s a society, we've spent a fortune-and considerable pain-trying to implement changes, using methods like TQM, self-directed teams, reengineering.
A Yet studies show that at least two-thirds of our change initiatives fail to achieve their intended results.
Why? The answer is simple, even if the remedy is not. We have assumed that if you can articulate where you're trymg to go, and differentiate it from where you are now, then change will happen. Simply pointing the way fiomA to B has worked in the past. But it doesn't work when the changes in question are deeply behavioral in nature.
For 40 years or more, most organizational change has been a matter of executing decisions-to enter a new market, adopt a new marketing strategy, forge an alliance, or reallocate a set of resources. None of these things is necessarily easy. But for the most part they involve traditional management approaches, for which tough-minded decision malung, delegation, monitoring, and adjustment are good enough. But many of the changes today's organizations undertake require more than that.Typically you are worlung with staff and managers who are good at what they do. But to perform in a changing world, they now have to learn new ways of doing new thngs. It is the most difficult management challenge we face today. A decision to pursue process reengineering, for instance, however well communicated, is not enough to get people to take responsibility for learning the new skills and behaviors necessary to reach the performance goal.
Sensing that the changes they envision are profoundly different from those of the past, too many people-management gurus included-approach change as all or nothmg, either-or. They demonize the old ways and sanctifjr the new. But language is critical to change, and the most pernicious statements in the language include either-or and Copynght 1996