Relics of Bygone Eras - Change Management
Related Fun Fact of the Week: The most costume change illusions in one minute is 24, and was achieved by Avery Chin and Sylvia Lim aka Avery & Sylvia (both Malaysia) in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, on 2 September 2017.
If that’s not being agile with change, then I don’t know what is!
Over the last 25-30 years change management has emerged and grown from concepts and studies about the impact of change, to thousands of books, articles and seminars created to help people and organizations manage change. But change is, well, changing, and people and organizations must evolve from managing change to leading change.
In fact, a study by McKinsey found that 70% of change programs fail to achieve their goals largely due to employee resistance and lack of leader support. The study also concluded that when people are truly invested in change it is 30% more likely to stick. So with all the focus on change management over the last quarter century, why are we not managing change more effectively?
Traditional change models view change as originating from the top of the organization with top leaders fully invested in the initiative, creating a burning platform to instill a sense of urgency, then mobilizing mid-management around that burning platform to drive the change through the organization. The goal? To ensure all employees grasp their role in implementing the change and are on board in hopes of minimizing the resistance to the change.
If 70% of changes initiatives fail, something needs to change! Change should not be managed, it should be led, and led by everyone, not just senior leaders or designated change agents. Possibilities for change can and should be identified and initiated at every level of the organization. Waiting for change to happen misses the opportunity to enable and engage the entire workforce to see possibilities for change everywhere and become nimble and agile in a dynamic performance environment. If every employee becomes a change agent the need to gain buy-in and the resistance to change dramatically decreases.
Many organizations are simply not set up for agile change, they are built for stability and try to limit and manage the impact of change. Remember, 70% of change fails because of trying to manage it. Unleash the change potential in your organization and enable every employee to lead change!
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Cornerstone Learning is a performance and leadership consulting organization that has worked with clients all over the world. Our focus is working with individuals and organizations to create performance solutions that deliver top-tier results by inspiring, enabling, and developing employee-led, leader supported, and organization enabled performance. We are able to successfully deliver this through multiple products and services such as employee surveys, online training, performance assessments, and performance coaching. The goal at Cornerstone Learning is to assist our clients in enabling success by developing a dynamic and customized pathway to deliver role model organizational and personal performance.
