,” says Sara Fenske Bahat, who recently directed San Francisco’s largest mayoral transition in 30 years. “That doesn’t mean that you get to toss governance and your responsibilities as an organization. It probably means people should move on to other jobs. At that point, your job as an employer is how you want to manage that.”

This assessment contradicts typical corporate messaging about inclusive change management. Sara Fenske Bahat’s leadership experience spans transformations at the former New York State Banking Department and San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Many organizations waste resources trying to convince resistant employees instead of focusing on those willing to adapt.

The reality? You cannot bring everyone along. Here’s how successful executives address this challenge.

1. Cut Through The Noise With Purpose Audits

Effective organizations begin change initiatives with honest diagnostics, not inspirational speeches.

During San Francisco’s mayoral transition, Sara Fenske Bahat implemented a straightforward assessment: “I started every meeting with ‘What is your why? How did you end up here, and why are you here? What are you hoping to get out of it?” These questions identify fundamental motivational alignment.

This approach differs from Simon Sinek’s popular concept by adding practical application. It efficiently identifies genuinely committed team members versus those simply collecting paychecks. McKinsey research shows purpose-connected employees deliver 1.5x higher productivity. Attempting to force alignment produces negative results.

Purpose audits work because they:

• Reveal true motivations in a non-threatening environment
• Help leaders understand the full spectrum of commitment levels
• Identify potential change champions and areas of resistance
• Establish accurate baseline data before implementing changes

“Executive branch transitions are the Olympics of change management,” notes Bahat. These organizational inflection points create natural exit opportunities. Effective leaders recognize and use these moments strategically rather than forcing resistant staff through unwanted changes.

The most successful transformations start with this clear understanding of motivational alignment. Without it, organizations address symptoms rather than the root causes of resistance.

2. Weaponize Transparency Against Politics

Information hoarding consistently undermines organizational change.

Forward-thinking organizations counteract this through systematic transparency. They:

• Make information universally accessible
• Establish consistent communication protocols
• Create real-time performance visibility
• Eliminate information gatekeeping

“Everything was in Slack. We had a daily standup. It moved very quickly, and everyone was encouraged to have visibility into cross-initiative work,” Bahat explains of the mayoral transition’s approach. This transparency strategically eliminates the hidden corners where resistance typically develops.

Organizations consistently underestimate how information asymmetry enables resistance. When certain individuals control critical information, they gain power at the expense of organizational effectiveness. Breaking these information monopolies requires systematic infrastructure, not occasional updates.

Harvard Business Review confirms that transparency around objectives drives 34% higher team effectiveness. When performance becomes visible, contribution gaps become self-evident without requiring difficult conversations.

“The biggest challenge in government is that there tend to be a lot of cooks in the kitchen,” Sara Fenske Bahat observes in a recent podcast appearance. “The key is to distinguish between the talkers and the doers, and to turn ideas into something operational that teams can deliver.” Transparency systems expose the gap between discussion and action.

Implementing transparency requires eliminating private decision-making, making metrics visible regardless of comfort level, and ending information privilege systems that protect underperformers.

3. Rebuild The Machine While It’s Running

When an organization has multiple mission statements, unnecessary work processes, and general confusion, the problem is structural, not personnel-based. This fundamental misalignment requires system-level intervention.

The San Francisco mayoral transition addressed similar dysfunction through comprehensive restructuring. “Instead of 70 people reporting to one person, we created four portfolios with clear responsibilities for each,” Bahat explains. “Public safety, economic development, public health and well-being, and infrastructure.” This restructuring fixed a basic design flaw that made alignment impossible.

Many change initiatives ignore a fundamental reality: organizational structure often actively prevents mission alignment. No amount of cultural work can overcome a flawed organizational design. Reporting relationships, incentive systems, and decision rights frequently undermine the very alignment leadership desires.

MIT Sloan research indicates that structural change without cultural reinforcement fails 70% of the time. “To make this work, especially given the low information environment and lack of camaraderie among those 70, required intensive human engineering to get people quickly working as teammates,” Bahat acknowledges. Successful restructuring combines technical changes with human transition support.

Companies frequently implement new strategies without changing the organizational systems that produced current results. This approach guarantees failure. New priorities require structures designed specifically to deliver them, including:

• Consolidated functions
• Clear decision rights
• Accountability systems aligned with desired outcomes

When organizational design prevents alignment, team-building exercises cannot fix the problem. Expect 20-30% personnel turnover during significant restructuring. Budget accordingly and proceed deliberately. The alternative is continued underperformance.

4. Make Values Non-Negotiable, But Don’t Create Toxic Environments

High-performance cultures require clear boundaries without creating toxic intensity. Effective leadership means establishing what matters most. Values serve as organizational guardrails, not suggestions.

“My baseline is high integrity, values-led leadership,” states Sara Fenske Bahat. This clarity establishes the non-negotiables that define organizational identity during change periods.

Values-led transformation requires:

• Specific behavioral definitions
• Clear expectations for daily practice
• Identified violations that won’t be tolerated
• Consistent accountability mechanisms

Simultaneously, mission-critical work should not feel oppressive. Research indicates that maintaining positive workplace dynamics during transformation can actually accelerate results, rather than hindering them. The Great Place to Work Institute reports that organizations with positive cultures experience 65% lower turnover and higher innovation. This balance between clear expectations and respectful treatment creates sustainable momentum.

Too many change initiatives produce anxious compliance rather than genuine commitment. Teams operating from fear create surface-level conformity that disappears when leadership attention shifts. Sustainable transformation requires psychological safety alongside clear expectations.

Effective leaders prioritize creating psychologically safe environments even during challenging periods. Even the most difficult transformations must maintain professional respect and adhere to clear communication standards. Upholding values does not require creating high-stress workplaces that ultimately reduce performance.

Four-Step Framework for Sustainable Mission Alignment

Mission alignment requires more than communication campaigns.

It demands honest assessment, structural integrity, and occasionally difficult personnel decisions. It requires unwavering transparency commitment. It necessitates rebuilding systems that no longer serve the organizational purpose. It means creating cultures where values remain non-negotiable while maintaining humane environments.

“I know what kind of people I can work effectively with,” Sara Fenske Bahat states directly. This isn’t about creating homogeneous teams but requiring fundamental professional commitment to shared purpose. Organizations that maintain clear professional standards consistently outperform those that compromise on values for short-term convenience.

Deloitte research quantifies the business case: purpose-driven organizations outperform competitors by 42% in financial returns. This advantage materializes only when purpose manifests throughout operations. It cannot be communicated into existence; it must be structurally embedded.

For executives facing resistance, the approach is clear:

1. Deploy honest diagnostics that reveal true motivational alignment
2. Implement structural solutions that enable new priorities
3. Maintain values and guardrails that define clear expectations
4. Accept that some team members will not continue the journey

The resulting organization may be smaller, but it will achieve sustainable performance rather than endless change initiatives that never deliver promised results. In today’s business environment, this focused alignment creates a genuine competitive advantage.