Introduction of Why Change Management Programs Often Fail
to Achieve Their Stated Goals
Change management is a very effective approach but it can be
challenging in several organizations at the time of dealing with labors or
other people working in the organization. Most of the researches on change
management is providing information that the change management programmers
often fail to achieve their stated goals and objectives. It is very important
to see or identify why they fail to achieve their stated goals because many
organizations in the world cannot afford such kind of changes. The main purpose
of this essay is to determine the reasons why and how they fail to achieve
their stated goals.
The essay is divided into subheadings which are providing a lot
of information about change management as well as how the change management plans
effective. As the main of this study is about the failures of the change
management programs to achieve the goals, the complete focus of this study is
to provide the information about it. The reason to study the failure to achieve
the stated goals is to avoid reducing the number of failures in the
organizations when they are going to implement the change management program to
make changes at the workplace to achieve success.
In this paper, a brief analysis is provided to take a better
understanding of how the change management strategies can be changed and can be
used effectively to make the plan of change management effective and
successful. Every organization focus only to bring improvements in the
performance as well as progress, so they apply change management strategies in
the organizations but it is a very disturbing phenomenon that the change
management programmers mostly have to face several challenges by applying
change management for the improvement. And due to these challenges and problems,
they often have to face failure to bring change in the organization. In the
last of the paper, a concise conclusion of the study is provided.
Use of Change Management of Why Change Management
Programs Often Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
Change management is the management term in which several
kinds of approaches included to bring change into the organizations. The change
management approach can be very effective as well as valuable in the
organization by performing a set of approaches: prepare, support or help teams
into the organizational workplaces. At various times, the workers in the
company are performing their tasks but the company wants to bring an increase
in the performance and progress of the company. Further, on the change
management, the change management programmers perform change management when
they want to introduce the technology and change in the process reviews. The
change in the process reviews is because of the changing habits of the
consumers and costumers (Dunphy & Stace, 1993).
When the consumers change their habits then companies need
to introduce the change in the company process as well as in working and they
need to be more updated and upgraded to increase hold a high market share of
the company. Several organizations in the world are using change management and
the change management cycles to bring improvements as well as to achieve the
goals of the company. No doubt the change management approach is technique is
effective but the reality of change management is a bit different which tells
that the change management programmers and programs mostly face the failures in
the defined goals. It is because several types of challenges and problems may
occur that can cause the failure in achieving the defined objectives of the
company (Orlikowski & Hoffman, 1997).
Reasons
for Failure of Change Management
There are several types of reason which can affect the
change management, as well as these reasons, can cause the failure of change
management to achieve the organizational goals. There are several kinds of
reasons exploring why change management fails into the organizations when the
change management drivers and change management programmers define their goals
to make changes into the organizational strategies, processes as well as approaches.
According to studies, it is determined that more than 70 percent of organizational
change initiatives fail.
There can be several reasons for failure to achieve the change
stated goals due to stakeholders of the organization as well as the managers
and line managers in the organizations are cooperative with employees and the
labor. No doubt, change management is the most managing and focused approach to
achieve the goals of the organization but it has also some notable reason which
can affect the workability of the workers. Due to this reason, the performance
of the workers and labor decreases and sometimes the workability level at the
workplace can go at the least point which will be very dangerous for the growth
of the organizations. The most important reasons for the failure of change
management are provided and explained below in this document which are
describing the key factors for the failure in achieving goals (Hopkins, 2009).
Example of McDonald’s Failure:
In past,
McDonald introduced a new food preparation system known as “Made for You” in
its US outlets. In this change plan, outlets were required to upgrade their
expensive equipment to ensure the cooking of burgers with freshly toasted buns.
As a result of this change order delay time was increased. Customers had to
wait for twice and three times more than the previous system. Therefore,
because of the wrong implementation of this change plan, they turned this
change plan to an expensive mistake which damaged the stock prices of
McDonald's (Lepsinger, 2017).
Example of Postal Services
US
In 2008, the
recession in US economy caused many organizations to rethink about their expenditures
and workforce retention plans. During that time Postal Service of the US also
decided to make changes in its workforce to control salary and administrative
expenses. They made a change plan in human resources and fired many experienced
staff members from their company. As a result of this change plan
implementation, they faced critical issues in customer services as experienced
staff members were no more working with them. While they also faced a negative
reputation in the targeted market.
Consequently, it
can be said that leaders and managers of an organization make a change plan
effective or failure. Sometimes, a change can be beneficial for the company
however a wrong implementation cause for failure. While in some cases, leaders
and managers try their best to implement change plan in the best interest of
the company but fail to meet this goal because of the wrong change plan.
