How to Implement Organizational Change

Essay by golf_officerUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, June 2006

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"Between 50 and 70% or organizational change efforts fail" (Hammer & Champy, 1993).

In light of this statement from the "inventors" of reengineering it is not surprising that the concept is being met with a certain amount of apathy and disdain these days.

It is becoming increasingly clear that organizations are very capable of designing change but less capable of implementing that change. Furthermore, it is clear that short-term organizational pressures and long term organizational change frequently create a dichotomy. It has been apparent that change efforts did not succeed because the demands of the present became too overwhelming to allow the necessary focus on the long term.

The result is that when people are confronted with the opportunity of changing their organization, the most immediate reaction is "If it works don't fix it." The main problem is that they can't see that it is broken. The only escape from implementation failure due to the demands of the present is the application of a systematic, rigorous and step-by-step approach to the subject.

Over the last decade we have found several common traits in change efforts that actually produced the required change.

First of all you need to ensure that ALL the members of the executive team who are affected by the change, or who will be, are aligned on what the output/goals of the change ought to be. The executive team must produce a set of goals and an executive behavior model appropriate to drive the achievement of these goals.

Critical to the achievement of change is that the executive team understands and agrees on the critical business reason for embarking on the effort. If no reason can be identified, the effort will fail.

Next the executive goals need to be communicated to each level of the organization in a...