do 70% of organizational change projects really fail?

Common Myths ofOrganisational

Change

Dr. David Wilkinson

www.oxford-review.com

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.

It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Josh Billings 1818 - 1885

Proposition: 70% of Change Projects Fail

Proposition: 70% of Change Projects Fail

That’s a lot!

E.G.

E.G.

E.G.This wasn’t true. I tracked the book down andit makes no mention of any study nor the quoted results!

E.G.

Projects

IT & Infrastructure

Projects

Training eventsNew Sales Initiatives

Marketing Campaigns

Regeneration ProjectsCoaching engagements

For these as well – Really??

A little suspicious

Sources

TRUST – Not all journals are equal

Validity&

Reliability

Validity&

Reliability

How good is the evidence?

Impact Factor

Impact Factor

41.456

Highest impact / trust factor

Impact Factor

41.456

1.27

Lowest impact / trust factor

HBR not considered a serious research source.

Highest impact / trust factor

I searched Almost 1000 references going back

20 years

1996 - John P. Kotter, published in the Harvard Business Review

The most quoted source of the 70% change failure rate

But what did Kotter actually

say?

What Kotter actually said“Over the past decade, I have watched more than 100 companies try to remake themselves into significantly better competitors. They have included large organizations (Ford) and small ones (Landmark Communications), companies based in the United States (General Motors) and elsewhere (British Airways), corporations that were on their knees (Eastern Airlines), and companies that were earning good money (Bristol-Myers Squibb). These efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turn-around. But, in almost every case, the basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market environment.A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end of the scale.”

What Kotter actually said“Over the past decade, I have watched more than 100 companies try to remake themselves into significantly better competitors. They have included large organizations (Ford) and small ones (Landmark Communications), companies based in the United States (General Motors) and elsewhere (British Airways), corporations that were on their knees (Eastern Airlines), and companies that were earning good money (Bristol-Myers Squibb). These efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turn-around. But, in almost every case, the basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market environment.A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end of the scale.”

No mention of a

70% failure rate

“Most major change initiatives—whether intended to boost quality, improve culture, or reverse a corporate death spiral—generate only lukewarm results. Many fail miserably.”

“Most major change initiatives—whether intended to boost quality, improve culture, or reverse a corporate death spiral—generate only lukewarm results. Many fail miserably.”

The Editor’s introduction

What Kotter actually said

“A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end of the scale.”

1993Next most

quoted source

“Sadly, we must report that despite the success stories described in previous chapters, many companies that begin reengineering don’t succeed at it...Our unscientific estimate is that as many as 50 percent to 70 percent of the organizations that undertake a reengineering effort do not achieve the dramatic results they intended.”

Nitin Nohria and Michael Beer -Cracking The Code of Change -

2000

The 3rd most quoted source

Nitin Nohria and Michael Beer -Cracking The Code of Change -

2000

Harvard Business Review

“The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail”

“The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail”

No Source – No research – N

o Evidence

“People have been writing about change management for decades and still the statistics haven’t improved. With each survey, 70 per cent of change initiatives still fail”

- 2008 self-published white paper by a management consultancy company, Bain & Company

Now it enters common

usage

In 2009 'The irrational side of change management' by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey

2009 'The irrational side of change management' by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey

“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.”

What Kotter actually said

“A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end of the scale.”

2009 'The irrational side of change management' by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey

"…in 2008, a McKinsey survey of 3,199 executives around the world found, as Kotter did, that only one transformation in three succeeds.”

This is what that study actually

says…

1. Extremely successful 2. Very successful 3. Somewhat successful 4. Not successful at all

Spot the failure

2008 McKinsey Global Survey Results: 'Creating Global Transformations’

1. Extremely successful = 4.88%2. Very successful = 30.51%3. Somewhat successful = 48.96%

4. Not successful at all = 5.87%

Spot the failure

2009 'The irrational side of change management' by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey

"…in 2008, a McKinsey survey of 3,199 executives around the world found, as Kotter did, that only one transformation in three succeeds.”

What Kotter actually said

“A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end of the scale.”

What is success?

What is success?

Small firms = SurvivalLarge firms = Profit

(Reijonen, H. and R. Komppula 2007)

2016 - Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer - Stanford University

‘Why the Assholes are Winning: Money Trumps All’

Only 4 companies made both Fortune’s most admired and their best places to work lists in 2015

Success Criteria

Admiration and criteria of organizational success boils down to

“financial success in terms of stock price appreciation and wealth

creation”

Success Criteria

2011 Mark Hughes - University of Brighton UK - failure rates of organisational change programmes and found that :

2011 Mark Hughes - University of Brighton UK - failure rates of organisational change programmes and found that :

“…whilst the existence of a popular narrative of 70% organizational-change failure is acknowledged, there is no valid and reliable empirical evidence to support such a narrative”

Not only is there NO EVIDENCE

70% of change programmes fail

Not only is there NO EVIDENCE

70% of change programmes fail

What little evidence there is suggests the failure rate is most likely around

6%

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