The postman delivered my latest edition of “Best Practices in Change Management” this week. This is the Prosci Benchmarking Report following their 8th longitudinal study into Change Management (CM). They have conducted these roughly every two years since 1998 and the 2014 edition – which I receive as a Prosci certified CM trainer – summarises the results of their 2013 international research study on CM.
Once again the results indicate that the No. 1 contributor to successful change is active and visible executive sponsorship. And by contrast the greatest obstacle to success is ineffective CM sponsorship. Nothing new there then, as both have consistently topped the findings of all the previous research.
Nor is this surprising! The essential expectation of a leader is visibility. They have to be seen. They have to be involved. They have to set an example. Thus as an executives you cannot decree change and expect results to simply follow. You cannot expect commitment and employee engagement if you do not set an example and demonstrate your own commitment to the change you are instigating.
Thus it is perhaps surprising – and definitely cause for concern – is that lack of effective sponsorship remains the No. 1 cause for failure when introducing change. This suggests both a lack of leadership and that lessons are not being learned. Let’s take a closer look.
This research involved 822 participants from all over the world. This is an 805% increase over the initial study and reflects the steadily increasing importance given to CM. Yet it is not a great number. In fact, in a world beset by, and barraged and battered with, incessant change, it is possibly a very disappointing number, unless it is a reflection of how busy people are and how they lack the time or inclination to participate. Even that, however, is disturbing given, the pre-eminence of change and the fact that other research into change indicates that generally 70% or more of all change initiatives fail to meet objectives or deliver the full benefits used to justify them. Do you think there is perhaps a correlation here?
Certainly there is a suggestion that there is a greater need for leadership, as well as an implicit message that we don’t do leadership very well. If you want to instigate effective and lasting change you need to understand the link between CM and leadership and be a better leader.