Naked emperors and broken change initiatives

I’ve been trying to hunt down the facts behind the often cited claims that the majority of change initiatives fail. I’m still looking for evidence that actually stands up but there’s a clear pattern to the reason why failure happens.

The statement that “70% of all change initiatives fail” always catches my attention. It just doesn’t make sense to me; If change is inevitably doomed why do organisations keep trying to do it?

So I’ve been trying for a while to hunt down definitive data to support the claim and generally it’s not been very fruitful.

Many of the sources cited in the literature are circular. Academics referencing each other in a merry-go-round is pretty common and it’s hard to track down who has actually done original research to support the claim.

If you do find primary research, you end up with more questions than answers.

For example, a few researchers have essentially asked executives “did your change programme deliver what you’d hoped for?” There’s not a lot of testing whether those hopes were ever realistic in the first place. If you wanted to improve EBITA by 200% and give every customer a miniature unicorn you are probably on a one way track to disappointment

And, in my experience, organisations are not above creating elaborate change programmes to mask the truth that the whole thing was about cutting costs or headcount all along. It’s always funny how senior leaders lose focus once the Phase 1 “Rightsizing for Global Growth” has hit the balance sheet.

There’s also little clear understanding about what constitutes a change programme? Might we be talking about a new queuing system in the canteen or the splitting of a corporation to deliver a massive jolt of shareholder value? (I suspect the former is easier than the latter).

However, even though the data might be elusive there are some consistent themes in the literature about why changes programmes don’t deliver. These include:

• Unrealistic expectations of the speed or scale of change possible
• Changing because everyone else is doing it
• Picking a process that a drunken child of five would know could never deliver
• Buying a consultant’s pitch that a series of defined steps will bring nirvana (not mine of course)
• Not putting enough resource in (I saw one strategy consultancy use this excuse for underperforming - with the result that the client let them double their team!)
• Trying to implement a change that culturally was a No No (empowerment for galley slaves anyone?)

There are also a ton of communications and employee engagement factors that need to be taken into account (I am available for a fee / miniature unicorn to explain them).

My question though is what is the comms team’s responsibility for pointing out the naked emperor before s/he steps up to unveil the latest transformation initiative? And how many of us are brave enough to face down the unstoppable momentum of a bus load of MBA graduates with laptops and powerpoints?

I’d love to hear your answers, but I am encouraged by the two powerful defences we have against the dark arts – data and the bright light of the communications plan.

Data and insight into how employees think and might react enable us to ask awkward questions. And those awkward questions include “so for my communications plan, tell me what do we want people to actually do and how will we help them do it?” Insisting that you’re only interested in the behavioural outcomes and demanding that they are explained to you are very useful.

So tell me – how do you point out naked emperors in your communications work?