Dear Sotiris Kambanellas

In my experience as a consultant and researcher on leadership, change, and human resources issues, I have found that change management initiatives fail for three fundamental reasons:

1) The decision to change is not an organizational necessity but an order issued by the leaders of the company. When the changes arise as a consequence of adaptation or improvement, they are usually received with little resistance, but when they seem to come from the whim of the directive or the boss, the resistance increases.

2) People are not involved: Change decisions are made at the top of the company and are only communicated (mandated) to employees, when change committees are created, where broad employee participation is evident, allows to face the change more efficiently.

3) Change benefits only a few: This is one of the first reasons for resistance to change. Employees note that there are more disadvantages than advantages it offers and that most will not benefit from it.

I hope this helps.

The percentage of failure is so high, because change is hard.

Some of the factors that contribute to successful change management initiatives maybe are:

• Ownership and commitment of the organization’s leaders
• Effective and consistent communication across multiple channels
• Organization-wide involvement and participation
• Clear and realistic goals and expectations
• Adequate resources and support for the change agents
• Continuous monitoring and evaluation of the change process
• Recognition and celebration of achievements and milestones

To mitigate the risks and aim for a successful plan, companies should:

• Assess the readiness and capacity of the organization for change
• Identify and engage the key stakeholders and influencers
• Develop a clear and compelling vision and strategy for change
• Communicate the benefits and challenges of change
• Provide training and coaching for the employees
• Address any resistance or barriers to change
• Adapt and adjust to feedback and changing circumstances

References

• 7 Key Factors for Effective Change Management (aib.edu.au)
• Best Practices in Change Management (prosci.com)
• Secrets of successful change implementation | McKinsey

70% of Change Management initiatives in companies fail, because they have not prepared human talent for change guided by leadership, low level of problem analysis and risk support.

because changing management means changing the entire organization. environment, culture, procedure, and so on. If it is not going smoothly, everything will be a mess. So before changing management, the owner must know what the crucial thing is in the organization and communicate with the stakeholder immediately.

El 70% de las iniciativas de cambio fracasan fundamentalmente por la resistencia de los empleados. John Kotter desarrolla el proceso de cambio en ocho etapas y señala algunos errores que las organizaciones deben evitar para no fallar de forma prematura. ( al frente del cambio)

Because of employee resistance to lack of leadership role modeling

It's a great reality

Simple. Human capacities, capabilities, and commitment drive Change Management at all levels. All tools & techniques are human-dependent. The higher the 3 "C" levels, the higher the success (Process efficiencies and Results effectiveness) levels

Time , Situation, Consistency.

There is a gap in the strategy of change management and actual implementation, In the implementation phase objective of the change is not being focused and there is a lack or coordination in designer of change and implementer of change

1. Awareness, 2. Motivation, and 3. Functional Capability. The AMF model. 1. What is the change? (communications) 2. What makes me want to do it (benefits, often personal, sometimes organizational) and 3. What skills and knowledge allow me to be successful making the change (training, tools, processes, customer-supplier relations)

See "Multiple perspectives analysis for integrating technology into a business: A knowledge systems case study" in Technological Forecasting & Social Change

Initiatives related to change must be carefully considered, accompanied by a relevant communication strategy and adequate actions. It is necessary to start with an audit of the corporate culture, an analysis of the current situation, the interested parties and their needs. To clearly define the areas requiring change, to account for the factors favouring and, respectively, hindering the program. The presumption is that change is not an end in itself. During organizational change, the culture, strategy, structure, and practices related to the selection and socialization of employees change.

Attaches you will find my article on the topic.

The main problem, the low level of leadership on the part of whoever commands it, of course this is implemented under an analysis of the situation, with the participation of all those involved, training, under a mission, vision, strategies and values

Some of the reasons are (a) people by nature do not want to leave beyond their comfort zone, and (b) management failed to prepare their employees to deal with changes - all their skills (conceptual, human and technical) are not equipped.

I am an unapologetic Christian, and I have answers from the Bible. Even those not sharing my belief see the Bible as a wisdom book. So here are a few change-management initiative models from the Bible:

The children of Israel were freed from slavery, yet they constantly complained about wishing they were back in Egypt. Change cannot just be about the environment. Change must address mindset, attitudes, and the vision for the new future.