Ineffective Planning of Why Change Management Programs
Often Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
In many organizations, the changer management planners,
drivers, as well as the change programmers, plan the strategies, approaches and
the code of conduct to bring the change into the company for achieving the
stated goals of the organization. But the planning to achieve such kind of
stated goals is not appropriate as well as not effective in the organization. The
leaders and managers in the organizations are very focused on obtaining the solutions
or achieving their stated goals in the company. They focus more to achieve the goals
or solutions even in the planning and design phases of the strategy without
performing effective planning on how they will bring change into organizations
as well as how they will engage all of the stakeholders on one platform. They
do not make effective plans, as well as they, do not have the important data or
information to handle the related problem which can be occurred during and
after implementing the change (Tarokh, et al., 2008).
The leaders sometimes focus only on the solution and the
results but they do not ready to observe the condition of the workers or
related stakeholders into the company whether they can work in the environment
which is going to be offered them to work in. In simple words, the managers and
leaders of the company develop the strategy to achieve their goals effectively
but they do not focus on a very significant area of the organization either the
employees will accept such kind of change or they resist having such kind of
change. The planning of the leaders and the managers is poor which increases
the chances of failure of change in the company (Francis & Sinclair, 2003).
Furthermore, the result of such a kind of planning for
change will cause failure in the starting change management program. The change
leaders should have to consider the roles of change, making the strategy to
engage the stakeholders, governance and decision-making, resources, as well as
the timeline and should have to take the key initiatives to gather all
stakeholders to speed up working and bring efficiency at the workplace. So, the
change management program will be failed without making a well-defined and
designed process of change.
Lack of Support from leaders and managers of Why
Change Management Programs Often Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
The lack of support from leaders and managers is another
cause of failure to achieve the organizational goals by implementing the
change. The change management program can cause failure at the initial phases
because it might possible that the employees and laborers working in the
organization are not being supported as well as educated by the company leaders
and manager. One thing is noticeable here which is: the change in the
organization will not be successful in the lack of leadership support in the
organization (Francis, 2002).
Furthermore, the spoken words are also not enough to bring
change into the company and to make this change successful. Without having
leadership support in the organization, the organization cannot achieve the
stated goals but the change program will be failed in the implementation phase.
Although, the leaders and the managers in the organization must play a role of
a champion as well as a model related to the change in the organization and
they must have the logic to defend what they are saying as well as what they
are doing. To defend the change, they are going to bring in the organization,
they should have the ability to perform to show other stakeholders how the
change will work and how it will be beneficial for the workers and
organization. When they will have specific and logical reason including skills
to work in the changing environment, they can easily support that change in the
organization (Gill, 2002).
In the example of the change support leaders, Forbes
magazine supports the fact of supporting leadership that is playing a significant
and critical role to make the change management program successful to achieve
the stated goals. The magazine is describing that it is started by the
successful change initiatives at the top as well as it should be set up the top
management teams of the organization and report in a straight line to CEO. In
short, the change management programmers will face the failure to achieve their
stated goals when they will not provide support to the proposed change in the
organization (Lipman, 2013).
Neglected Stakeholders of Why Change Management
Programs Often Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
In this section, it is also described as another significant
reason that can play a role failure to achieve the stated goals in the change
management program. It might also seem understandable that most of the main
stakeholders of the organization will be in the process of change management. But
it is very easy to neglect other stakeholders who can be very effective by
bringing the changes in the organization the change management programmers and
drivers implemented. Many organizations exist throughout the world that is not giving
equal considerations to all its stakeholders. They only consider those how are
major stakeholders of the company. But the neglected stakeholders have also
equal importance in the results and outputs after implementing the change (Legris & Collerette, 2006).
The successful change management program needs strong input
from all of the stakeholders of the company while if the change driver or change
leader fails to consider the actual stakeholders of the organization then the
change management can be failed to achieve the stated goals of the
organization.
The change management drivers should have to consider those
stakeholders to get actual input who are mostly neglected, the whole program
will be failed after putting efforts on the change management program. The
effective approach for the change drivers is that the change management driver
has to give equal importance to every stakeholder of the organization because
it might possible that the neglected stakeholder of the organization will be
very impacted for the success of the change program because the actual inputs
can be taken from those neglected stakeholders (Lynch, 2000).
