Reasons For Failureof an Estimated 66% of all Change Initiatives Essay

Reasons For Failureof an Estimated 66% of all Change Initiatives - Essay Example Change initiatives come under different names such as total quality management, restructuring, cultural change and rightsizing among others (Ismail 2011, p. 3). The main drivers of change include mergers and acquisitions, innovation, technological change, decreased sales or market share and reorganization. Other drivers of change are globalization, a sense of urgency and the case when 75 percent of the leadership in an organization honestly gets convinced that the organization, as it is currently, is not an acceptable plan (Kotter, 1995, p. 3). However, the main motivation behind organizational change is to enable it to deal with a new and more challenging market by introducing changes to the way it conducts it activities. Despite the critical role that organizational change plays, failure to maintain significant change occurs time and again (Kotter 1995, p. 3). This is even despite the fact that a significant amount of resources is invested in such initiatives as highly talented hum an resources and high capital investment. As noted by Ismail (2011, p. 3), changes intended to target improvement of quality, enhance culture and turn around corporate collapse only end up giving lukewarm results. They assert that more than 66 percent of these change initiatives fail miserably (Ismail 2011, p. 4). The paper seeks to presents the reasons behind such high failures of organizational changes. Reasons Why Change Initiatives Fail According to Kotter (1995, p. 3), after observing various organizations – be they large or small organizations – introduce change, only a few have been successful. Most of these change initiatives fail during the course of their implementation. The basic lesson learnt from the successful initiatives is that the process of change goes through phases which require a considerable length of time. In case a step is skipped in the process of change, the organization can never get satisfying results (Harris 2006, p. 37). In addition, any m istake made during any of the steps can spell doom for the success of the initiatives. One of the major mistakes which can lead to failure of the change initiative is failure to establish a large enough sense of urgency. Every successful change initiative starts when some persons or a group in an organization assess the competitive situation, technological trends, market position and financial standing (Harris 2006, p. 38). After identifying any drawback in the performance of the organization, such individuals are able to communicate such information pointing out to the potential risks and the potential opportunities available. In organizations which go through successful change, such information is communicated in a timely manner and the organization begins aggressive measures to bring changes. However, some organizations fail right from this initial step. As stated by Cummings (2008, p. 37), people are the greatest impediment to change. Consequently, when a proposal to bring chang es to the organization are suggested, organization executives start feeling that introduction of changes can result in reduced morale among employees, the senior management will be apprehensive to such change proposed and that change may run out of control. Additionally, the executives may fear that the change could negatively affect the short-term targets of the business, that the stock prices would be negatively affected and that they can be blamed for causing