Researchers find that change programs fail to achieve their
goals anywhere from 67% of the time to as high as 80% of the time.
These statistics make executives consider the risk of change as
soon as they think of change. Yet, these statistics focused on
failure leave out an important fact. Successful change programs
frequently significantly exceed the expectations of those
championing them. They can make laggard organizations into front
runners.
Given the necessity of change and the rewards of a successful
change management program, many prescriptions have emerged. Some
practitioners believe in carving the change program into small
pieces and then celebrating every small success. Others believe in
constant communication of the benefits, frequently bringing in
current executives, former leaders, respected line managers and
workers, and so forth to preach the new gospel. Others focus on the
rewards for meeting stretch goals and incentives more generally.
Still others focus on cultivating opinion leaders and disabling
change resistors. All of these tactics improve the odds, but none
reverses them. They do not get to the core of change.
VISION focuses on the essence of change. All change in
organizations - even IT change - means a change in the
relationships among senior executives, managers,
staff, vendors, users, and external customers. Unless a change
program focuses on helping people change their relationships,
managers and staff will unconsciously resist the change by
maintaining their old useful relationships in the name of
friendship, collegiality, decency, and just simply knowing how to
get work done. "I call Bob when I really need X." VISION's approach
to change management focuses on how these relationships must change
with any new change in system, process, strategy, or operations. We
work with the key components of productive relationships, develop a
comprehensive understanding of the before and after situations, and
work in six domains to achieve successful change. Finally, we make
enthusiastic adoption of - not dogged
implementation of - the change into the top commitment of
the Change Program Leader. When VISION co-leads a change initiative
with a client, initiatives succeed 80% of the time. When VISION
plays purely a coaching role, initiatives succeed at least 60% of
the time. We hold the key to the essence of change.
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