Chances are you will initiate a change that affects your whole team or start a major team project in the near future.
And chances are it will not make the impact you had hoped for.
A 2008 study by IBM found that over 60 percent of change efforts fail to fully meet their objectives, and a 2013 Towers Watson study revealed only 25% are sustained over time.
Most change efforts fail, not because of the technology or the topic of the change or even because it was the wrong idea. They fail because of the human factor.
Have you ever experience any of these human factor derailers?
- Halfway through the project you discover you don’t have the support needed from senior management.
- Your team is not enthusiastic or they don’t assume full responsibility, and little things slip through the cracks.
- When you are ready to implement, some people not on your team do not follow through on the little that is required of them.
Your idea might have been a great idea. It might actually have been the right thing to do. But it failed because of the “human factor.”
7 Guidelines to Successfully Navigate the Human Factor
1. The purpose and need for the change must be clear and compelling.
Everyone on your team needs to understand why the change is important, how the team will benefit and why doing nothing is not an option.
There must be a clear connection between the goals of the change effort and your team’s goals, projects, and daily activities. People need to see how the change will impact them.
2. Show the whole picture – the vision of the end-result AND the roadmap to get there.
People need to know what this will look like when it’s completed, and they need to know where they are on the journey.
Create a “change roadmap” that shows the whole picture so people can see what phase they’re in, where they fit, and the steps and activities in the change process. The plans must include a commitment to build and follow through on an implementation plan.
Be prepared to modify the roadmap as you proceed. Planning and action should be iterative, not sequential.
3. Involve your team and all key stakeholders deeply and early on.
If you want to make smart decisions, don’t craft the vision and roadmap in a vacuum. Ask, “Is this the right thing to do?” and “What’s the best way to do it?” Draw on the collective wisdom of your team.
Through involvement, people develop deeper understanding and commitment, and you make smarter decisions. Critical decisions that must be supported throughout the organization need input from all stakeholders groups.
If the change is large and involves multiple stakeholder groups, set up a “Change Team,” comprised of a microcosm of the larger organization, to guide the effort. The Change Team should report to senior leaders, but needs to have decision-making authority.
4. Senior leaders must demonstrate their commitment.
The key decision makers must be visible and active sponsors, stay informed and involved, provide the needed resources (dollars, time, people, etc.), and remove roadblocks.
If you have a Change Team, a senior leader should be an active member of that team.
5. The approach to the change effort needs to be consistent with the desired ends.
You may implement a very good solution, but if people don’t feel good about how it is implemented, they will not fully support it.
The change process itself must be driven by the values you want to instill. For example, if becoming a learning organization is one of the desired outcomes, then the change process must promote and support learning. If participation is a value, the change process must be participative.
6. Integrate the change work with real work.
Build the goals of the change effort into your team’s goals so it is seen as part of their job. My colleague Jake Jacobs, developer of Real Time Strategic Change, points out: when the tasks of the change effort are seen extra work, they go to the bottom of the list when time gets tight and you need to re-prioritize.
7. Over communicate.
Clear and frequent messaging and communication are essential to keep the change effort front and center of everyone’s mind. Early on it is important to broadly communicate the logic for the change and the vision of success. In later phases, keep people up to date on progress, changes to the roadmap, and short-term wins as well as the big ones. Refer to the vision frequently throughout the planning, implementation, and after.
Thanks Jesse, I agree with all of the steps you recommend. In addition, there’s another interesting dimension of change I’ve been looking at which is the emotional condition of those changing and the inherent immmunity to change we all carry. By uncovering the behaviours we re-inforce to maintain the status quo and by making conscious those unconscious processes, we can often lift the road blocks and make real progress. I recommend Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey where they talk about conducting immunity x-rays both for individuals and teams as a way of understanding how to unlock the potential for real change.
It’s helpful to look at organizational change not only from a systems perspective, but also from the perspective of the individual experience. These perspectives inform each other. I appreciate your bringing up the work of Robert Kegan, whose seminal work on adult cognitive development has has made a major impact on the field of developmental psychology. I have not read Immunity to Change yet, so thanks for the recommendation. It looks like he explores organizational change from the perspective of the development level of the leader and also the effect of the collective mindset of the people in the organization. One of the reasons a shared vision is so powerful is because it shifts the collective mindset. Thank you for enriching the conversation, Catherine.
A home run article!
Thank you, Dan.
Great article as usual, Jesse! All the points are great. Pint 6, in paricular, is very critical. It demonstrates a healthy mix of the present need and the future vision!!
Catherine talked very well about the emotional impact…something that people go through when they face change in their lives.
When everything comes together, one other reason why change efforts fail relates to the magnitude and duration of change. If the change impacts a lot of people, here is what we face.
1. Change has to happen over a period of time
2. If the change is happening over multiple geographies, cultural differences and sometimes local laws have to be considered keenly
3. With the change happening over a period of time, it is necessary to identify KPIs and start measuring them that will tell you the story a couple of years down the line when the change has sunk in
4. Gamification is a crucial element of the change process. Make the change fun
I am heading up a large people change effort. Believe me, I can relate to all you say and more!
Interesting how it’s all about the human factor. And yet, when most leaders plan for change, they focus on strategy, with planning for the people seen as secondary. However, as you point out, it is the people that need to change. These 7 guidelines are about ensuring the people are part of the journey right from the start. Good luck with your large change effort, Sudhir. You might want to use these guidelines as a checklist. And thanks for your insights.
Jesse, another big reason that projects fail is that some should not have been started in the first place. Whether ill-conceived, the situation changed in the middle or because of incorrect assumptions in the business case, many projects simply should never have been tried.
Others SHOULD be stopped, We have a bias to finish what we started, even if we learn new information that disproves our assumptions. I know you have written about being fluid in your approach. Part of that means abandoning a project as soon as it becomes clear that it cannot achieve its objectives.
Finally, let’s shift the focus from project failure to learning and growth. Which is the greater failure: going down with the sinking ship, or having all hands walk away from a known disaster, but ready to tackle the next big effort because of what they have learned?
Great points, Greg. Too often leaders make ill-conceived decisions in a vacuum regarding goals, projects or activities without consulting those who have the best sense of what’s happening and what’s needed – those closest to the customer. That orientation has been reinforced by the recent Steve Jobs adulation. My response is: It might have worked for Steve Jobs, but unless you are a brilliant marketer, chances are it won’t work for you. And I too, have been struck by the observation that too many teams and too many projects continue to exist, no longer with a clear purpose, only because there is a resistance to closing them down. Much thanks for deepening the conversation!
Hi Jesse
Change will fail if the ‘Architect’ has not fully designed the change; and I mean completely. I have seen organizations create for example new business lines and installed VPs. Great for those chosen but not so good for the rest of the team. Then a process ensues to determine what happens next and invariably next is…appointment of some Directors. After many other hierarchical appointments, finally getting to the workers. The full new organization must be determined and presented together with new objectives, roles and responsibilities…this will provide the road map and achieve buy in from the outset. Proceed without it at your peril.
Best Regards
Raymond
Well said, Raymond. The change architecture must be comprehensive. If the change focus is too narrowly focused, those who are affected but not included are left in the cold and ultimately it undermines success.