Why Companies Fail At Implementing Change

This week’s blog is a guest post from Bri­an Nolan, own­er of Sum­mit Ser­vices. Sum­mit is a pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness con­sult­ing firm work­ing with small and medi­um size busi­ness­es. This week­end I was read­ing a book called Lead­ing Change, by John P. Kot­ter. A cou­ple things jumped out at me as being very rel­e­vant for the Sum­mit group. There was a chap­ter ded­i­cat­ed to why com­pa­nies fail at imple­ment­ing change. Two of the main rea­sons were: 

1. Under com­mu­ni­cat­ing the Vision by a fac­tor of 10 (or even 100.… or even 1000)
2. Fail­ing to cre­ate short term wins

Kot­ter spends a great deal of tim­ing talk­ing about the impor­tance of con­tin­u­al­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing the vision to employ­ees, both in words and deeds and in as many inter­ac­tions as pos­si­ble. Major change is usu­al­ly impos­si­ble unless most employ­ees are will­ing to help, often to the point of mak­ing short-term sac­ri­fices. With­out cred­i­ble com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and a lot of it, employ­ees’ hearts and minds are nev­er cap­tured. It’s not enough to read it once at a com­pa­ny meet­ing (although that’s the start!). The Vision must be kept ” top of mind” and be con­stant­ly incor­po­rat­ed in your com­mu­ni­ca­tions and deci­sions. I encour­age you all to keep your com­pa­ny visions close by and incor­po­rate pieces of it in your week­ly meet­ings. In Sum­mit, we’ll talk about get­ting some small vic­to­ries. This will cre­ate a feel­ing of accom­plish­ment in your com­pa­ny and show them that you are com­mit­ted to walk­ing the talk. Focus on one, or maybe only two projects. Com­mu­ni­cate the projects to the com­pa­ny. Explain how it ties into the Vision. Plan it, do it and cel­e­brate it. Kot­ter talks about short term wins as more than luck. I have always known luck as an oppor­tu­ni­ty com­ing togeth­er with prepa­ra­tion. Short term wins come about through plan­ning, orga­niz­ing and imple­ment­ing the plan to make things hap­pen. The point is to make sure that vis­i­ble results lend suf­fi­cient cred­i­bil­i­ty to the change effort, which includes cre­at­ing a focused orga­ni­za­tion. Have you picked your one or two projects that will give you the ear­ly vic­to­ries you need to sus­tain changed? Have you planned them before you start­ed doing them? Have you com­mu­ni­cat­ed these to the orga­ni­za­tion? ​“Dis­ci­pline is remem­ber­ing what you want.” Our orga­ni­za­tions will thank us if we main­tain the dis­ci­pline to focus and accom­plish one or two things at a time. You will reach your sum­mit (your vision) in time, one base camp at a time. Have a great week! Bri­an Nolan 610 449‑2135 Vis­it Sum­mit Ser­vices Website