Why the perception bias slows down the transition

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When it comes to sustainability, leaders focus on their own organization, projects and their own successes. But what is needed are chain cooperation, system transitions and social impact. The fallacy seems small, but the consequences are great.

Ask a director how his or her organization is doing in terms of sustainability and the answer is almost always positive. Then ask how the Netherlands is doing, and the shoulders go up. A poor pass, at most.

This is also evident from The State of the Sustainable Transition 2026, the survey conducted by TOSCA and Impact Centre Erasmus together with Change Inc. and MT/Sprout among 307 business decision-makers. The score for the Netherlands: 5.5. For the own organization: 6.6. The higher someone is in the hierarchy, the more optimistic the judgment. Also about their own progress.

This gap is no coincidence. It is structural, we know from psychology, and it reveals something disturbing about how administrators perceive the world: what is close feels bigger than it really is. Emeritus professor Rob van Tulder refers to the so-called overplacement phenomenon: 'It is a common cognitive bias. Leaders tend to believe that they are performing better than they actually do. I know from research that this overestimation of oneself is linked to the need to radiate more self-confidence and to receive confirmation of one's own good intentions. For real sustainability, this is a dangerous bias. Because it makes them less receptive to signals that prove the opposite and reduces the incentive to really take action.'

Three mechanisms, one blind spot
This salient difference in perception (supposedly making progress at the company level without impact on the macro and system level) has three causes that also reinforce each other.

The first is the illusion of control. Leaders can steer within their own organization. They see decisions landing, projects being executed, KPIs improving. That gives a sense of progression. At the system level, we need to see and feel the impact of all these activities. That is often still disappointing. The system turns out to be more unruly to really change.

The second cause is the availability bias. Our own successes are concrete and visible: the CO₂ reduction achieved, that innovation process, the new sustainable product. The progress of a country or sector is diffuse, fragmented, less tangible. Often the small successes do not add up to a whole, so that real progress lags behind.

And then there is narrative ownership. Leaders build their own story: we are doing well. Within their own context, that story is often correct. But doing well is often confused with doing good. If all activities do not add up to an improvement at the level of the Netherlands, then we are not doing good, but we are doing well. Activities must lead to impact, if that is not done, we will not get very far together.

According to Nicolette Loonen, sustainability consultant at TOSCA, the main issue here is that no one tests whether his or her contribution to the transition is sufficient to tilt a larger system. 'You shouldn't ask yourself: is what I'm doing good? The real question is: is what I do enough? This is also called context-based sustainability: your efforts to become more sustainable are only good enough if they fit into the context of the supporting capacity of the earth and of people, and you take care of your fair share'.

Boardroom lives in its own reality
It is striking that this perception bias is not evenly distributed. The higher someone is in the hierarchy, the more optimistic the opinion about the transition in both the Netherlands and their own organization. Board members structurally assess progress more positively than operational employees.

According to Karen Maas, professor and director of Impact Centre Erasmus University, key performance indicators become core performance illusions when they suggest impact without proving it. 'Figures can show activity, but not necessarily change.'

Unfortunately, this is no exception in everyday practice. The Future-Fit gap is a structural phenomenon. Directors steer on strategy, intention and investments. The shop floor sees the implementation, the friction, the contradictions on a daily basis: sustainable ambitions next to short-term goals, ESG goals next to bonus structures, transition plans next to everyday decisions. The top is experiencing momentum. The execution feels stagnant. And no one is talking about it.

According to Karen Maas, we often have insufficient insight and control over the impact we actually achieve. When we do not explicitly focus on impact, we quickly spend a lot of time, knowledge and money on activities that seem good or measurable, but actually contribute little to the change that is needed.

Visibility is not an impact
The Future-Fit gap is further fueled by the fact that many sustainability activities are visible, but not necessarily transformative. Sustainability goals are plentiful. But the actual impact is hardly measured or not measured at all by more than half of the organizations. And only a minority of directors are actually judged on those goals.

Maas: 'We are mainly very busy. We change less fundamentally than we think. The Future-Fit gap is not due to a lack of sustainability goals, but because organizations mainly focus on activity, reporting and short-term indicators. And too little on the fundamental change that their long-term impact requires'.

Why this is more than a fallacy
The perception bias may seem like a small issue, but the consequences are big. Because when leaders believe that they are doing the right thing themselves while the system lags behind, a dangerous dynamic arises: complacency within organizations, underestimation of systemic risks, too little cooperation across borders and a focus on optimization instead of transformation.

De Jong: 'Most people have picked the low-hanging fruit within their own organisation, but now there must be radical cooperation in ecosystems that accelerate transitions. That requires knowledge, courage and vulnerability. What organizations need is a team of change agents that can carry the change internally. People who speak the language, feel the urgency and know how to get others on board. We are building on that in our Future Fit accelerator.'

This article was written by Change Inc. in collaboration with TOSCA and Impact Centre Erasmus. Click here for the original article.