Innovators of Change Comic: When Will Organizational Change Succeed?
One of my favorite articles about organizational change is, “Do 70 Per Cent of All Organizational Change Initiatives Really Fail?” by Mark Hughes. Within the article the importance of time is one of the major discussion points. I think about change and time every day — seriously! Much of my research has centered on results over time. My work at the CEO-level has centered on building organizational change and culture over time.
Picking the correct timepoints for measurement is never a perfect science — and this doesn’t even begin to consider the fact that some things are more difficult to measure effectively, or can’t currently be measured at all within a specific organization.
We often will arrive at timepoints such as annual, quarterly, or monthly. However, these may not be the best timepoints for establishing the success of an organizational time initiative. Some of this may come back to what we’re measuring and at which timepoints we’re measuring these items. For example, a CEO may need a set of measures for the initial phases of an organizational change, with different measures and expectations in later phases. While evolving measures across time shouldn’t be surprising, this type of strategic thinking can be difficult for some leaders to comprehend. Many leaders are geared towards short-term results, and may know they should consider long-term results as well, but offer little attention in that direction.
What I can tell you is this… large-scale change is a process, influenced by a variety of factors, and those factors can affect our choice of timepoints for measurement.
A couple other thoughts:
I love retrospective and archival research because it offers the opportunity to see change evolving over time.
My favorite part of this comic may be the “Craaank!” noise. Sometimes organizational change feels that way to me. And it reminds me so much of old cars, where craft experts would work on fine-tuning every detail and building elegant machines.
Feel free to use the image as a coloring or doodle page as you think about what a large-scale organizational change looks like in your organization whether it be from the perspective of yesterday, today, or tomorrow.