Top Change Risks and How to Overcome Them Conversation-by-Conversation

Top Change Risks Are Real
Despite well-intentioned strategies and careful planning, research by McKinsey shows that nearly 70% of large-scale change initiatives fail to meet their objectives. The culprits are rarely technical or tactical. They’re human. People resist what they don’t understand, don’t trust, or don’t believe in.

If you want your transformation to take root, you must identify and mitigate the most common change risks before they stall progress.  Change management experts suggest a new, simplified way to look at managing organizational change risks effectively.  They suggest thinking of the change process as one that occurs conversation-by-conversation.

After all, aren’t most changes catalyzed through dialogue — productive discourse where ideas are exchanged and modified according to the influence of others?

Top Change Risks Are Different By Change Management Phase
Change fails when it’s treated as a project instead of a journey. The most successful organizations view change as a leadership capability that combines clarity, alignment, and accountability. When strategy, culture, and talent move together, change sticks. And when it sticks, it transforms.

Throughout a change initiative, change risks change in complexity, strength, and form.  If you agree that communicating effectively with one another is a way to introduce, gain support for, and implement organizational change, then it is critical that the communication of and through change be handled right.  To excel (and in some cases to survive), companies and leaders must have the capability to successfully navigate change.

Top Four Change Risks by Phase
In our over thirty years of change management consulting, we consistently run into the same major change risks during the four primary phases of change:

1. Phase 1: As You Set the Stage for Change
   A lack of understanding of why the change is needed, disagreement about the level of urgency for change, confusion about what the change is meant to achieve, or misalignment on the current state of affairs.
2. Phase 2: As You Guide the Change
   An unclear vision for change, a weak business case for the change, or lack of a designated change leadership coalition to lead the change.
3. Phase 3: As You Make Change Happen
   Inadequate change communication, training, or empowerment of managers and teams throughout the organization.  Change management simulations are a great way to help individuals and teams navigate the change curve.
4. Phase 4: As You Make Change Stick
   A failure to provide enough change incentives or to acknowledge small change wins that reinforce the desired changes.

Four Change Management Guidelines to Mitigate Change Risk
In each phase of change, there is a breakdown in communication — whether through a lack of clarity, inadequate dialogue, or failure to reinforce desired behaviors. Here are four change risk management guidelines to ensure that your communications around change are positive and successful:

1. Actively Include All Employees in the Conversation, Especially at the Start
   The more people are involved at every level, the less opportunity there is for confusion, upset, and resistance. A major change initiative will affect the entire workforce.  Actively involve key stakeholders to give everyone a chance to find out where they fit in the new order and how “their world” will be changed.If you leave anyone out of the discussion, you leave room for misunderstandings, rumors, and even mutiny.
2. Throughout the Process, Make Sure the Change Communication Goes Two Ways
   Schedule ample time and opportunity for real dialogue that includes questions and honest answers. This should happen at every gathering — at the launch, at team meetings, at progress updates, and at final wrap-up and project evaluation.
3. Require Every Team Meeting Include the Change as a Major Part of their Agenda
   Team members need to share their thoughts on how they view the change. A sharing of perspectives is necessary to promote better understanding of how the team can collaborate for change success.  Meetings should be held as often as needed to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks and that everyone is on board.  The open sharing of information is critical to the success of the initiative.
4. Don’t Stop Communicating as the Change Takes Effect
   This is the time to track progress, acknowledge the wins and reinforce the desired behaviors. Good discussions around what is going right and what needs adjustment enable the change to keep moving in the hoped-for direction.

The Bottom Line
Change is never easy —especially when most  prefer the status quo. But when you use positive two-way conversations to support the change process, change is easier and more likely to succeed.

To learn more about managing the top change risks, download 3 Proven Ways To Better Manage Stakeholder Risk