Why change management is broken and what we can do about it.

Are change initiatives in your organization typically well-planned, smoothly executed and completed on time, leaving everyone satisfied in the end?

If not, you are not alone.

Yet so many leaders still rely on traditional change management that follow a command-and-control approach.

This way of thinking about change has reached its limits. In fact, transformation projects fail 70 to 80% of the time. And when they do reach the finish line, it is often later and more expensive than planned.?

Here's another fact: Employees are disengaged.

According to Gallup, 68% of employees in the U.S. (77% worldwide) are either bored or actively sabotaging team morale or performance. In Germany, the figure is as high as 84%.

These two facts are related.

Many team leads, managers, change agents, and organizational developers are keenly aware of this. So, does it mean to rather do nothing, no change or transformation efforts? Often, that is not an option either. It leads to the accumulation of "organizational debt" and poses a threat to the long-term survival of the organization.

The way we change is outdated

Much has been written about the nature of change. There is not a single book that is less than 200 pages. They all look like heavy lifting, literally and figuratively.

There are essentially two main perspectives that are commonly discussed. One perspective views organizations as mechanical systems that can be fixed, and upgraded. Decision-makers dictate the new process, expecting individuals to be trained, supervised, and controlled to adapt. If there's resistance, the advice is often to “just communicate better.”?

A more recent approach focuses on "nudging" people toward the desired behaviour. By using clever motivational or psychological tactics to encourage new behaviour, the goal is to move people in the desired direction. But this can backfire when people realize they are being manipulated.

Both approaches are based on a misunderstanding of the nature of change. Let's take a closer look at why.

Change is not a project?

The concept of viewing an organization as a factory may have made sense a hundred years ago. That perspective is obsolete today. Many organizations today operate more as knowledge-producing systems where individuals think and tinker to create new solutions.?

Despite this evolution, many aspects of how we work in organizations still reflect the outdated factory model, from the 9-to-5 work structure to decision-making organized like a waterfall in an organizational chart. Looking at organizations through this lens, it makes sense to approach change like a project management problem. But it isn't.?

Organizations are complex, living systems. It's time to treat them as such.

Beyond “managing resistance”

If organizations are complex living systems, then people are what organizations are made of.?

Change management literature often emphasizes the importance of good communication. It suggests that people need to be made aware of the reasons for and the advantages of change if they are to accept it. The question of why people find change difficult in the first place has also become a common theme in books, articles, and conferences, with experts often arguing that people are naturally inclined to resist change.

This argument is based on a view of human nature that is simply wrong.?

Change is only hard when people are told to change. Because people are not parts of a machine, but independently thinking beings striving for autonomy. So "explain it better" misses the point completely.

Another recommendation is to design a “selective” participation process to improve acceptance during implementation. This is questionable, not only because it is essentially "fake" participation and will backfire. It is also a waste of the knowledge, creativity, and resources that all these people could bring to the table, if we don’t start taking participation seriously.

So how can we tackle change? How can we make organizations more innovative, resilient and future-proof? Here are a few thoughts.

Some ideas to get started

• Beware of the “vision”. Many organizations invest substantial time in crafting a compelling "vision statement, just to catch dust in a drawer. Though nothing’s wrong with having a compelling goal, it is very hard to come up with a really good one. Often, these visions are overly abstract, disconnected from the daily realities of people's work lives, rendering them meaningless.

• Meet people where they are. ?People will not just drop what they know and adopt new habits just because they align with the big picture of the organization. People work for themselves, not for organizations. Always. That's why it's better to start with aspects directly relevant to their daily work: meeting structures, onboarding processes, communication channels and so on ...
• Get serious about participation. Change doesn't work without the involvement of everyone affected by it. People will always prefer the results of decisions made through what they perceive to be a fair process. So why not involve everyone? Not the 10 people you can squeeze into a workshop room, not the 20 people in the pilot group or the sounding board. Instead, everyone who is affected by the things that will change.
• Ask good questions, stay curious about the answers. A powerful way to engage a group of people is to start with a question. Imagine what would happen if you honestly asked people:? What is keeping you from doing the best work of your life right now? And how can we do it better? Something magical might happen.
• Use the knowledge that is already there. When developing strategies, avoid relying solely on experts behind closed doors. Instead, tap into the collective wisdom of a diverse crowd for more innovative solutions. Numerous studies support the notion that diverse groups outperform individual experts.

• De-risk change efforts. Shift your perspective from seeing change as a "project" to perceiving it as a habit.? It's far less risky to conduct small, "safe-to-try" experiments, keeping what works and abandoning what doesn't. This is an exploratory, organic approach, with no predetermined goals set in stone. Some call that?"transition work, others "continuous participatory change”.
• Fire your change managers. Okay, maybe not really. But consider this: Don't put something as important as the evolution of an organization in the hands of just a few experts. Instead, make everyone a change agent. Someone has a problem? Resist the urge to solve it for them, but make sure they have everything they need to solve it themselves.

We need a new toolkit for transformation

Let's face it, doing all this is no walk in the park. We see organizations everywhere experimenting with new approaches, methods, and tools. But organizing participation at scale, empowering people with autonomy, and letting go of thinking in big projects does not happen overnight.

Some of the more practical questions are:?

• How do you give everyone a voice without being overwhelmed by the volume of input??
• How do you get a large group of people to work together in an asynchronous way that still feels engaging to them?
• How do you create the kind of psychological safety that is necessary for the development of innovative new solutions?
• How do you successfully track and evaluate experiments?

We believe that the digital space offers many opportunities to address these challenges. But while tools such as digital whiteboards, online surveys and messenger apps are great for collaboration in general, they are not made for collective problem solving on a large scale.?

That's why we, at nyord , are working on a solution that gives change agents the superpower to engage every single employee in a meaningful conversation about how to move forward as a team or organization.?

But I am curious – how do you approach change in your organization? Do you agree or see the world differently? Which methods have been successful, which tools useful?

Sources in the comment.