It happens time
and again. I’m sure you’ve either witnessed it or suffered through it — the
failed attempt of a large change at an organization. Maybe it was with a new
process or switching over to a new technology. Maybe it was a change to the
structure or the metrics. Whatever it was, it was difficult and painful for
everyone involved. The people who were impacted by it will not soon forget. If
you were the one that was trying to implement the change, the tinge of failure
is salt in the wound after all your hard work. All your dedication and efforts
to try and make a great improvement — and for what?
If this has
happened to you, it’s time to do some reflecting to ensure this doesn’t happen
again. Allow yourself to be brutally honest and analytical. If you haven’t yet,
ask for feedback. This is incredibly important because, with each failure, the
inertia of change grows. People may be less willing to buy in as they lose
trust in the ability to change. And while the result isn’t always so bleak, if
you’re not learning from your failures, then you’re doing yourself (and those
around you) a major disservice.
Here are some
of the top reasons I’ve seen initiatives fail time and again.
1. Poor
Planning for Change
Often, leaders
are so focused on getting their results that they dive right into the solution
phase of organizational change without adequately doing the upfront planning
work required. This sets the effort up for failure right from the start.
Instead, identify all the conditions and activities that must occur early to
set the project up for success, like: 1) change roles, governance and
decision-making, 2) stakeholder engagement strategy and communications, 3)
timeline, resources and capacity, and 4) key initiatives and how to integrate
them for maximum speed and efficiency. Without a well-designed change process
plan, a likely outcome will be a false start, resistance, and/or eventual
failure.
2. Inadequate
Support from Leadership
Organizational
change does not succeed without leadership support. And lip service is not
enough. Leaders must champion and model the change for the rest of the
organization, in both what they say and do. They must be active, consistently
supporting the change teams as they design and implement changes. They must be
out communicating the benefits of the change to stakeholders and listening to
and responding to their concerns. If your leaders are not prepared to stay
actively involved, perhaps it isn’t the right time for them to launch a major
change effort. Unsuccessful change initiatives often have executives who
describe the desired outcome of the change project but do not instruct managers
on how to implement it.
3. Lack of
Resources
Lack of
resources is one of the most common reasons why organizational change fails in
most organizations. Adoption and sustainment of change are long term
investments. They don’t occur just because an awesome solution was designed. It
has to get implemented, and then tested, refined, and reinforced. This
generally is a longer, and costlier endeavor than most change leaders realize.
If you don’t plan and resource the latter phases of change, you’ll not realize
the full benefits you set out to achieve.
4. Priority
Focus on Systems vs. People
Leaders often
focus more on the system changes than the people that have to make and live
with them. Don’t forget that while you need to have systems in place, it’s the
people who matter most. Too many transformation initiatives fail to focus on
the development of the capabilities required for people to be successful in the
new organization. This is a mistake for two reasons. First, organizational
transformation always alters the nature of “the work” that must be done.
Second, one of the biggest reasons people resist change is the fear that they
won’t be able to be successful in the new organization, that “what got them
here won’t get them there.” So, an upfront commitment to investing in helping
people be successful reduces resistance.
Be sure that
your leaders equally prioritize and attend to the system changes AND the
people.
5. Inadequate
Change Leadership Skills
One could
easily argue that this is the #1 cause of failed organizational change. Why?
Because every issue or problem within a given change initiative either gets
prevented, solved, or caused by the skill of the change leaders in charge. And
the truth is, we don’t adequately train our leaders to become competent change
leaders. Leadership development is a part of virtually all large organizations
but change leadership development is sorely missing. The net is that leaders
tend to run change initiatives like they run their organizations, and the two
are vastly different.
6. One Way
Communication
Change leaders
often make mistake by having one-way communication with employees and other
stakeholders. They fail to engage their employees.
Change doesn’t
happen when message is only coming from top. If organizational culture fails to
exchange ideas and share experience, then it’s hard to implement transformative
change. People learn by acquiring and applying the information and not just by absorbing
it.
7. Lack of
Effective Monitoring
It’s very
crucial to check on progress being made on implementation of change. So an
effective and efficient monitoring system is required to track progress on
change. When organizations lack effective monitoring mechanisms, they actually
put their change initiative at risk.
A good
monitoring mechanism doesn’t mean identifying problems but taking corrective
actions and finding solutions. Monitoring provides valuable information and
insights about what is working and what is not. And many a times this kind of
monitoring system is missing in change initiatives and organizations have to
pay heavy price for this.
8. Ignoring the
Human side of Change
Our brains are
hardwired to resist change. With the mere suggestion of change a fear response
is triggered in our brains. This is why most of us are resistant to even the
idea of organizational transformation, we are resistant to our familiar world
changing from what we know to the unknown. We need to embrace the human side of
change to effectively manage resistance to change and we need to understand
that, whilst all change is not bad, it is a natural human response to have a
defensive reaction to the unknown.
Avoiding these
pitfalls doesn’t guarantee success, but it will vastly increase your
likelihood. Winning starts with clearly defining the case for change and ends
with an effective effort to build the new competencies the organization needs.
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