In this presentation from the Oxford-Review we look at whether 70% of organizational change projects really do fail and what the real figures are. http://www.oxford-review for free research updates and more

1. Common Myths of
Organisational Change
Dr. David Wilkinson

2. www.oxford-review.com

3. It ain't what you don't know
that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that
just ain't so.
Josh Billings
1818 - 1885

4. Proposition:
70% of Change Projects Fail

5. Proposition:
70% of Change Projects Fail
That’s a lot!

6. E.G.

7. E.G.

8. E.G.
This wasn’t true. I tracked
the book down and
it makes no mention of
any study nor the quoted
results!

9. E.G.

10. Projects
IT &
Infrastructure
Projects
Training events
New Sales
Initiatives
Marketing
Campaigns
Regeneration
Projects
Coaching engagements
For these as well –
Really??

11. A little suspicious

13. Sources

14. TRUST – Not
all journals are
equal

15. Validity
&
Reliability

16. Validity
&
Reliability

17. Impact Factor

18. Impact Factor
41.456
Highest impact / trust
factor

19. Impact Factor
41.456 1.27
Lowest impact /
trust factor
HBR not
considered a
serious research
source.
Highest impact / trust
factor

21. I searched
Almost 1000
references
going back
20 years

22. 1996 - John P. Kotter, published in the
Harvard Business Review
The most quoted
source of the 70%
change failure rate

23. But what did
Kotter actually
say?

24. What Kotter actually said
“Over the past decade, I have watched more than 100 companies try to remake
themselves into significantly better competitors. They have included large
organizations (Ford) and small ones (Landmark Communications), companies
based in the United States (General Motors) and elsewhere (British Airways),
corporations that were on their knees (Eastern Airlines), and companies that
were earning good money (Bristol-Myers Squibb). These efforts have gone under
many banners: total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing,
restructuring, cultural change, and turn-around. But, in almost every case, the
basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is
conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market
environment.
A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have
been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward
the lower end of the scale.”

25. What Kotter actually said
“Over the past decade, I have watched more than 100 companies try to remake
themselves into significantly better competitors. They have included large
organizations (Ford) and small ones (Landmark Communications), companies
based in the United States (General Motors) and elsewhere (British Airways),
corporations that were on their knees (Eastern Airlines), and companies that
were earning good money (Bristol-Myers Squibb). These efforts have gone under
many banners: total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing,
restructuring, cultural change, and turn-around. But, in almost every case, the
basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is
conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market
environment.
A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have
been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward
the lower end of the scale.”

26. “Most major change initiatives—
whether intended to boost quality,
improve culture, or reverse a
corporate death spiral—generate
only lukewarm results. Many fail
miserably.”

27. “Most major change initiatives—
whether intended to boost quality,
improve culture, or reverse a
corporate death spiral—generate
only lukewarm results. Many fail
miserably.”

28. What Kotter actually said
“A few of these corporate change efforts have been
very successful. A few have been utter failures.
Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt
toward the lower end of the scale.”

29. 1993
Next most
quoted
source

30. “Sadly, we must report that despite the success
stories described in previous chapters, many
companies that begin reengineering don’t succeed
at it...Our unscientific estimate is that as many as
50 percent to 70 percent of the organizations that
undertake a reengineering effort do not achieve
the dramatic results they intended.”

31. Nitin Nohria and Michael
Beer -Cracking The Code
of Change - 2000
The 3rd most quoted
source

32. Nitin Nohria and Michael
Beer -Cracking The Code
of Change - 2000
Harvard Business Review

33. “The brutal fact is that about 70%
of all change initiatives fail”

34. “The brutal fact is that about 70%
of all change initiatives fail”

35. “People have been writing about change
management for decades and still the
statistics haven’t improved. With each survey,
70 per cent of change initiatives still fail”
- 2008 self-published white paper by a management
consultancy company, Bain & Company
Now it enters
common
usage

36. In 2009 'The irrational side of change management'
by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey

37. 2009 'The irrational side of change management'
by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey
“In 1996, John Kotter published Leading
Change. Considered by many to be the seminal
work in the field of change management.
Kotter’s research revealed that only 30
percent of change programs succeed.”

38. What Kotter actually said
“A few of these corporate change efforts have been
very successful. A few have been utter failures.
Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt
toward the lower end of the scale.”

39. 2009 'The irrational side of change management'
by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey
"…in 2008, a McKinsey survey of
3,199 executives around the world
found, as Kotter did, that only one
transformation in three succeeds.”

40. This is what that study
actually says…

41. 1. Extremely successful
2. Very successful
3. Somewhat successful
4. Not successful at all
Spot the failure

42. 2008 McKinsey Global Survey Results: 'Creating Global Transformations’

43. 1. Extremely successful = 4.88%
2. Very successful = 30.51%
3. Somewhat successful = 48.96%
4. Not successful at all = 5.87%
Spot the failure

44. 2009 'The irrational side of change management'
by Atkin & Keller consultants at McKinsey
"…in 2008, a McKinsey survey of
3,199 executives around the world
found, as Kotter did, that only one
transformation in three succeeds.”

45. What Kotter actually said
“A few of these corporate change efforts have been
very successful. A few have been utter failures.
Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt
toward the lower end of the scale.”

46. What is success?

47. What is success?
Small firms = Survival
Large firms = Profit
(Reijonen, H. and R. Komppula 2007)

48. 2016 - Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer -
Stanford University
‘Why the Assholes are Winning:
Money Trumps All’

49. Only 4 companies made both
Fortune’s most admired and
their best places to work lists in
2015
Success Criteria

50. Admiration and criteria of organizational success
boils down to
“financial success in terms of stock price
appreciation and wealth creation”
Success Criteria

51. 2011 Mark Hughes - University of Brighton UK - failure rates
of organisational change programmes and found that :

52. 2011 Mark Hughes - University of Brighton UK - failure rates
of organisational change programmes and found that :
“…whilst the existence of a popular
narrative of 70% organizational-
change failure is acknowledged, there
is no valid and reliable empirical
evidence to support such a narrative”

53. Not only is there
NO EVIDENCE
70% of change programmes fail

54. Not only is there
NO EVIDENCE
70% of change programmes fail
What little evidence there is suggests the
failure rate is most likely around 6%

55. Join us today and get:
• Up-to-date Research Intelligence 1-3 times a
week, special reports and the Oxford Review
every month. and…
• To be the person to say “Have you read…”,
“There’s some research about that”, “I know some
research about this” and…
• To be the most up-to-date & impressively well-
informed person around

56. www.oxford-review.com