Top 20+ change management mistakes to avoid

Top 20+ change management
mistakes to avoid

Mistake - #1 - Starting too late
• Pressure to act quickly undermines values and culture
• Leaders take drastic steps quickly with no time to explore
alternatives
• Values about participation, involvement, or concern for
people disappear
• Cynicism grows
18 October 2014 www.torbenrick.eu 2

Mistake - #2 - No winning strategy
• The best change program in the
world won’t do any good if your
organisation doesn’t have a strategy
for getting where it wants to go

Mistake - #3 - Fanfare
• All too often organizations announce big
changes and new programs with big events
and fanfare, but then very little actually
happens
• The initial energy and enthusiasm fades,
specific changes are never identified let
alone implemented, results aren’t realized,
managers don’t adjust, or maybe something
even better comes along leading to a new
“launch” with new fanfare

Mistake - #4 - Employees hear it from the media first
• Journalists dig for information, and
items can run in the media before
employees hear about them
• Middle managers look dumb and
uninformed
• Employees feel insulted and left
out

Mistake - #5 - Failure to make a compelling
and urgent case for change
• Failure to create a strong sense of urgency causes a change
movement to lose momentum before it gets a chance to
start
• Establishing a true sense of urgency without creating an
emergency is the first objective achieved to overcome the
routine of daily business

Mistake - #6 - Only focusing on the rational elements
• Organizational change will be extremely difficult in most
cases if managers rely only on making a case to the rational,
analytical, problem-solving side of the brain
• Instead, they must also make an emotional case for change
and align the rational and emotional elements of the appeal
• Before you can get buy-in, people need to feel the problem

Mistake - #7 - Not dealing proactively with resistance
• Managing resistance to change is challenging and it’s not
possible to be aware of all sources of resistance to change
• Expecting that there will be resistance to change and being
prepared to manage it is a proactive step
• It’s far better to anticipate objections than to spend your
time putting out fires, and knowing how to overcome
resistance to change is a vital part of any change
management plan

Mistake - #7 - Not dealing proactively with resistance

Mistake - #8 - everyone’s reaction will be
even remotely like yours
• One of the biggest mistakes you can make in initiating major
company changes is to expect that everyone’s reaction will
be even remotely like yours.
• Regardless of the catalyst for the change, it will be your
employees who determine whether it successfully achieves
its desired outcome.
• Organizations don’t change . People do – or they don’t.

Mistake - #9 - Lack of communication
• Change management communications need to be
targeted to each segment of the workforce, and delivered in
a two-way fashion that allows people to make sense of the
change subjectively

Mistake - #10 - Not enough leadership
• To many leaders focus too much on management and too
little on leadership

Mistake - #11 - Ignoring current corporate culture
• All change in organisations is
challenging, but perhaps the
most daunting is changing
culture
• When people in an organization
realize and recognize that their
current organisational culture
needs to transform to support
the organisation’s success and
progress, change can occur.

Mistake - #11 - Ignoring current corporate culture
Do not under-estimate the status
quo culture
• What are the values of the
current culture and will they
need to change to ensure
success?
Culture eats strategy for breakfast,
lunch and dinner

Mistake - #12- Failure to understand and shape
the informal organization
• Organizations usually have networks and coalitions of
people that are not visible on the formal organization chart.
These networks and coalitions help shape opinion
• They can either accelerate or retard change. Ignoring or
circumventing these groups can result in actual resistance

Mistake - #13 - Not involving the employees
• Leaders must actively involve the people most affected
by the change in its implementation
• This will help ensure employees at all levels of the
organization embrace the proposed changes

Mistake - #14 - Over-reliance on structure and
systems to change behavior
• Structural and systems changes help create a new context
and orientation. And they have the surface appeal of being
visible and fast
• But people do not become different just because you put
them in a new context
• Structures and systems, by themselves, don’t change
people’s behavior or give them new skills

Mistake - #15 - Failure to distinguish between
decision-driven and behavior dependent change
• Getting people to change their behavior requires a different
mindset and a different set of leadership skills than making
decisions about strategy

Mistake - #16 - Lack of skills and resources
• Change does not happen through goals and exhortation
alone. Like any business operation, It also calls for the right
skills and resources
• Organizations often simply fail to commit the necessary
time, people, and resources to making change work
• Paradoxically, successful behavior change often demands
the very skills the change Is trying to create

Mistake - #17 - Focusing only on the long term
• Large-scale organizational change is a long process
• Break down your vision into smaller short-term goals, and
communicate short-term successes at each opportunity

Mistake - #18 - Failing to plan small successive
successes
• An important part of sticking to the vision is to create
opportunities to achieve smaller goals along the way
• These small successes will not only work directly toward
achieving the desired change, but will create positive
feelings of accomplishment and the drive to pursue the next
goal

Mistake - #19 - Using the wrong indicators
to measure progress
• When a major change effort gets under way, executives
often are scared off by the symptoms of their success
• Don’t panic if you see problems vis-à-vis morale, job stress,
loyalty, the trust level or job satisfaction
• It could be proof that you’re doing precisely the right things

Mistake - #20 - Assuming that change is complete
once initial goals are achieved
• If you declare victory too soon, the focus will be taken away
from your efforts, and all traces of your hard work could
soon disappear
• Successful companies consistently re-evaluate their change
efforts to determine where other areas can be improved,
such as employee development and retention, new projects
and new systems and structures

Mistake - #21 - Excessively open-ended process
• Achieving fundamental change in an organization is at least
a 2 to 3 year process
• But organizations often run out of energy or lose focus after
9 to 15 months

Top 20+ change management mistakes to avoid

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