The whole journey from Egypt to the promised land was full of conflict. Conflict management must be swift and sure and have a statement of congruency with the vision. Those conflict management responses from God often seemed harsh, with a dose of mercy built in. Compromising the vision for momentary laziness and status quo - cannot be tolerated if the change is to happen.

Passing the baton is where many successful organizations have a very vulnerable moment. In recent years, we have had a front-row seat to the decline of Apple and Starbucks with leadership changes. In both cases, the return of the founding leader restored growth to the organization - but change must happen. Change management initiatives must start from the top. All stakeholders need to agree, including followers or employees. Ideally, the new leader takes the reigns while the current leader hangs in the shadows until the new leader is established.

Moses had Joshua as an Assistant. Joshua was groomed for leadership for years, and the Children of Israel accepted the leadership transfer from Moses to Joshua because they had time to know and trust Joshua. Moses told them it was God's plan for Joshua to lead them to the promised land (Numbers 27:12-33:55). The leadership change from King Saul to King David was a little murkier. Saul and his heir, Jonathan, died in battle. David was a refugee in the Philistine territory at the time. However, the people of Israel knew and loved David as a military leader. He was the anointed successor when Samuel, the Priest, anointed him years before he even came into the service of King Saul. Saul sensed David would get the kingdom, and jealousy drove him to murderous attempts on David's life. Militarily, David was installed. Strength is one way to bring on change management. Jesus selected 12 disciples. He spent three years training them, eventually sending them out in pairs under his watch, then commissioning them, under the leadership of Peter, to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth, a ministry that, despite many campaigns to bury it, has spread continuously since then.

To my experience the main factors are:

1. Usually it is a top down approach ignoring the experience and expertise of the rest of the associates.

2. Bad communication. Communication should not only be clear and consice but should be addressed to the whole organization because ultimately everyone participates in the transformation irrespective whether they are in the project team or not. In this way one minimizes resistence to change.

3. Transparency in all aspects is a must.

4. Integrity, honesty and respect are important as well.

All the rest are techical alterations which will happen one way or another.

Change must be driven by leadership taking an active role. As Deming stated they must "walk the talk". If management/leadership does not emulate the change by example in their own behaviors changing then implementation will fail eventually. I like Juan Carlos' answer, it is similar to my opinion having witnessed change management initiatives rolled out over 30 years with many failing.

Sotiris Kambanellas , very interesting question. I have not really seen any research on why it is and or so many times are 70%. It almost appears as some kind of 80/20 rule.

Our research has the same stats when it comes to individual change, and or new orientation/improvements. - statistics show that approx 15% do not try, or just ignore everything and go on in old habits. 70% try but fail,  15% take external help, and learns how to, and uses the content, and make lasting positive change & improvements.

-from the EPT test (https://entrepreneurprofiletest.com)

Our statistics who uses the results...

It always used to be 80% so things are improving!!!

The answer is quite simple - but difficult to correct. Change managers focus on processes and structure, not people, behaviours and values.

John Knights so right, so right - simple, but difficult.

Also when such troublesome things, as people, (staff) do not do as processes "say". It gets complicated..

Here is an approach that helps https://www.leadershapeglobal.com/culture-shaper

Thanks you

Lack of communication and commitment in the organization

Lacuna in coordination

Forceful change

Lack of transparency

Clarity in change motivation

Enough time not given

We need new ways of thinking about how people and technology are entangled and what the distribution of probability is for possible change outcomes. Im thinking quantum social entanglement and all that entails.

An interesting and related read from one of my LinkedIn connections…https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-do-change-projects-fail-milward-msc-mba-msc-phd-cpsychol?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via

Change management, in addition to being complicated, requires the complete understanding of the leaders in a company (they have to know why it is being carried out and that it is not a simple more mechanized step to obtain an objective). On the other hand, the alignment with the strategic purposes of the company and its organizational culture. For me, these three elements are the main ones to take into account: that leaders understand the importance of change, strategic alignment and alignment with the organizational culture. If this is not dealt with correctly, change management is not going to work.

Una de las grandes razones por las que una organización no alcanza sus objetivos, se debe a que las acciones a realizar por cada integrante del equipo no son claras y que en muchos momentos solo se indicar las actividades, pero no la meta a la que se debe llegar, pero sobre todo para sirve y de qué forma beneficiará tanto a la empresa como al personal que lo realiza.

