WHETHER IT’S A NEW PROJECT management platform or a complete company restructure, when organizations attempt to implement change, more often than not they are met with resistance. The question is why.
The fact is, there is always a portion of people in every organization who want to maintain the status quo, and another portion who are ready and willing to charge ahead with new behaviours. We can take a variety of approaches to get the laggard half on board — whether it’s taking a hard line, amplifying our communications or reinforcing the logic of the decision. And yet, pushback often persists.
It is frequently reported that over 70 per cent of all change efforts fail. However, this mythical figure can be traced back to a 1993 book, Re-engineering the Corporation, where authors Michael Hammer and state, “Our unscientific estimate is that as many as 50 to 70 per cent of the organizations that undertake a re-engineering effort do not achieve the dramatic results they intended.” Many studies have been conducted since then — from . to the University of Brighton — debunking the 70 per cent failure rate. However, the frequency of our encounters with opposition-to-change reinforces the self-fulfilling prophecy that change efforts are likely to fail.
