preparing your workforce for change
By now it is a well-known fact that 70% of change initiative fail. They do not only underperform, do not keep up with the expactations... no, 70% FAIL. But why?
Gartner's latest newsletter included a power point with an interesting title, which hints towards one possibility of why only 30% of the change initiatives succeed.
All in all, Gartner's workbook seems to point towards one crucial point in the timeline - the "before". It highlights three ToDos:
- Prioritize change initiatives based on impact and readiness.
- Encourage managers to build their team's change resilience instead of championing change initiatives.
- Identifiy and amplify the true change influencers at your company to boost change adoption.
Reading through what each ToDo entails, it becomes clear that limiting the fuss, gossip, any unproductive fluff around the change is a key factor. Clear, well-timed and correct information are necessary to keep the team focussed. An idea I was suggesting myself only yesterday in a meeting, was the concept of templates. Templates (when well done) reduce change fatigue, choice overload and set clear expectations.
"Soft" people factors play a big role too. Leaders must be role models, psychological safety is not a nice-to-have, but a "order-qualifier, and a healthy feedback culture must be deployed.
An interesting perspective is to look at how necessary the change is/ what the value od the change is. I believe that change is nothing, we can avoid. However, I observe that we tend to look more on the impact of a change instead of the necesity. In y personal opinion those should be well balanced out.
Why do you think that the change impact and the change value should (not) be balanced?
