For years, we have heard that 70% of change initiatives fail. John Kotter’s, 1996 book Leading Change, revealed that at most 30% of change initiatives succeed. Since then, prolific output dedicated to managing change including best practices research, models, toolkits, certifications, books, training courses, and conferences have been produced and conducted. Various other studies since then found similar results as Kotter.
Despite abundant output on the topic, the field of change management hasn’t led to an increased percentage of successful change initiatives. What’s missing from the field of change management?
- Why, with all the change management models, best practices research, toolkits, certifications, and conferences are organizations struggling to realize successful change? Why are conventional practices not working?
- Surely, there are examples of successful change initiatives. What practices are those organizations utilizing to realize successful change?
- What do other disciplines report about change?
- Is the field of change management out of date and behind the curve?
Here’s what I jotted down this morning. Your thoughts? Your stories?
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What's missing is the ability of all those engaged on the 'change management' programme/project/task (internal, external and also end user stakeholders) to see things through to a pre-defined completion. When things get tough, people look for reasons to change direction, avoid conflict, generally take an easier option or stop.
I don't comment on these things. I feel better now.
As an experienced consultant in the field of CM I think that the reason that CM doesn't show results is because we are measuring the wrong things. Most organizations think that CM will make the implementation of change to go more smoothly and that employees will quickly adopt the changes expected of them. However, CM cannot guarantee that people will adopt. CM is a set of processes that when implemented in the appropriate manner, will enable employees to process the changes that they will encounter. This does not mean that employees are going to like it and go ahead with it. So if we measure success by the level of adoption we will never have successful results because we cannot assess how long it will take for individuals to adopt new measures. We should be measuring the process instead of adoption.
APD. My worry about measuring change process, is that we are not measuring the 'real' result of the change we introduce. Change must have a valid businesss reason. Do we do it more efficiently, is the product a better quality, has the service improved, have the sales increased, is the order accurately handled etc. The right measures are definately important. Level of adoption will ultimately reflect in the real measures, because a good change which is not adopted will delay good 'real' results or may well adversley affect them if there is 'part-adoption' and two business processes are running as a result!
Sometimes successful change is ruthless, painful, messy, bold, and inspiring. It seems that a lot of effort is spent attempting to engineer change efforts into a positive, pleasant, and motivational experience and this is not realistic. People who work with change in emergency settings are people we can learn from. Creating urgency means creating discomfort. The risk of damage leads to a strategy for containment – it doesn't make sense to use too many resources trying to eliminate the inevitable. There are many benefits to a stable work force that has a high regard for consistency – but change is not one of them.