I agree with David Atkinson about the new way of thinking and the social entanglement is involved. In my research on innovation that can be looked at as change management, it was noted that for Gen Zs and Millenials bottom up leadership is critical to driving change. The new generation has to understand what is in it for them. If not you will not get any engagement and you will not be able to drive change. Adding to that is the idea of driving change through use of technology with the digital generation. Old fashioned tools that do not utilize digital platforms will further alienate the new generations.

It's true

Interesting all,

I personally agree with the lack of communication!

- when it comes to commitment, I saw years ago in a -

Gallup's commitment at work has shown that only 16 percent of the employees are really committed, that is to say, they are collaborative, enthusiastic, and constantly searching for new ways to achieve better results. A full 73 percent are disengaged more or less of the time

at work. The remaining 11 percent, which is almost as many as those engaged, be what in the survey is called actively disconnected and they

more or less look to harm the company.

Could it be that managers - cuz they themselves are so much into their work, take for granted that employees do too? And misses the whole motivations factors when it comes to - Change Management initiatives

Desarrolla el proceso de cambio al menos en ocho etapas de acuerdo a lo que establece John Kotler, buscando disminuir de forma prematura.

Reason being that they lack bottom up support another trend is attributed to lack of sustainability of your change efforts.

Olá. Minha dissertação e sobre esse tema. As falhas na execução estratégica. Sigo a disposição.

There may be different reasons and it depends on each organization, but usually it is due to poor change management, not enough planning. The other common failure is failure to involve stakeholders early in the change project.

Dear Mr. Sotiris:

A classical article about this subject is John Kotter´s "Why transformation efforts fail", there he summarizes the problems of trying to change organizations. You can read the article both as a list of errors or as a list of steps of things to avoid or to pay attention. Either way it is a very interesting article.

Best Regards

Gustavo Concari

Change is an indispensable part of life. When embraced and effectively managed, sustainable development is accomplished in the life of the individual and organizations. The major reasons for failure of change initiatives are:

1. Poor strategic adaptation. Creativity and innovation drives change. Many organizations fail to adequately adapt in tools, technology, product quality, personnel, and finances requisite to d new outcomes they pursue

2. Poor delineation of scope and scale of change that can be effectively accomplished in consideration of resources available

3. Stakeholders may often not be adequately communicated and carried along.

4. There is natural tendency to resist change. Human beings are already acclimatized in comfort zones,and often have great feeling of threat and uncertainties about change

5. Lack of tenacity: Often, initial difficulties and challenges bring discouragement to d people managing the change initiatives. There could be lack of persistence and consistency of actions

Sotiris hello,

That is a very good question, thanks. In the majority of cases organizational changes are about innovating organizational processes. Much more rarely they are about business model or technology innovations. Please refer to my thesis that you can find at this site to go through key success factors for innovating. Please note the one called "utilizing organizational bureaucracy". You can read more about it an a recent article of Ted Kinny. It seems to be an absolute must for proper change management.

Best,

Dr. Alexander Chilingoryan

There are many reasons why 70% of all change initiatives fail.

When change is mandated, the majority of companies employees won’t embrace it. People are suspicious of new initiatives because most change programs are rarely succesfull. In my opinia, employees will more hardly adapt to changes.

There are several reasons why Change Management initiatives in business fail, and here are some examples that illustrate these challenges:

Overall, these examples highlight the importance of careful planning, clear communication, strong leadership support, and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances to achieve success in Change Management initiatives.

Probably the failure of the companies is not carrying out the analysis of the situation adequately with the participation of all those involved; Need for a strategic plan, with the mission, vision, values, policies, clear objectives; Low level of training of human talent for change; Low level of leadership and financing necessary for the operation of the changes.

According to my experiences:

1. in many cases most of these management initiatives are just dumped on organization by so called hired consultants who have been hired to assist.

2. Sometimes senior management have been formulating these so called initiatives in workshop alone discussing these brilliant ideas in a hotel and never involve the whole company. Nobody took the whole organization into consideration until implementation phase.

3. In many cases organizations where there is huge gap between senior management and the rest of the organization their is this mistrust and it causes friction which frustrate any change management initiatives.

4. Many organization lacks change management culture training. You cannot come and introduce something today when the organization has been dormant for the past 50 years. People must be trained in change management itself before changes happen.

