Five Fifty: The T-word. How to beat the transformation odds. Transformational change is still hard, according to a new survey.
But a focus on communicating, leading by example, engaging employees, and continuously improving can triple the odds of success. After years of McKinsey research on organizational transformations, the results from our latest McKinsey Global Survey on the topic confirm a long-standing trend: few executives say their companies’ transformations succeed. Today, just 26 percent of respondents say the transformations they’re most familiar with have been very or completely successful at both improving performance and equipping the organization to sustain improvements over time. In our 2012 survey, 20 percent of executives said the same.
But some companies have beaten the odds. The power of action—and communication Sidebar The 24 actions of transformation While the results show that success links closely to a greater overall number of actions, they also indicate that not all 24 actions are created equal. Lead, don’t manage. Changing change management. Research tells us that most change efforts fail.
Yet change methodologies are stuck in a predigital era. It’s high time to start catching up. The four building blocks of change. Four key actions influence employee mind-sets and behavior.
Here’s why they matter. Large-scale organizational change has always been difficult, and there’s no shortage of research showing that a majority of transformations continue to fail. The people power of transformations. A new survey suggests that for their transformations to succeed, organizations need employee buy-in at all levels, consistent communication, and better people strategies.
Organizational transformations are hard work, and according to the latest McKinsey Global Survey on the topic, companies are no more successful at overhauling their performance and organizational health than they were ten years ago. A particular blind spot seems to be the failure to involve frontline employees and their managers in the effort. Transformations have their truisms. Successful ones, for example, require visibly engaged C-suite leaders who communicate clearly about the changes at hand. A vast majority of all respondents report these characteristics at their companies, whether or not their transformations have worked.
Our survey asked about seven specific roles and the actions that employees in these roles take during a transformation. Look beyond the C-suite The difference that good communication makes Sidebar. Secrets of successful change implementation. Developing better change leaders. Putting leadership development at the heart of a major operations-improvement effort paid big dividends for a global industrial company.
Few companies can avoid big, periodic changes in the guts of their business. Whatever the cause—market maturation, a tough macroeconomic environment, creeping costs, competitive struggles, or just a desire to improve—the potential responses are familiar: restructure supply chains; rethink relationships among sales, marketing, and other functions; boost the efficiency of manufacturing or service operations (or sometimes close them). Such changes start at the top and demand a relentless focus on nitty-gritty business details from leaders up and down the line.
Too often, however, senior executives overlook the “softer” skills their leaders will need to disseminate changes throughout the organization and make them stick. Organizational change capability a competitive advantage. The value of an organization will be measured by its capability to change Building organizational change capability Given the economy’s continued volatility and uncertainty, the pace, scale and complexity of organizational change initiatives continue to escalate in organizations around the globe.
A company that is adept at managing change remains agile and can continuously generate sustainable competitive advantage These are scary times for leaders in many companies. Dilbert on Change – Influencing Change. I love Dilbert.
Scott Adams has the amazing ability to provide blinding insight into some of the stupidity that abounds in the modern corporate world. I would strongly recommend taking some time out and just enjoying trawling through his latest work. Change Management Models. The ‘how’ of transformation. What successful transformations share: McKinsey Global Survey results. When organizational transformations succeed, managers typically pay attention to “people issues,” especially fostering collaboration among leaders and employees and building capabilities.
The irrational side of change management. Most change programs fail, but the odds of success can be greatly improved by taking into account these counterintuitive insights about how employees interpret their environment and choose to act.
In 1996, John Kotter published Leading Change. Considered by many to be the seminal work in the field of change management, Kotter’s research revealed that only 30 percent of change programs succeed. Since the book’s release, literally thousands of books and journal articles have been published on the topic, and courses dedicated to managing change are now part of many major MBA programs. Yet in 2008, a McKinsey survey of 3,199 executives around the world found, as Kotter did, that only one transformation in three succeeds. Other studies over the past ten years reveal remarkably similar results.
It also hasn’t helped that most academics and practitioners now agree on the building blocks for influencing employee attitudes and management behavior. Creating a compelling story 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Quotes about Change - 25 Great Quotes about Change! It’s often said that change is the only constant in life and business.
But knowing that doesn’t make change any easier. Quotes about change inspire us to approach change in a open way. Quotes about change challenge us to go beyond the status quo. In short, quotes about change help us to change. Over the years I collected over 150 great change quotes. The end of Change Management as we know it.. – Julia Culen. Reorganization without tears. A corporate reorganization doesn’t have to create chaos. But many do when there is no clear plan for communicating with employees and other stakeholders early, often, and over an extended period.
Most executives and their employees dread corporate reorganizations, as we can personally attest. During our combined 35 years of advising companies on organizational matters, we’ve had to duck a punch, watch as a manager snapped our computer screen during an argument, and seen individuals burst into tears. There are many causes of the fear, paranoia, uncertainty, and distraction that seemingly accompany any major reorganization (or “reorg,” a common shorthand for them in many companies).
In our experience, though, one of the biggest and most fundamental mistakes companies make is failing to engage people, or at least forgetting to do so early enough in the process. April's Greatest Hits- The Articles that Wowed Us - Change! Once again, I have scoured and searched the internet for this month’s best articles; and believe me, they will not disappoint! Inside, you can remember why training supports organizational change, learn some valuable lessons from Mac and Cheese, and more!
Change Management: 3 Reasons Why Training Supports Organizational Change Fionnuala Courtney gets the ball rolling with this month’s best articles. She explains to us why a failure to adequately train your staff will result in poor adoption of change. Are You Ignoring The Elephant In The (Change) Room? - Change! - Change Management News & Tips. Top 11 change management comic strips. Infographic: Why Employees Resist Change - Catherine's Career CornerCatherine's Career Corner.
Save By Catherine Adenle. The four building blocks of change.