In the boardrooms of Jakarta’s SCBD, “Transformation” has become the corporate equivalent of a New Year’s resolution: spoken with immense passion in January, funded with a bloated consulting contract in February, and quietly abandoned by June in favour of the comforting embrace of the status quo.
Statistically, about 70% of change initiatives fail globally. In Indonesia, that figure feels far too optimistic. Here’s the worst-kept secret: most Indonesian organisations don’t fail because their strategy is bad. They fail because they try to overlay 21st-century digital strategies onto a 19th-century feudal operating system.
If we want to understand why change stalls, we must stop looking at the slide decks and start analysing the shadows.
The Three Silent Killers of Change in Indonesia
While many blame “infrastructure” or “talent gaps,” the real culprits are behavioural patterns woven into the cultural fabric. Here are the most prevalent:
1. The “Bapakism” Bottleneck
Indonesian corporate culture is historically rooted in high power distance. We respect our elders, and we certainly respect the “Bapak” (or Ibu) at the top. We put our feelings (and our logic) aside to kow-tow to those at the top, whether they know what they’re doing or not. While this creates social harmony, it is toxic for agility. In many firms, “empowerment” is a word used in speeches, but “permission” is the actual currency du jour. When every minor pivot requires a nod from the 38th floor and multiple tanda tangan basah, innovation doesn’t just slow down; it disappears entirely.
2. Transformation Theatre
This is the most common survival mechanism. It involves high-production-value town halls, neon-colored lanyards, and “Agile 4.0” stickers, while the underlying power structures and KPIs remain static. It is change as performance art. We see the activity, the ‘sosmed’ army documenting every waking moment… and mistake it for achievement. If your “Digital Transformation” is just a paper-based process moved into PDF, you haven’t transformed; you’ve just digitising your own bureaucracy.
3. The “Asal Bapak Senang” (ABS) Feedback Loop
Risk aversion is the invisible hand that pulls the emergency brake. In a culture where “saving face” is paramount, telling a superior their pet project is a sinking ship is a career-limiting move and a social faux pas. Consequently, leadership in Indonesia operates in a hall of mirrors, receiving sanitised data or one-sided opinions that suggest everything is lancar-lancar saja until the moment the market disruption becomes a catastrophe.
Lessons from the Front Lines: Winners and Losers
We only need to look at the legendary battle between Blue Bird and Gojek. For years, Blue Bird was the undisputed king of the road, backed by a reputation for safety and reliability. But when Gojek arrived, they weren’t just offering a better app; they were offering a fundamentally different organisational logic, built on speed, data, and decentralised trust.
Initially, Blue Bird’s response was a classic example of “Transformation Theatre”—minor tweaks and defensive lobbying. It wasn’t until they embraced a radical partnership with their former rival and completely overhauled their own MyBluebird app did they regain their footing. They stopped acting like a taxi company and started acting like a mobility platform.
Similarly, Bank Mandiri provides a masterclass in overcoming “Bapakism.” As a massive, state-owned enterprise (SOE) the odds were stacked against them. Yet, by creating a distinct digital culture through their “Livin’ by Mandiri” initiative, they managed to bypass the usual bureaucratic gridlock. They didn’t just add a digital layer; they rebuilt their core banking journey to compete with fintechs, proving that even a giant can dance if it’s willing to change its shoes.
On the other hand, we see the anonymous graveyards of several traditional retail giants. These companies spent millions on e-commerce platforms but refused to change their processes and sub-cultures. They ran high-velocity digital storefronts using the same slow-moving, committee-based logic that governed their physical malls. The result? Great websites with no stock and a “digital transformation” that became a very expensive paperweight.
What the “Future-Fit” Minority Does Differently
It’s not all doom and gloom. There are organisations that actually move the needle.
Trait 1: They Shift from Hierarchy to Wirearchy
The best companies are flattening the curve. They recognise that in a volatile market, the person closest to the customer has more valuable insights than the person with the largest office. They move away from rigid command-and-control structures toward “wirearchies”—networks of empowered teams that can make decisions without a three-week paper trail.
Trait 2: They Prioritise “Psychological Safety” Over Harmony
There is a massive difference between a “polite” culture and a “productive” one. Future-fit Indonesian leaders, like those at Astra International, have survived for decades by actively soliciting internal dissent and diversifying their business units. They reward the employee who points out a flaw in the plan. By making it safe to fail (and more importantly safe to speak), they close the gap between the boardroom’s vision and the basement’s reality.
Trait 3: They Focus on Supporting “The Middle”
Most changes fail because the C-suite is inspired, the juniors are excited, and the middle management is terrified. The middle layer is where change goes to die: they’re the ones tasked with keeping the lights on while the roof is being replaced. Successful organisations don’t just “announce” change to the middle; they redesign the middle-manager’s incentives so that change isn’t a threat to their job security, but a requirement for it.
The Cost of Admission: Radical Honesty
If you are leading a company in Indonesia today, you must ask yourself a localised version of the classic HBR question: Is your culture an accelerator or a brake?
Real change in the archipelago requires more than just buying the latest SaaS platform or hiring a “Chief Transformation Officer” (aka the Chief PowerPoint Officer). It requires the courage to dismantle the “way we’ve always done it” and the humility to realise what built the company might be the very thing preventing it from growing.
The best companies don’t just change their tech; they change their essence from the inside. They move from a culture of compliance to a culture of contribution.
The Bottom Line
Indonesia stands on the precipice of a generational economic windfall. The opportunities are staggering, but they are guarded by the gatekeepers of old habits and the ghosts of “how we’ve always done it.”
To win in the next decade, you don’t need the deepest pockets; you need the thickest skin. You need “strategic ego-loss” to shed an old identity and make room for a new one. It means being willing to endure the profound discomfort of feeling (and looking) like an amateur again while you experiment, learn and innovate.
It is time to bring down the curtain on “Transformation Theatre” – for good. Because in the end, the market is a cold judge: it doesn’t care about the prestige of your “Bapak’s” title or the size of your corner office. It only cares if you deliver value in a world that has stopped waiting for you to catch up.
About the Author
Friska Wirya is a globally-recognised expert in change management and leadership, known for her work as an organizational change advisor and change leadership coach to MNCs. She is a ‘Top 50 Global Change Management Thought Leader’, Top 50 Asia Pacific Business Influencer, TEDx speaker and in-demand leadership facilitator who has spoken for the likes of Salesforce, Culture Amp, F5, Worley, UN Women and Microsoft. She is the author of two #1 best-selling books, The Future Fit Organization and The Future Fit Asian Organization, published by Penguin Random House. Her books are stocked and available globally at Harvard University, Periplus, Kinokuniya, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Booktopia, and Tokopedia.
Learn more at freshbyfriska.com
