Why change does not stick.

A recent study of major corporate changes:

• 28% are abandoned before completion
• 46% are behind schedule or over budget
• 80% are not used six months later in the way they were intended to be

It usually becomes clear that change has come unstuck when it’s too late to do much about it, but the truth is that failure may have been built into the change from early on. In my opinion, the people elements of change are too frequently disregarded and the most successful change has people running through its core and end to end (not just at the point that you need them i.e. delivery)

A project is a vehicle to deliver change and an opportunity to engage people from start to finish.

People are your most valuable asset but many feel “done to” or disregarded when it comes to change, yet organisations rely heavily on their people to adopt, embed and sustain the new way of working and maintain the change through to realise business benefit.

So why don’t people want to change…..

TOP 5 REASONS TO RESIST CHANGE

1 Lack of understanding around the vision and need for change

2 Comfort with the status quo and fear of the unknown

3 Company’s change history and culture – ie desensitised to the umpteenth change project

4 Opposition to the technologies, requirements, processes introduced by the change

5 Fear of job loss

I’m sure we will all have felt 1 (or maybe 5) of these and did the resultant project or programme succeed?

Lets be clear that no temporary fixture (delivery or change team) will fix all of the above. The journey to effective and “sticky” change is a collaborative approach that takes business leaders, business teams and implementers with the relationships between all 3 paramount to success.

Nobody said change was easy.

But it is becoming inevitable and necessary to adapt and evolve. Done well it can be effective, long lasting and empowering.

People Change Projects.