What Hinders Change
This week is all about Change. Far too frequently, we at Forrest & Company see change initiatives start and then stutter before full implementation. To begin, I want to focus on change management versus managing change.
To be clear, here is our distinction:
We see all sorts of change departments across various organizations and yet, still, the changes founder on the rocks of reality. So, why is this?
I argue that, if we use a change management team, we have outsourced our changes. Change management has to be done by management – it is the work of our managerial leaders to drive the change. The change has to be part of the fabric of the organization.
Managerial leaders are change agents. That is our work. Our job is to take our people, teams, and organizations from a current state to a future desired end state. This is the essence of change and growth. In the face of this, however, human nature is about returning to the old (comfortable) ways. Therefore, there is a tension between the future and current state. The reality is that tension seeks resolution, so do we get to the future state, go back to the old way, or somewhere in between?
领英推荐
In most initiatives we are involved with, organizations fall into the middle. They change somewhat, but they don’t get to their desired state. In future missives, I will discuss the human nature aspect of change (aka managing change), but today is at the organizational level.
In his influential article Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail, John Kotter identified eight reasons why changes fail:
At Forrest, we have seen all eight in action and as the major causes of the change initiative failure. However, I would add a few more. In many cases, there is often too much change occurring in the organization. We already know that employees’ #1 pain point is feeling overloaded, so change initiatives, if we don't gate and control change at the top, just keep piling up. As well, there can be competing changes which dilute changes. This is why, when clarifying role accountabilities, we look to see who is accountable for the controls of change programs. This issue is big for large organizations where everyone tries to add value through their initiatives. If you want to test this, ask your front line about the changes they see coming down; they will no doubt give you insight into how much comes down the pipe to them.
However, the overarching cause is that management sees change management as something other than their work. It goes back to the lack of a professional managerial leadership cadre and ethos, as I have often argued in these missives and my book . Get professional about change because it is your job and, of course, be disciplined in that exercise of the profession.
Helping leaders and organizations achieve their Why
1 年Indeed, change is fundamentally about people and processes, but people are essential, while processes are what we make of them. For this reason, change management must overwhelmingly focus on people, and thus leaders (especially managerial leaders, but also those who simply influence change by their presence and intentions) are the key ingredient in successful initiatives. Leaders at all levels - but especially senior leaders - must lead by example, consistently and continuously communicate the 'why', and hold accountable those with various responsibilities and accompanying authorities.
In my opinion, change often fails for the following reasons. 1. Change is often change for the sake of change. It is often more about the person proposing the change trying to make their mark on the organization than to improve the organization. 2. The change fails to factor in inertia of the organization. The change must be of sufficient magnitude to make the end result worth the change in the processes. Finally, the person proposing the change has failed to understand the history of the change. They fail to take into consideration of why we do the things we do in this way or fail to understand why the changes have failed before. Just my $.02.