70% Of Change Efforts Don't Have To Fail

There continues to be many articles and posts regarding ‘Why Change Efforts Fail’. Having worked for global organizations as both a leader and consultant, I can confirm 70% of change efforts do fail. Although, it’s not always so straight forward and apparent because sometimes organizations ‘tweak’ the numeric results to goal to show success only to realize they saved several hundreds of millions with the transformation and spent it elsewhere. According to popular and reliable research from John Kotter and additionally from McKinsey; change efforts generally fail due lack of urgency & vision, good communications, engagement, and execution. I like to think about a framework of four components:

? Urgency & Vision:
Strategic transformation must always start with a burning platform. What is the crisis or opportunity? Is there a sense of urgency? It’s always easier to rally around a crisis to keep a float than leap to new opportunities. After establishing urgency, is there a clear vision and statement? Is this vision aligned by the leaders’ mindsets, behaviors and actions?

? Communication:
Is there a clear communication plan with a consistent message across all identified stakeholders across the enterprise? Have the messages been tailored for what’s important to each stakeholder? Are they then tailored across the Social Style Theory types, originated by David Merrill, by the leaders of the organization? Are you sure each leader is telling the same story, and are they telling it often enough? The “Rule of 7” applies here. Are the same amounts of time and more being spent on communicating a new strategy as developing the strategy?

? Engagement:
Does your communication plan drive to true engagement? Are you communicating messages or building true understanding & belief, and then empowering to engage? Is your organization following a framework such as Kotter’s Eight Step Process for Leading Change? Have you identified all stakeholders and engage with them or talk at them?

? Execution:
Are the change efforts driven by a PMO including change programs for behavior, culture, process, and training? Or, does the PMO focus on timeline and projects? I’m always reminded of a simple example from years ago when implementing a new online system. Employees continued to process the work same not only due to lack of process reengineering and system training, but mostly based upon prior behavior. Is the Transformation Office across the business, or siloed within a function or segment? Is each business and function accountable for leading their own change with the right oversight and guidance at a central level?

Seeing transformation succeed within an organization is exciting and rewarding for all stakeholders. Do you have the right team, right framework and resilience to make multiple-year journeys happen?