Sustaining Change
Back in the 1990's Kotter remarked 70% of changes fail.In a 2008 PWC study the success rate hasn't changed. Businesses today are investing significant budgets in change and a large element of that investment results in unsuccessful or dissipated change efforts i.e. part of the change outright fails or the outcomes are not sustained in the organisation culture
Why? Fundamentally there is insufficient focus on the organisational aspects of change and too much focus on delivering something.... even if it isn't fit for purpose and once it's delivered the change team disappears.....
The House of Change re-addresses that focus.
The House of Change
The floor of the
house made up of the Trust, Employeed Engagement and Social
Networks. Trust is multi-dimensional: trust in the executives to
articulate the true organisational problems, without corporate
rhetoric or spin. Trust in the change leaders to lead to achieve the
agreed outcomes and trust in the employees to own the change. There
is a clear objective to eradicate hidden agenda’s and information
asymmetry through openness. Employee engagement gives the employees
the voice and managers the skills to be open to listening to
employees.
Executive Sponsorship and commitment and Communications and
Stakeholder Management form the walls of the house. Key success
factors of change is ensuring executive sponsorship; this does not
imply top-down driven change (although in some scenarios, e.g.
short-term survival, this maybe desirable) but provides executive
voice and support in the organisational power and political
structures to acquire or retain required resources.
Communication needs to be targeted, appropriate, timely, and needs
to resonant with the audience. All too often communication is
distributed too widely losing focus and, hence, loses resonance.
The heart and soul of the house is the organisation culture and
psychology and the heart of change is the execution strategies to be
adopted to effect the change. The selection of execution strategy
must be cognisant of the organisational culture and psychology that
exists today and where the organisation wants to be.