JOURNAL OF CHANGEMANAGEMENT

Topic: Why Does Change Fail,and What Can We Do About It?

Bernard Burnes University of Manchester, UKPublished online: 16 Dec 2011

By Carlina Lanong

INTRODUCTION‘Change? Change? Why do we need change? Things are

quite bad enough as they are.’ - Lord Salisbury, 19th century

British Prime Minister, to Queen

VictoriaFrom the above given statement it can clearly be seen that people

in the 19th century had a very negative idea of the word “Change”!

Unfortunately, this kind of negative thinking did not only end in that century. Till today majority of the population resist change.

It is understandable that as humans, majority of us would prefer to live within our comfort zone, but change does not allow us to do that.

As the saying goes, “The only thing that is constant is change” ,still people do not welcome it, even though we live in an era where we all know that change is essential for the survival of organizations and also for the human race.

According to a global survey by McKinsey & Company (2008), they concluded that only by changing constantly could organizations hope to survive.

Even after such a survey, change was still difficult for people to accept since a number of organizations that had initiated change had failed at doing so.

Therefore, people had witnessed such organizations in the past and hence do not welcome change.

FAILURE OF CHANGE INITIATIVESAccording to the survey done by McKinsey, they claimed

that some 2/3rds of all change initiatives failed. Although this figure seems to be pretty high, it is not

out of the ordinary because change failure rates are regularly between 60% and 90%.

For example, Bain & Co. claim the general failure rate is 70% but that it rises to 90% for culture-change initiatives.

In the 1990s, Hammer and Champy (1993) claimed that 70% of all BPR initiatives failed.

In the 1980s, the failure rate for the introduction of computer-based technologies was estimated at around 60%.

In the 1970s, Crosby (1979) claimed that 90% of quality-improvement initiatives failed.

RELIABILITY OF THE FIGURES

After seeing such figures, one tends to question oneself on how reliable are those figures and what do they represent?

High failure rates are dived into three categories. They are as follows:-

1) Writers who cite a high failure rate, but offer no evidence to support the claim- In such a category, regardless of the experience and standing of the authors, it has to be treated with a degree of caution.

2) Claims of high failure are substantiated by reviews of the change literature- The degree of confidence in this category rather depends on the literature surveyed and how the survey was conducted.

3) Those which are based on empirical evidence collected by the authors themselves- In such a category it is easy for one to think that such evidences are very much reliable, but this is not so. Its reliability depends on the nature of the research and the evidence that is produced to support claims of a high failure rate.

THREE ISSUES INVOLVED IN CHANGE1) Implementation of change -One of the main reasons for

the failure of change initiatives is because many organizations struggle a lot to implement change successfully.

2) Why do change initiatives fail? - Some writers point out that the reason for this is due to the shortcomings in either the planning or execution of the change process. Others identify a lack of competence or commitment by those commissioning or managing the change process.

3) How can organizations manage change successfully? - It is assumed that that there is a ‘one best way’ to manage change and that failure arises from not adhering to it. Confusingly, there are quite a few ‘one best way’ approaches to change. For example, in 1992, Kanter proposed 10 commandments for successful change, in 1993, Pugh gave four principles and in 1996, Kotter put forward his eight-step model.

However there are two approaches to change, which have stood out from the rest: organization development (OD) and emergent change.

Since the time of its origin in the 1940’s, OD has dominated the change field.

In the 1980s and 1990s, some of the emerging approaches started to pose as a significant challenge to OD, at least among academics.

Nevertheless, it is difficult accept any approach/approaches to change that can cover the whole range of change situations.

It is to be noted that the previous three issues are interrelated. Unless one has reliable data on failure, one does not know the size of the problem and how concerned one should be; unless we know why change fails, we may be offering the wrong change approaches which address the wrong problems; and unless one can provide a range of appropriate approaches to change and identify their strengths and weaknesses, organizations are unlikely to be able to address change successfully.

THREE IMPORTANT ARTICLES1) Mark Hughes examines a number of claims

that the failure rate for change is 70%. He reviews five separate published instances identifying a 70% failure rate. In each of these instances, the review highlights the absence of valid and reliable empirical evidence in support of the 70% rate. Hughes stresses the need to take account of that context within which change takes place and the different views of participants as to whether change has been successful or not.

2) John McClellan examines the role of communication in the failure of organizational change. McClellan argues that change fails because those who manage it often suppress the emergence of conflicting organizational meanings, rather than seeing them as a method of allowing participants to constitute new organizing discourses.

3) Jonathan Raelin and Christina Cataldo examine the crucial role of middle managers in the change process. They argue that though middle managers were once seen as obstacles to change, they are now seen more as facilitators of change. However because of their lack of power due to executive constraints, they do not have much effect in promoting change. Raelin and Cataldo argued that empowerment is critical for middle managers involved in change as it helps ensure that interaction will cross systems, resulting in cascading empowerment that can prevent change failure.

CONCLUSION It is a well known fact that

organizational change plays a significant role in our lives whether we accept it or not. In our everyday life, it impacts on the cost, quality, and availability of the services and goods we rely upon. From a more wider point of view, it can be said that global warming, the availability and cost of energy, food supplies, and other vital raw materials to some extend depend on how well organizations manage change.

To conclude, the purpose of this article is to answer the following questions:-

1) What is the scale of the problem of managing change?

2) Is it just certain types of change or certain organizations where problems occur or does failure occur on a much wider scale?

3) What causes change to fail?4) Are there common causes or is each

failure unique?5) Just as importantly, what can organizationsdo to improve their success rate?

THANK YOU