Scarcely a day goes by that I don't read another article or blog about why a change management initiative has been a desperate failure, or went off the rails, or got hijacked and never lived up to its potential.  That's fine, as far as it goes - it's good to understand why things go wrong - but I've been involved with all kinds of highly successful change management initiatives and I'm here to tell you that, despite what you may read, failure is not inevitable.

In fact, I think it might be more helpful to ask ourselves why change efforts succeed:  What factors are required for change initiatives to achieve the results they set out to achieve?

In my 20+ yeas of change management experience, I've learned that the answers to "Why does change succeed?" are the following:

1.  Provide clear reasons for change

There's nothing more guaranteed to get employees to dig their heels in that to announce wholesale changes without explanation, reason or context. People don't like to be 'bossed' around or treated like children.  So take the time to explain why the change is taking place:  Maybe it's for competitive advantage, maybe it's because the marketplace has changed, maybe it's because the shareholders are getting restive.  As long as the reasons are rational and make basic sense, communicating them will make the change process go much more smoothly.

2.  Strive for engagement

Successful change doesn't happen when a small team of senior leaders drags the rest of the organization kicking and screaming into the new world.  Successful change requires everyone in the organization to be engaged in the process and the results.  By providing clear reasons for the change, you've already taken the first step to engaging your workforce; ensuring that they continue to be engaged throughout the process will turn your group into a team which is striving for the same goal.

3.  Make change make sense

Moving your head office 50 miles from one city to another take advantage of improved transportation, raw materials and tax breaks may make perfect sense in the boardroom when the decision is made.  But it won't make sense to the 2500 workers who are about to be displaced unless you can explain to them what this change will mean for the organization.  Does it mean you'll stand a better chance of surviving a difficult economic climate in the next few years? Does it mean you'll be able to reduce the prices for your product and therefore grow the company, with increased opportunity for everyone?  If you don't take the time to explain, all you'll end up with is a resentful workforce.

4.  Communicate!  

Ever notice how sports coaches are always talking to their players?  They talk to them before the game, during the game, after the game - they're constantly communicating instructions, feedback, motivation and strategy.  The same principle is true for change initiatives:  Change will be more successful when communication is continual and consistent.

5.  Stay positive

A few weeks ago, we talked about how a positive culture means a positive bottom line.  A positive environment - leaders who are enthusiastic about change, cultivating an attitude of resiliency and adaptability when it comes to change - will go a long way to ensuring that the team can stay focused on the change and not get sidetracked by resistance or delays to address trumped-up obstacles.

It's just possible that by focusing on the ways in which change succeeds - and spending a little less time on why it fails - the prospect of change may not seem quite so daunting.

Sometimes, memos just aren't enough

The supply chain department in a global healthcare organization was given a clear directive:  Cut $50 millin in costs in the next 12 months or there are going to be serious cutbacks, and this department won't be immune.

Mid-level supply chain manager Adam was both ambitious and smart, and had all kinds of ideas for saving $50 million.  In weekly meeting after weekly meeting, he presented his ideas using carefully prepared PowerPoint slides.  Everyone around the table murmured appreciatively, but nothing ever seemed to happen.

In his researches, Adam had discovered that the company purchased latex gloves in all 22 countries in which it operated, and it always purchased the same brand.  The problem was that the prices from country to country varied widely:  Gloves that cost 10 cents a pair in, say, Canada, were costing as much as 40 cents a pair in other countries.

With a total spend of more than $250 million in latex gloves every year, Adam figured the company could easily save $50 million just by reducing the number of suppliers they used around the world, and established a consistent pricing structure.

However, knowing that another memo or PowerPoint deck would fall on deaf ears, Adam tried a different approach.

He contacted all 22 of the company's offices around the world, and asked them to send him a pair of gloves and the price they were paying per pair.  In the next weekly meeting, he bypassed the PowerPoint presentation and instead laid out all 22 pairs of gloves on the table.  To each pair of gloves was attached a price tag indicating the cost of the pair in the country in which they'd been purchased.  Then he wrote '$50 million' on the whiteboard at the front of the room.

As other staff members filed in, they looked at the gloves on the table, looked at the whiteboard, and started to ask questions.

The result?  Adam had approval to move forward on his glove purchasing rationalization plan within 10 minutes, after weeks of geting nowhere.

Why?  Because his 'display' was more engaging than yet another email, memo or PowerPoint presentation; because it didn't require his co-workers to read through paragraphs of text to understand; and because most people realize that any concept which can be explained that simply is probably a good one.  He'd hit all the right notes:  He'd increased engagement, reduced effort and generated in-the-moment consensus.