To have a thorough understanding of failure of change management initiatives in business, it is necessary to carry out a postmortem through a set of questions:

Hope the above questions will be helpful to identify root causes at the base of failures of change initiatives in a wide range of business organisation.

Perhaps this article can provide some useful insights to you? https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/integrated-change-management-5954

I am not surprised with the failure rate. When companies put in place a TQM (Total Quality Management ) program two thirds dropped them in 18 months. This is unfortunate because I have seen reports that it takes two years to have a program successfully in place and found this to be true in my company. I believe the main reason is because they adapted the program for the wrong reasons. We use to call this the Flavor of the Month, a new silver bullet program. Normally what happens is the CEO went to a conference, heard about a magic program that would solve his problems and decided to implement it. Also as Edward pointed out, hired consultants recommend the programs. I would add to Edwards comments by saying the consultants may be guilty of dumping programs on an organization, but it is the CEO who has to approve it and only the CEO in most cases. This however is just the beginning of the problem. He/she delegates the implantation to a manger and walks away from the effort. It is in fact the CEO who dups it on the organization. Then, when the results were not positive or working as well as anticipated after what seems like a long time, the CEO would order the program to be dropped.

What we found and research will verify, the CEO has to not only be the leader for implementing a program of this magnitude, he/she has to be the champion. I know this for a fact because even my partner who wanted the program initially was losing patience with it along with others. If I had not been stubborn enough to resist, we would never have succeeded. After two years it worked and worked very well and was a major reason why we were able to sell the company for an excellent price and why the company is still thriving 30 years later.

One thing we found that was critical for success was "small victories". You had to look for singles and not wait for home runs. It provides "stress" that gives energy to the user. A good example is I golf, you're having a bad day and are very tired and you hit a good shot. All of a sudden you have plenty of energy ad can't wait to get back to the course to play.

This is also another way of saying Lewin's buy by the stakeholders is critical. Victories, even small ones earn buy-in.

Hope this helps.

always Environmental changes are out of the will and control of managers, even if that manager is the highest executive power of the country (the president or similar) or the leader of the country. Success in adapting to the environment requires accurate and accurate considering of the weak points and internal resources and external threats and opportunities, drawing a road map. It is a step-by-step implementation of the plan, and in short, this set of activities is called strategic management. The answer to this question should be sought in one of the steps.

There are many reasons why change fails. Perhaps the most famous person to explain these reasons is (Dr. John Kotter), one of the most important leaders of change in the world, in his famous book (Leading the Change-1996). Doing the opposite of these reasons will be reasons for the success of change.

An exaggerated sense of satisfaction and a lack of a sense of necessity for change.

The absence of a strong alliance between leadership and individuals.

No or blurred vision.

Not seeing well (actions are the opposite of words)

Failure to manage and solve administrative obstacles.

Failure leads to quick successes.

Announcing the big success early.

The change has not been institutionalized nor rooted in the organization.

It all depends on approaches adopted. If the intention to effect changes is good but approaches to effect such changes are faulty, changes expected would not yield and fruitful result. Cart should not be put before the horse.

Hello, I think you can evaluate the following:

Girotra et al. (2010) pointed out that the strategies can be evaluated as original and practical to implement, in this context Treffers et al. (2022) pointed out that faced with time pressure, change pressure and emotions, managers are forced to present original ideas, as new and practical. In both cases, the time factor, emotions and the need for the idea to be new "to do something different" lead to proposals for constant change. Then the question arises: Is constant change necessary? What if the change was not necessary? , if the expectation is actually the problem that an action will always be successful? What if the strategy is sustained and emotions controlled? . Does changing for the sake of changing make it not hold? Time, emotions and results mean that the changes are not sustained.

Most managers/CEOs take change management for granted. They often fail to see change as part of the management process and expect that every change irrespective of the impact on the organization would easily be accepted. You may want to refer to my article titled Institutional Reforms and Change Management- the Conversion of Polytechnics to Technical Universities for change management strategies.

Hacer un dianóstico inicial es fundamental, y puede presentarse que los factores externos: tecnología, clientes, proveedores, competidores, legislación así como factores internos: internalización, nuevos productos, cambios organizacionales, y aún así recordar que las organizaciones se integran por personal, lo cual es necesario atender factores personales: retributivos, enfermedades, responsabilidades laborales.