Communication Gap of Why Change Management
Programs Often Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
The communication gap or poor communication is also a very
significant reason that makes the change management fail in the organizations
and due to this reason, the change management programmer has to face failure in
attaining the goals of the organization. The reason is that when the change
leader along with the change management team and top management team design and
make the change, they mostly not communicate all stakeholders of the
organization. furthermore, to design, make and implement the change strategies,
the director or top management involved but the low-level management is not
included in the designing and development phases. Although, the company
management will also not communicate with low-level management or line
management to provide basic information about the change. There can be some
significant question raised in the minds of employees but they due to lack or
poor communication, those questions cannot be resolved which can cause the
failure of the change program. So that’s why the change driver or the change
leader has to face the failure to achieve the defined goals of the organization
(Gill, 2002).
It is very critical for the change leaders at every level to
align and take a better understanding of the reasons to bring change in the
company. They are also unable to get the knowledge of the change without asking
or communicating with the leaders and change leader. The change leaders should
have to provide them a better medium to communicate with each other to provide
the basic and general information of the change. If the leaders will do this
thing then it might possible that the change program will be successful in the
organization because every stakeholder will have a better understanding of what
is the change and what it is for. Furthermore, another research also explains in
his latest article in Forbes that the change leaders and change management
programmer must have to provide meaningful training and consideration to the
line managers as well as the labor about change and train them how they should
have to work now.
According to the Willis Towers Watson study, it is
determined that on the 68% percent senior managers of the company that they
have received the message related to the new change in the company that is
providing the reasons behinds this organizational change decision. But on the
other side, only 53% of middle line managers received the message about change
but only 40% first-line managers have received the message of change management
that is the very bad and inappropriate approach of the change leaders and the
organization. This thing did create the communication gap between levels of
manager and the change was failed in the organization.
Resistance from Labors and Employees of Why Change
Management Programs Often Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
When an organization designs and develops the change, which
has been introduced in the organization, then some laborers and employees will
not accept such kind of change at their workplaces. When the workers, as well
as employees, resist after implementation of the change, it might also possible
that the company and the change manager will have to face the failure in the
change management program to achieve the goals of the company. There can be several
reasons behind this to not accept such kind of changes by the labors as well as
other employees or stakeholders of the company (Waddell & Sohal, 1998).
The first reason which is identified to resist the
implementation of the change in the organization is that there can be a number of
laborers and employees in the company who were working in the old environment
and they were comfortable working in that environment. But the change leader
has introduced the change in the organization to change the environment of
workplaces as well as to enhance the progress and productivity of the employees.
In the new environment, the employees and workers may not feel comfortable and
they will not have proper knowledge and information to work in that
environment. It is a basic reason for the employees to resist the change in the
organization. To overcome this situation and to persuade the employees to work
in the new environment, the leaders should have to provide them a medium where
they can communicate with the line managers and managers. They must also have
to be more logical to convince them to adopt this environment and must have to
educate them on how the new change can be beneficial for them as well as how
they can work in effective manners (Ford, et al., 2008).
Various studies are showing that various employees were
working in the organization and feel comfortable while working at their
workplaces. At that time, the company did plan to make the company automated to
increase the workability as well as increase the progress of the organization
but the employees that are working in the organization did not have the proper
information as well as have no knowledge to perform functions in the
organization. They had faced many problems to work in the new changed
environment and due to this reason, the employees had started to resist. But
many companies have tackled and managed them by providing them better
communication medium along with better training sessions to make the change
successful into the company. After getting proper training as well as timely
provision of instructions, the change leaders did control the situations as
well as saved the change management program successful and they did achieve
their stated goals (Mullins, 2003).
Conclusion of Why Change Management Programs Often
Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
It is concluded that change management is the management
term in which several kinds of approaches included to bring change into the
organizations. There are several kinds of reasons exploring why change
management fails into the organizations when the change management drivers and
change management programmers define their goals to make changes. The leaders
and managers in the organizations are very focused on obtaining the solutions
or achieving their stated goals in the company. The lack of support from
leaders and managers is another cause of failure to achieve the organizational
goals by implementing the change. In the example of the change support leaders,
Forbes magazine supports the fact of supporting leadership that is playing a
significant and critical role to make the change management program successful
to achieve the stated goals. Although, the company management will also not
communicate with low-level management or line management to provide basic
information about the change. The change leaders should have to provide them a
better medium to communicate with each other to provide the basic and general information
of the change. According to the Willis Towers Watson study is describing that
only 53% of middle line managers received the message about change but only 40%
first-line managers have received the message of change management that is the
very bad and inappropriate approach.
References of Why Change Management Programs Often
Fail to Achieve Their Stated Goals
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