Managing Successful Change: Building a Coalition
An organization’s ability to manage change quickly and efficiently is imperative to its ability to unlock and maintain a competitive edge, year over year.
Regardless of whether or not the change is a product of a merger or acquisition, process redesign, or a new organizational structure, the benefits of the enhanced competitive prowess brought about by effectively managing change is undeniable.
However, despite the necessities and benefits behind managing change, the vast majority—up to 70 percent—of change management and improvement initiatives fail, or worse, create a new set of problems for the organization. A few prevailing reasons why such initiatives fail include:
- Resistance to change: 60%
- Limitations of existing systems: 42%
- Lack of executive consensus: 39%
- Lack of senior executive champion: 28%
- Unrealistic expectations: 28%
Knowing why such measures fail is vital to overcome these obstacles and create a pathway for change management initiatives to succeed within organizations, across various verticals and channels.
Per Insigniam’s vast experience leading successful change management projects, we’ve identified five critical success factors that must be present in order to achieve success with your own initiatives.
An Aligned Coalition
Forging an aligned leadership coalition—with a clear and agreed-upon direction—is an essential first step in managing change effectively. This coalition of leaders actively engages all the defined commitments, across the organization, for the purposes of changes. They are your change masters; the very people who must guide the project with accountability, ownership, and inspiration.
And speaking of inspiration, this group of champions inspires everyone else involved in the initiative. They “breathe life” into the people and actions that produce inspired results. They play an essential role in implementing your change management strategy.
