Too many managers have experienced this scenario: The chief executive announces a bold new corporate initiative aimed at generating dramatic performance improvements. The initiative calls for sweeping changes in the company’s processes, systems and culture. The launch proceeds with great fanfare and a substantial investment of the company’s resources. Several years later, however, managers look back and wonder what went wrong.
In some cases, the initiative never produces positive economic benefits; in others, hard-working employees squeeze out some short-term improvements. Management heralds the results. Yet the organization soon slips back into its old ways of doing things. Performance regresses, process improvements do not stick and dysfunctional behaviors return. The initiative fails to produce sustainable changes in processes, behavior or performance. In short, it does not alter the essential nature of the organization. Employees dismiss it as just another “flavor of the month,” and senior management loses credibility. Future initiatives are met with widespread skepticism.
That, in much-simplified and condensed form, is still what happens all too often despite decades of study of change-management disciplines, the writings of leading scholars and the legions of consultants and their change methodologies. Studies note that more than two-thirds of change initiatives fail.1 It is no surprise, then, that change-management programs are decreasing in popularity.2
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