When you look at all the various functions, activities and processes that make up your business, or area, you already know that there are lots of things that could be changed and improved over time, but sometimes the fear of change puts us off taking first steps – and after all, if something isn’t broken, then why fix it? That makes sense, but change isn’t necessarily about fixing things, it is about making things that work well at present, work even better. Part of the problem with change is that there are varying – often polar opposite – views on what factors can most influence change initiatives but today’s post highlights some widely accepted drivers of success when it comes to change.

You already know that managing change is tough. Given your existing experience of change, you will be aware that especially where large-scale transformations are concerned the potential for problems is enormous, often beating the best of managers. This aspect of management performance – handling change that is – has received enormous attention over recent decades and you might imagine that the success rates in terms of positive outcomes from change programmes would be dramatically better as a result. But this does not seem to be the case at all and time and again studies show that change management failures are significant. In fact, the figure of a 70% failure rate is widely bandied about. One useful McKinsey study in this area asked executives to judge the success of change programmes in their business which for the purposes of the research were defined as “a coordinated program, in companies or business units, that typically involves fundamental changes to the organization’s strategy, structures, operating systems, capabilities, and culture.” (1) The executives were asked to judge the effectiveness of their transformations based on two descriptions of success:

One was how effective the change process had been in leading to improved profitability, return on capital employed, market value, and so on.
The second was how well the change process had “laid a foundation for sustaining corporate health over the longer term.”

Based on the first metric, just 38% of respondents indicated that the transformation was “completely” or “mostly” successful at improving business performance, and on the second only about 30% were satisfied that the change process had improved their organisation’s health and sustainability. About one third of those managers surveyed also said they were “somewhat” successful on both counts in terms of key change processes. Worryingly, 10% indicated that they had been involved in change processes that were “completely” or “mostly” unsuccessful.

This is just one study which shows that managers continue to struggle with the change issue and should emphasise for you the need to pay very close attention to any such initiatives within your business, particularly those that are larger in scope, or require major surgery on how things are currently done; the bigger the upheaval the more attention needed. In my experience, there are a number of common problems that arise when seeking to manage change, especially those of magnitude, and you should reflect upon the points ahead to consider how effectively you manage change at present:

Lack of clarity about the rationale, purpose and destination of the change

This unfortunately is a common problem whereby a disconnect forms between what George W would have called the ‘deciders’ of change and the ‘implementers’ of it. This gap can take a number of forms: sometimes, senior executives in the business are very clear as to why a change is necessary and what it should deliver, but there isn’t the same degree of understanding at middle management level; either they don’t get the vision, or are not convinced of the need for change in the first instance. This is obviously problematic because it is ultimately that tier of management who are charged with executing the change. At times, the gap in understanding can exist between management and employees and this too can clearly create problems.

For change to succeed, or at least to raise the odds of success, from the outset all parties need to have a common understanding of why it is necessary and what the expected outcomes are likely to be. That is not to say that all will agree with, or indeed like, that rationale but they should at least be aware of it. And regardless of the nature of the proposals, change has to be ‘sold’ to some degree; sure, you can try to railroad changes through but that will only lead to significant overt and covert resistance. People do not like to feel powerless over issues that directly affect them. In addition, it is also important to highlight that change must lead to tangible benefits, if employees are expected to support it – where they don’t see any positive outcomes you will always face an uphill struggle.

The idea is good, but the execution is poor

Even when a common vision for the change exists, and there is general support for it, its implementation can often falter due to failings across a number of interconnected dimensions:

Lack of planning or organisation, which results in haphazard execution or insufficient resources to support the transition.
The change process drags on too long, or stalls, and as a result the benefits aren’t seen which means that there’s lots of pain, but little gain.
Blockages that arise are not dealt with and employees lose faith in the new way of doing things. Such obstacles, if not quickly resolved, allow the resistors to claim the proposal is flawed and this can lead to a wider erosion of belief in and/or support for the desired changes.
Communication is poor leading to uncertainty and frustration; or in the absence of clear direction from managers the ‘void’ is filled by rumour or blatant mis-information by those opposed to the change.

Any change process is a project that must be managed and as with any project, planning, organisation, leadership, communication and motivation are needed; in their absence, change processes will likely fail or at least under-deliver. In general, you should make sure that the implementation of any change process is time bound, as dragged-out change can be disheartening. Get the pain out of the way as quickly as is feasible. Also keep people actively involved in aspects of the initiative so they have things to do, or to contribute to the process. Don’t have your people standing idly by watching the change happen – make them part of it.

Focusing too much on process and not enough on people

Of course it is essential to address the issues raised above by having a structured approach to managing the change, with necessary plans, processes, timelines and resources in place to support the transformation. But too often, and despite this point being flagged frequently by change management experts, the people side of the equation is overlooked or at least not given the level of attention it deserves.

Reactions to change vary widely and the culture within an organisation can play a role here too. Some people thrive on it, others are wary but willing, and there are those who can really fear and resist change. Often managers, who are generally more open to change in any case, can forget that employees have an attachment to the status quo, and therefore a vested interest in retaining it, and for them change represents a loss before it can ever lead to a gain. As a rule, times of change can be stressful and failing to deal with the natural human reactions associated with it can stymie progress.

An important point to recognise here too is the need to get the informal leaders onside as early as possible as they can help to bring other employees with them. Equally, watch out for any bad apples you might have around the place as they can have a field day if you let them during times of change. And this can apply regardless of whether the change process is viewed positively or negatively by the main body of employees; disgruntled individuals see that change initiatives, by their very nature, create uncertainty, and even fear, and this represents an opportunity for them to disrupt implementation, or at least create unnecessary hurdles.  As an example of this potential problem one US internet services company recently found that a number of its clients’ accounts had been hacked and information such as passwords altered leading to widespread service disruption. After investigating the matter, senior management found that the source of the problem was not external as expected, but rather had been caused by a disgruntled employee who was upset at a change initiative taking place within the company.

Taking your eye off the ball

Change takes time to really bed down, and a common fault with many initiatives is that they receive a lot of management attention at the outset but that can slowly wane with time as their focus is drawn elsewhere. A change process is never compete until employees and other stakeholders see it as the norm, are fully committed to it and have long since left the ‘old way behind’. For a big change, that could take years to achieve and you need to stick with a transformation process until the very end if you really want it to have the desired impact.

I think you will agree that these are common challenges that arise when seeking to implement change of any kind – there are many more – and such issues can be magnified as the scale of transformation increases.

To conclude, the points addressed here on change management may be straightforward in principle, but based on the available research on the success rate of change initiatives, clearly something frequently goes astray in companies when change is at play. Therefore, given that change is a prominent feature of business life these days, with that trend set to continue, in order to maximise the potential for success of your efforts in this regard, you should reflect upon how you can agree and follow a coherent approach to change management that addresses commonly identified failings, yet remains flexible enough to deal with evolving issues. In addition, by thinking more about the human side of things, you will be in a better position to sell change in a positive way, to anticipate likely problems and proactively respond to them; focusing on the twin ‘process-people’ dimensions of managing change will increase your chances of attaining positive results. And apart from dealing with changes that are imposed upon you, in conjunction with your people, you should always on the lookout for ways of improving what you do so that you are never standing still.

Enjoy your day!

References

(1) Isern and Pung, “Organizing For Successful Change Management: A Mckinsey Global Survey”, (2006) June, McKinsey Quarterly.