Top Change Risks: The 4 to Overcome to Succeed

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.
• 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 training 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 an isolated project instead of a holistic journey. The most successful organizations view change as a leadership capability that combines:

• Clarity.
• Alignment,
• 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 and influential change leadership coalition to drive 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.

4 Research-Backed Change Management Guidelines to Mitigate The Top Change Risks

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, back-channeling, 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. Make Change a Standing Agenda Item in Every Team Meeting
   If change is truly a priority, it should show up consistently in how teams spend their time. Make it a non-negotiable part of every team meeting agenda—visible, structured, and tied to real work.

   Create space for team members to share how they are interpreting the change, what they are experiencing on the ground, and where they see risks or opportunities. This exchange of perspectives builds alignment and commitment, surfaces blind spots early, and strengthens collective ownership of outcomes.

   Meet with the right cadence to maintain momentum — frequent enough to address issues before they escalate, but disciplined enough to stay focused on progress. Most importantly, ensure information flows openly. When change communication is transparent and two-way, teams stay engaged, coordinated, and far more capable of executing change successfully.

4. Don’t Let Communication Drop as Change Takes Hold
   The most vulnerable phase of any change effort begins once implementation is underway. This is when assumptions get tested, friction surfaces, and attention can drift. Communication cannot taper off here — it needs to become more targeted, more frequent, and more grounded in reality.

   Use this phase to actively track progress, recognize meaningful wins, and reinforce the behaviors that will sustain the change. Equally important, create space for honest dialogue about what is working and where adjustments are needed.

   When leaders keep communication visible, candid, and continuous, they maintain momentum, build credibility, and ensure the change evolves in the right direction rather than unraveling.

The Bottom Line
Change is inherently disruptive — especially when the status quo feels familiar and safe. Left unmanaged, that pull toward “how things have always been done” can quietly undermine even the most well-intended initiatives.  Are your leaders able to create space for open dialogue, listen as much as they direct, and reinforce progress in real time?

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

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.