How long does the transformation of a political party take? “Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.” Gates’s Law Do you remember the words of that old Bond song by Louis Armstrong, “We Have All the Time in the World”? In politics, nobody says this, ever. Politics is often a fight with time, in time, against time. Long-term plans often get crushed by unforeseen events. Tactics beat strategies. Generally, there is too little time for everything–anything that does not immediately advance the interests of the party and its leadership is at risk of getting sidetracked. This makes one question even more pressing: how long does a party transformation take? For companies, the acute phase of a critical turnaround is around 1.5 years; more comprehensive transformations take up to 5 years. But in companies, at least for some time, decision-making can be centralized and execution directed top-down. This does not make cor...