Change or Chance? (Part 1)

Why do 70% of all change initiatives fail? 

Is leading and managing change really a game of chance (and what is “change leadership”, anyway)?

With such a high failure rate (statistic from McKinsey and Harvard Business Review) what is going wrong with change initiatives and change strategies?

We have major headline failures in the M&A environment – how can this be possible when well-run, well-capitalised organisations, engaging well-respected advisors trip in to the “it didn’t work” category.

How do you position your organisation to be repeatedly in the 30% touch-down-zone of “the park”, rather that the 70% also-rans? 

Leadership, structure – both organisational and in the change strategy, and people engagement. 

Simple?  

Well, empirically, and clearly not, as the stats show.

And the reason is that there’s a great deal behind each of the words “leadership”, “structure” and “people”.

And what is the difference between “change leadership” and “change management” – aren’t they the same?  

(Well they’re not, absolutely they’re not).  

Take a look at Google keyword search and you’ll find that there are ~10x more searches for “change management” than “change leadership”.

Yet this should be reversed, because effective delivery of change requires both change leadership and change management and change leadership is critical.

It sets the environment and culture in which change can be successfully delivered.  It sets the organisational structure and path for successful delivery of change, and it sets the environment where the strategic vision can be created, communicated and engaged with by its people.

Continuing with the sporting analogy, …..and we haven’t even left the training ground yet.

So, “change leadership”.  

Time to up those keyword searches because it is one of the key missing links in effective change delivery.

Without it, you’re simply rolling the dice.