How Rani Okhomina Is Helping Organisations Move from Policy to Practice

By Ugo Aliogo

In organisations across the public and private sectors, frustration often sounds the same: policies are well written, strategies are carefully designed, yet little seems to change in how work is actually done. Rani Okhomina, an organisational development and change management practitioner, has spent years working at this fault line between intention and impact, advancing a clear argument that meaningful organisational change does not fail because of poor policy, but because behaviour is left untouched.

Her work centres on a simple but frequently overlooked insight: organisations do not change because documents are produced. They change because people behave differently. By focusing on leadership behaviour, decision-making patterns, and everyday systems, she positions change not as a technical exercise, but as a behavioural and relational process that must be actively led.

For many organisations, change efforts begin and end with policy. Strategies are launched, values are articulated, and transformation programmes are announced with confidence. Yet months later, familiar patterns resurface. Meetings unfold in the same way, decisions default to old priorities, and staff quietly conclude that the latest initiative will pass like the ones before it. Okhomina challenges this illusion of progress, arguing that policy is often mistaken for action when it should instead serve as the starting point for behavioural translation.

Central to her perspective is the role of leadership. She emphasises that leaders are not merely sponsors of change, but the environment in which change either succeeds or fails. Employees observe what leaders prioritise under pressure, how trade-offs are handled, and which behaviours are rewarded or overlooked. When leadership behaviour contradicts stated priorities, policy loses credibility and behaviour follows practice, not proclamation.

Her work highlights how easily organisations undermine their own change efforts. Collaboration may be promoted while individual performance is rewarded. Innovation may be encouraged while mistakes are quietly punished. In these conditions, the formal message is clear, but the system teaches a different lesson. According to Okhomina, staff respond rationally to these signals, aligning their behaviour with what is reinforced rather than what is written.

She also reframes resistance, a concept often misunderstood in change initiatives. Resistance, she argues, is rarely irrational. More often, it reflects a lack of involvement, clarity, or trust in the process. Leaders who succeed in driving change create space for dialogue, connect organisational goals to lived experience, and acknowledge uncertainty rather than denying it. When people understand why change matters and how it affects them, compliance gives way to commitment.

Beyond leadership behaviour, Okhomina places strong emphasis on organisational systems. Sustainable change, she contends, is embedded through performance management, governance processes, decision-making structures, and everyday routines. When these systems remain unchanged, new initiatives struggle to survive. Effective leaders therefore ask practical questions about what is being measured, rewarded, and reinforced, recognising that culture is shaped as much by systems as by statements.

What distinguishes her approach is its disciplined focus on consistency. Change, in her view, is rarely driven by dramatic announcements or one-off programmes. It is built through repeated alignment between intent and action over time. Leaders who recognise change as behavioural, systemic, and relational are better equipped to translate ambition into impact.

As organisations navigate increasing complexity and pressure, her work offers a grounded reminder that transformation does not begin on paper. It begins in how people are led, supported, and held accountable every day. By helping leaders move deliberately from policy to practice, Rani Okhomina continues to shape a more realistic and sustainable understanding of what meaningful organisational change truly requires.