The lesson for change management professionals - and, indeed, for anyone who wants to effect change in their organization but is meeting roadblocks - is that it's easier to engage people when you can demonstrate your point in a more compelling way, and engagement is the first step to effective change implementation.

A few years ago I worked with a mid-sized professional services company which was owned by two partners.  Wtih revenues of about $40 million, the company was growing at a steady pace and needed to transition from an entrepreneurial, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants culture to one which had at least a few established policies, procedures and processes.

At first, everything went well:  The entrepreneurial culture meant that both the partners and most of the employees were comfortable with change, so I didn't anticipate too much resistance to implementing the strategies we'd agreed to.  

Until we got to the new CRM software.

Part of my role was to oversee the configuration of new CRM software - which tracked sales, clients, projects and accounting - so that it more closely matched the way the business worked.  With that in mind, we'd carefully gathered insight from the different departments, mapped out the business processes, and identified the various roles within the organization.

One of the things we determined was that, because many of their clients had both a head office and a branch office, we needed two address fields in every record.  Typically, the branch office was where the work was done while the head office was where the bills were sent.  The problem?  The partners couldn't agree which address should come first on the screen.

Partner A was adamant that the billing address was most important, so it should come first; Partner B was equally adamant that  the location where the work was done was most important and it should come first.  From a functionality perspective, it made no difference which came first - both showed up at the top of the screen anyway.  But the debate raged on.

For two weeks, we (the change team) waited for a final decision so we could move forward to beta testing.  Finally I realized that without intervention, the stalemate would never end.  My solution?  I bought a $250 bottle of wine - both partners were connoisseurs - put it down in front of them and said I'd give it to the one who gave in first.

I had a decision within 10 minutes.

However, I learned a valuable lesson:  No matter how change-receptive or easy-going an organization may be, it's crucial to establish a decision-making hierarchy at the outset, especially if there are multiple high-ranking decision-makers within the organization.  I could have saved myself a lot of headache (as well as $250) if I'd insisted, at the outset, that one partner be designated as the final arbiter in the event of a dispute.

Tips for easier decision-making management:

- Make decision-making process mapping a part of the very first meetings with the client

- Ensure that all project leaders are aware of - and buy in to - the decision-making hierarchy

- Attach levels of importance to various decisions involved in the change process, so that small ones can be dealt with by managers while larger ones require a director-level or above

- Establish a final decision-maker who has the authority to make a decision and shut down further discussion

- Recognize that what you may see as a 'small' decision may be a big one to others - and have a plan to deal with it.

A few weeks ago I took part in a workshop session with other change leaders and coaches.  It's always interesting to hear how other people approach organizational change - you never know when you might learn something new - but I found myself disagreeing wholeheartedly with one participant, also a change management consultant.

"I never spend time reviewing an organization's history," he said.  "That's just wasted time.  I'm here to help them move forward, not dwell on the past."

While I agree with the last part of his statement - as change management consultants, we're supposed to be helping companies move forward into a changed environment - I don't believe that it's productive to ignore an organization's history.  What organizations can achieve is dependent upon their people, and people are the sum of their experiences, their history - they can't just reinvent themselves at 9 am on an arbitrary Monday morning and pretend their past experiences never happened.

In fact, you wouldn't want them to.  Much of your employees' value lies in their past experiences, both at work and in their personal lives.  Their education, their life experiences, their relationships with their team members - all of these can be positive assets as you move forward with change.

At the same time, of course, an organization's history can sometimes be a hurdle:  An ingrained resistance to change, old feuds between key departments, a non-productive attachment to outmoded business processes - all of these things can become obstacles to successful, productive change.

But ignoring these obstacles won't remove them from the path to change - and in fact you may be missing some key insight that could help your change strategy be more successful with less effort.  Here's an example:  You create a chanjge plan and issue edicts to various departments of the organization.  The purchasing department and the marketing department have had difficulty working together in the past, but you've decided that It's A New Day for the organization and proceed with your plans, assuming everyone will pull together - you don't have time to go into that history with them.  Except that 3 days before the change is supposed to take effect, you discover that the purchasing department hasn't released the funds the marketing department needs in order to properly communicate the change, and now you have to delay your change efforts for a month while the mess gets sorted out.  The organization loses money every day the project is delayed - and even more important, the change effort loses momentum while everyone waits around.

Now, there's something to be said for leadership encouraging employees to come to a change strategy with an open mind, and to try not to bring 'baggage' into the process.  But to pretend that the history of an organization - and that of its individual employees - doesn't exist only ends up being counterproductive.