McCain now has a proven, repeatable model for mobilizing high-performing, cross-functional teams against any priority, anywhere in the business, in weeks.
That's what PACE is. Looking to F27, every SLT member is building PACE teams into their strategic plans, counting on them to deliver.
But this way of working is still a new muscle. Teams need coaches to guide them, leaders who visibly practice what they're asking of others, and a community where people help each other get better. Without those three things, old habits win and the results evaporate.
Building the internal coaching bench, community, and leadership capability will ensure that every new team delivers at the level of the teams that proved the model. Without it, eighteen months of executive advocacy, leadership commitment, and hundreds of energized McCainers revert to the way things have always been done. And the priorities those F27 teams are counting on are at risk.
Over the past 18 months, McCain has invested in a new way of working. Here is what that investment has produced, what's at stake, and what we recommend for F27.
A new Ways of Working team, formed under Janey Piroli's leadership, now leads this work across the organization.
35+ facilitators trained in high-velocity decision-making. 6+ internal coaches certified or in training. Ways of Working playbook, training, and tooling deployed across every major region.
Every SLT member is building PACE teams into their F27 strategic plans, counting on them to deliver critical priorities. We have proven the model can deliver. But delivering depends on more than naming a team as PACE. It depends on coaching capability, leaders and teams adopting new behaviors, and a network of practitioners who support each other. Without those three things, PACE becomes a label instead of a way of working, and the priorities those teams are charged with are at risk.
A way of working that works...if it has the right support.
Insights from six feedback sessions with PACE alumni and team leads
We sat down with dozens of PACE alumni and team leads across six sessions and asked them what's working, what's not, and what they need. Nobody asked for a better strategy or a more compelling vision. What we heard, consistently, were practitioners describing what it feels like to build a new organizational muscle, what helps it grow, and what causes it to atrophy.
That distinction matters. Most transformation efforts fail because they're built to end: design the strategy, launch the initiative, cross the finish line. The organizations that succeed treat transformation as a capability their people get better at over time. What the feedback reveals is that McCain is building exactly that kind of capability. The question is whether the system around it will keep up.
The biggest shift: from seeking approval to getting reactions
The single most significant change participants describe is in how they seek alignment. Chris Lumsden reflected on the old pattern: "I find in the past I would get too far down the road before you kind of make sure you get all the buy-in." Demo meetings changed that. Instead of working in isolation until something feels finished, then presenting it for sign-off, PACE teams share work in progress early and often. The dynamic flips: you're not asking for permission, you're inviting reactions. And because the work is still in draft, feedback feels collaborative rather than evaluative.
This shift doesn't happen in isolation. It's supported by a set of simple, reinforcing practices. The SFD ("Shitty First Draft") gives people permission to share work before it's polished. Safe to Try lowers the threshold for making decisions. A weekly cadence of Action meetings, Collab sessions, and Demos keeps the rhythm going. Andrea Kriegermeier captured the mindset: "Do something. And then if it's not right, pivot." Noriska Fernandes described the value of "just having those bi-weekly check-ins and being able to make sure we're on the right track." The tools work together, but the Demo meeting is where the behavioral change becomes visible.
"Before PACE you end up in huge discussions about something because everyone has their input and all the reasons why something can't work. ...I'm out in India at the moment doing a new line startup. They've been very happy around the simplicity. Is it undoable? Let's just try it. Safe to try."
Gordon Gillies on Safe to Try
The coach is the difference
If there is a single finding that stands above everything else, it is this: the coach is what makes the way of working real. The person in the room who holds the team accountable to a different way of working when every instinct pulls them back toward old habits.
This came through in every team lead conversation. Teams that had a skilled coach describe a qualitative difference in their experience: they made decisions faster, stayed focused on what mattered, and pushed through the discomfort of working in new ways. Teams that tried to sustain the practices afterward without a coach found the effect fading. The practices that felt natural with support started to feel awkward without it.
"Having the coach was absolutely what made it work because we had a tendency as a group to get in our heads and convince each other that maybe that's not the way… We would not achieve what we achieved without it."
Marketa Gibson, Team Lead Retrospective
Without support, the muscle atrophies
The participants we spoke with are motivated. They believe in the way of working. They want to keep practicing. But the organizational systems around them haven't yet been built to support that. PACE work still arrives on top of existing responsibilities. Time isn't being formally allocated or protected. And when a participant's direct manager isn't the PACE sponsor, they often have no visibility into the work at all. Marketa Gibson described the dynamic: "If they don't hear about what is happening and how much is happening, by default they don't think anything is happening."
Diego Suescun was direct about the tension: "Reality is that these came on top of the day job. It was not like we were really freeing up." This isn't a complaint about the program. It's a structural gap. When people aren't given the time to practice, even the best training fades. And that's exactly what some participants described: the tools becoming familiar as language but losing their substance as practice. Dave Harnan noticed that "people have sort of picked up on it and they're using the language, but without the understanding behind it."
The resources exist. The portal has content. But people need motivation to engage with it. Chris Lumsden was candid: "Even though I've seen the Ways of Working kind of pop up on that main screen, I never once clicked on it." It wasn't until the refresher session that the purpose and value of the tools came back to life for him. The content is there. What's missing is the connective tissue: a community, regular touchpoints, and visible leadership that keeps the practice alive between formal engagements.
"It's not quite a company-wide approach yet ... and the knowledge could be shared more widely. My PACE team was a year ago and I am continuing now to forget more than I've learned on it. If you ask me to run a PACE team tomorrow, I'd really struggle."
Dave Harnan
The through-line across every session is clear. These are not people asking for more training. They are practitioners asking for the organizational infrastructure to keep getting better: coaches to guide them, a community to learn with, and leaders who practice what they're asking of others. This is the difference between a transformation that ends and a capability that compounds. The question is whether the organization will build the system that keeps them practicing.