Resistance to change is a common issue among individuals, and this can pose challenges when implementing new initiatives in a business setting. According to research, the successful execution of changes within an organization's operations is vital for achieving positive outcomes. To address potential problems and monitor the progress of a change initiative, it is essential to involve Human Resource Management (HRM) as an integral part of the project.

By placing HRM in a leadership role, they can effectively oversee all aspects of the change process, ensuring that the transition goes smoothly. This approach helps to identify and address any resistance or gaps that may arise, ultimately contributing to the successful alignment and execution of the change initiative. Does these 70% of initiatiatives had it HRM effective within the project?

Change Management always involving leadership, corporate/organizational culture, and corporate/organizational values. When a company can synegize those three in the right direction. It will run smoothly.

Maybe this will help:

This is a very good question that requires a lot of investigation and research, and cannot be guessed.

La resistencia al cambio, en el ámbito corporativo, es la situación en la cual una empresa debe cambiar ciertas prácticas que están obsoletas con la época actual, pero por alguna razón, sea por miedo o dificultades de adaptación, sus líderes se niegan a realizar el cambio.

Among the reasons is an initiation of sudden change without allowing gradual buy-in from others, who are being affected by the change process, to reflect, mentally process, and be prepared for the proposed change. Kotter’s eight-stage change process is one example of the commendable approaches to successful change management. Kotter shows how to initiate and lead organizational change in a more structured manner. Businesses that fail in change management often do not understand the dynamics of competing commitments, big assumptions, immunity and resistance to change, and other considerations before driving change initiatives.

The number of Change Management initiatives in business is already rare, maybe if they do not change, the probability of failure may be higher than change, because the probability of enterprise failure is already high, and it is not related to not changing or changing!

From my experience in various roles, such as being a change stakeholder, a member of an organization, and studying case studies, there are numerous reasons why change management initiatives may not be as frequent or successful.

One example is when top leadership does not genuinely embrace change as a necessity. If change initiatives are only pursued because they have been recommended by external sources, such as HR or consultants, rather than being internalized as a critical factor for the organization's success, they may not be effectively implemented.

Furthermore, if the leadership views change as non-mandatory or optional, they may be quick to withdraw support at the first sign of any negative impact on the bottom line, even if those impacts are temporary.

Ultimately, for change management initiatives to succeed, it is crucial for the leadership to truly understand and commit to the idea that change can make or break an organization.

Managing change in a business is difficult and complex, and may fail for various reasons, including:

1. Inadequate planning: Proper planning for managing change in a business is crucial, but inadequate planning can lead to failure in managing change.

2. Flawed execution: Implementing changes in a business requires attention to detail. Flawed execution can lead to failure in managing change.

3. Lack of leadership support: Strong leadership support is essential for success in managing change. Without adequate leadership support, changes in a business may fail.

4. Resistance to change: Resistance to change is one of the biggest challenges in managing change in a business. If employees and other team members resist change, managing change may fail.

5. Lack of cultural infrastructure: To succeed in managing change, a suitable cultural infrastructure must be established. If a suitable cultural infrastructure does not exist, implementing changes in a business may fail.

Overall, success in managing change requires adequate planning, precise execution, strong leadership support, addressing resistance to change, and providing a suitable cultural infrastructure. Failure to consider these factors may lead to failure in managing change.

as in life, most great plans fail in execution. An ordinary plan with superior execution can lift up the entire project. More focus by leaders,therefore should be on the aspect of execution. A detailed note on this aspect can be shared separately.

Los empleados se oponen y muestran resistencia porque no quieren modificar sus procesos y la manera que tienen de trabajar y de colaborar con los demás. Pero este fenómeno es más habitual de lo que pensamos y sucede en muchas organizaciones independientemente de su tamaño.

Cierto es que un gran porcentaje atiende a que se debe a la resistencia de los empleados, por ello se sugiere que el desarrollo del proceso de cambio se realice en etapas pero que desde el inicio se dé a conocer a todo el personal para que de acuerdo a cada departamento pueda considerar el momento en el que se debe atender y se inicie a una preparación general para evitar fallas.

Some of the most common reasons include internal misalignment within the organization, lack of upfront planning, neglected stakeholders, poor communication, lack of buy-in, lack of vision, active resistance, and lack of tooling

Because managers do not value good employees performance from bad employees

Managers often do not motivate employees for good work. They promote bad employees and increase their wages. It's bad for business. The company's strategy should be acceptable to everyone