In an era of disruption, the only viable strategy is to adapt. That’s why the most important challenge for leaders today is to drive and sustain change. Yet research from McKinsey suggests that nearly three quarters of organizational transformations fail.
Think about that for a second. All of those big kickoff meetings. All the resources spent. And only roughly one in four will succeed. The others? They were just wasted time and money.
But it’s even worse than that.
Consider that in a survey of more than 2,200 executives, managers, and employees located across the globe, PwC found that:
of respondents cited change fatigue
of employees say they don’t understand the change they’re being asked to make
say they don’t agree with it
That was in 2014, when the world was a much simpler place. Since then, we’ve had a global pandemic, historic geopolitical and social tensions and now increasing economic uncertainty. Employees are being asked to do more with less. Burnout is rampant.
Clearly we need to get smarter about change. Change isn’t about persuasion. Snappy slogans and internal communication campaigns will achieve nothing. The simple fact is that whenever you set out to make a significant impact, there will be people who won’t like it and they will work to undermine what you’re trying to achieve.
What you need is a strategy to overcome that resistance, a plan to activate stakeholders who want the change to succeed and a framework for continuous management.
That is what ChangeOS is designed to do.
Define a Vision of Tomorrow
Design a Keystone Change
Map key stakeholders
Build a plan to survive victory
Build an activation narrative
Enlist stakeholder buy in
Design actions
Manage the ecosystem
Nobody creates change alone. You need design platforms and co-optable resources that can weave a network of like-minded groups and institutions to collaborate and scale transformation.
OKR tracking
Gap analysis
Interval planning
Review and align