The best way to fix change management is simply to prevent it

Regular readers of the Harvard Business Review will have stumbled on the advert for a customizable slide deck “Accelerating Change” based on the seminal work of John P. Kotter. The advert is extremely convincing – it states that 70% of change efforts fail. This is fully in line with research by strategy consulting firms that put the success rate of change efforts between 25% and 30%. What is even more startling is that this percentage hasn’t budged since Kotter published “Leading Change” in 1996. One can only assume that our advances in Change Management have all been wiped out by our growing change agendas.

While all this is clearly an incentive to become better at change management (and buy the slide deck), from a strategy perspective this must be seen as a showstopper. What it effectively means is that you have to take a 70% discount on all your substantial plans and the remotely ambitious strategies for your organization. If cars consistently present you with a 70% chance of not arriving at your desired destination you would be looking for alternative modes of transportation very quickly.

It is time we do the same for change management. We need a way to prevent the need for change management altogether.

Fortunately there is help. Recent research by people such as Dan Ariely and Dan Pink into organizational motivation has provided great insights in what motivates knowledge workers – not monetary rewards, but autonomy, personal growth, and a sense of purpose. This is important as knowledge workers are arguably the very people you have to rely on for effectuating change in organizations.

If we want to hit the knowledge workers’ motivational hot buttons and if we want to prevent the need for change management altogether we need to go upstream in the chain towards the formulation of strategies and plans. If we can provide knowledge workers with some overall guidance – preferably of the inspirational kind, we let the more detailed strategy formulation and plan development to the organization itself. That way we provide them with strategically guided autonomy, personal growth, and purpose.

What’s more important, we eliminate the hand over hurdle between strategy formulation and execution all together and with it the need for change management.

Problem solved.

In practical terms this means much more inclusive approaches to strategy formulation which might sound like a particularly bad idea. It doesn’t have to be however. By providing the organization with the appropriate strategic guidance – inspirational direction – leadership can maintain overall directional control. Especially when the outcome is appropriately scrutinized and turned into proper business plans.

It is not without reason that the adoption of inclusive approaches to strategy formulation and plan development is on the rise.