Why Is the Failure Rate for Organisation Change so High?
Management Services › Vol. 52 Nbr. 4, January 2008
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Summary
The scale of major transition failure is often difficult to determine, as the majority of failures go unreported. To successfully enact change, it is important to have a clear vision and to get everyone in the organisation engaged in the process. It is interesting to examine the six reasons that Kotter (1996a) identified to explain the context of the complacency he witnessed. These are: 1. No highly visible crisis was apparent to the staff. 2. The meeting was taking place in a room that screamed success. 3. The standards against which managers measured themselves were low and they were becoming short-sighted. 4. People focused their attention on narrow functional goals, instead of broad business performance. 5. The various internal planning and control systems were rigged to make it easy for everyone to meet their functional goals. 6. Whatever feedback people received came almost entirely from these faulty internal systems.
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Why Is the Failure Rate for Organisation Change so High?
Dr John J Lucey
John started in Work Study with an engineering company and moved to a subsidiary of British Leyland before becoming Work Study Manager with an international armaments manufacturer. He was promoted to the position of Contracts Manager and in 1977 he gave up his job to do an MSc in Industrial Management at Loughborough University, where he won the award for best student.He spent two years working as Manufacturing Manager in a military optics company in Singapore, before joining the Boots Company in 1984 as Industrial Engineering Manager. It was at this time that John joined the IMS Council and has served continuously since. He was Chairman from 2003 until 2008.In 1989, he was appointed a Factory Manager with Boots Contracting, until his retirement in 2004. In 2002, John commenced part time research into the sustainability of Lean Manufacturing with Cardiff Business School and has published many papers. He was awarded his PhD in April 2008, while he was still Chairman of the Institute.Winning the hearts and minds of their staff is an important objective for progressive companies but it would seem that they are failing, as the failure rate for major transitions continues to be very high. In his model for managing organisational change Moore (2003), quotes Joseph Juran who states: 'If you don't measure it, you can't manage i...See the full content of this document
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