There are a multitude of reasons why organizational change initiatives fail.
I’ve been on a lot of change teams over the years as a corporate team member and an external consultant. During that time, I’ve seen them all. In this blog post, I am going to discuss the three major reasons why I feel organizational change initiatives can fail.
1) The Organization Isn’t Ready and/or Capable
An organization that’s been structured and designed from the beginning to be stable, siloed, controlled, compliant, and designed to avoid risk can’t suddenly implement a big bang change event that alters how employees worked for decades.
No matter how great the strategy, the team, or the change managers, if the organization is not ready and capable to implement change, it won’t happen.
You’re going up against the long-entrenched nature of the company and there must be some preparation in advance to get ready for such a feat.
Contrary to what organizations and even many consultants believe, the organization must be prepared and actually capable of implementing a change initiative FIRST, not the other way around.
Organizations often expect the change event to be the catalyst and the driving force for the changes.
They believe this will cause major organizational change to occur quicker and be less costly, thereby making the executives and the board happy.
In reality, the process of implementing change ends up taking a lot more time and money (and stress for all!) because the company has to make multiple attempts to get it right.
When the change event takes place before the company is ready, the implementation and adoption period of the initiative takes much longer to take hold and be successful.
That’s why the word “capable” has become the new buzzword for change management in the last few years.
I believe too many organizational change initiatives fail because they’re not ready for change. You need to put the right leadership, teams, culture, mindset, behaviors, and practices in place first.
At that point, the company will be ready to implement new technology, processes, methodologies, and systems that will have greater implementation and adoption success.
You truly need to make an organization change capable first.
2) The Right Leadership is Not in Place…You Need Change Leadership:
I’m often asked about the biggest challenge to implementing a major change initiative. Most assume the answer is employee resistance. However, I firmly believe it starts with leadership.
Getting the right change leadership in place to drive the changes will positively affect the level of resistance.
Being a good technical leader or operational leader also doesn’t automatically make for a good leader of change.
Frequently, organizations have people leading major change initiatives who are amazingly intelligent technically, but totally unprepared to lead humans to change.
These leadership issues can inhibit a successful change initiative:
- The wrong people in leadership positions. Leadership team members were chosen for the wrong reasons, such as for their technical skills or years with the company.
- Lack of alignment within the leadership team. The executive team and/or the change team members aren’t on the same page and are sending mixed messages to employees.
- Poor modeling of the desired future state behavior. If your leadership team isn’t modeling the desired behavior, your employees won’t either.
- Leadership subconsciously sabotaging the initiative behind the scenes, while supporting it outwardly to the employees. Change can be scary, even for executive leaders. Insecure team members may feel the changes threaten their positions or job security. Some may fear they won’t be able to implement the changes as well as others.
- Dissension among the leaders. Sometimes personal issues or dynamics within the leaders that have developed over time are brought front and center when a team is leading a change initiative.
Up until now, these leaders may have been able to operate in parallel with little interaction or collaboration required. An enterprise-wide change initiative forces them to have to work closely together, to collaborate and communicate, causing animosity among the team.
The organization’s top leadership and change initiative sponsors must have the courage to put the right people in initiative leadership roles. Just as important, they shouldn’t be afraid to make changes to the team if needed (sooner, rather than later!) when leaders are not effective.
3) Unrealistic Expectations:
Unrealistic expectations are a sure way for organizational change initiatives to stall and fail. I’ve seen it time and time again. Therefore, it’s up to the leadership team, in partnership with the change management consultants, to manage expectations and keep them real.
Examples of unrealistic expectations:
- Allocating not enough time and resources to prepare for implementation and adoption of change.
- Believing present, operation leaders can easily become change leaders with no training or preparation.
- Also believing employees can be “ready, willing, and able” in unrealistic time frames.
- Believing employees will be motivated and engaged in the leadership’s organizational goals alone. Employees need to see benefits for themselves; the “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM).
- Expecting the external consultants to have the “secret sauce” for making change initiatives succeed. Consultants guide the process. However, the desire for change, commitment, and support must come from the organization itself to be successful.
Knowing why change initiatives fail will help make yours succeed. Successful organizational change can set companies up for the future of growth and sustainability. However, they must prepare the organization to be capable of change for the long haul.
Are You Planning Organizational Change Initiatives Within Your Company?
If you’re facing some big organizational changes and you need to become prepared, put the right leaders in place, and set expectations that will lead to a successful transformation, then let’s discuss how I can help.