Reducing gaps between paper and practice requires more than a technical alignment

•An enduring difference between practice and prescription is considered undesirable.•Micro-experiments are technically successful in reducing this gap.•The micro-experiment approach overlooks the difficulty of actually changing rules.•A focus on psychological safety and restorative just culture is needed.•A combined approach results in diminished organisational complicity. The way work is done often differs from the way work is imagined. An enduring difference between practice and prescription is considered undesirable, from both the organisational and academic point of view. In this study we aimed to reduce the gap between work-as-done (practice) and work-as-imagined (paper) by utilizing a technical alignment approach that combines micro-experiments with a framework for rule management that places monitoring and adapting rules key to the process. In four cases, we tested whether technical alignment could reduce the gap, change the rules and break through organisational complicity. We found that the micro-experiments were technically successful as they revealed the effectiveness of interventions, generated shop floor commitment and reduced gaps. However, we also found that this approach overlooked the difficulty of actually changing rules and organisational complicity remained. Adding insights obtained from a fifth case discovered during the research, we conclude that technical alignment should be supplemented by a focus on improving psychological safety, implementing a restorative just culture and upholding psychological contracts. Lasting change requires leaders to display moral courage throughout the entire chain of command.