Org Change Failure is the Norm

In my last post, I explored one of the many parallels between my personal health journey and organizational change. I’ve been fortunate to experience success in both areas—but I’ve also encountered failure. And those failures have been very valuable.  It’s nice knowing what NOT to do.

Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson outlines six distinct types of failure. While modern change models address some of these, they certainly don’t cover them all:

1. Sabotage – “I don’t want to.”

2. Inattention – “I’m not that interested.”

3. Inability – “I don’t know how.”

4. Task Complexity – “It’s so hard it can’t be done consistently well.”

5. Ambiguity – “I don’t know what to do.”

6. Experimentation – “I tried something new and…”

   
   

Most change models do a solid job addressing the first three—and many touch on the fourth. They do this by identifying a c

ompelling opportunity, creating urgency, crafting a clear vision, engaging stakeholders, offering training, and building robust communication plans. These are the fundamentals, and most organizations execute them reasonably well.

So where does it go wrong?

The trouble often begins when the original plan meets the real world. Adjustments become necessary. As these changes accumulate, ambiguity creeps in. And where there’s ambiguity, there’s either paralysis—or scattered, uncoordinated action that doesn’t lead to meaningful progress.

This is the tipping point. Tension rises. Conflict spreads. Like a health issue that starts in one system and then cascades through the body, organizational dysfunction becomes harder to diagnose and even harder to resolve.  Just as many doctors are ill equipped to look across your body’s systems, change practitioners struggle with the outcome adapted execution required to drive change. 

I’ve seen this happen in organizations that followed many of the “right” steps. I’ve also seen it in personal health journeys. The lesson? Getting the team on board, training the “new skills”, and great communication isn’t enough to get you there.  Ask your change practitioner to share their execution process!