The Change Catalyst

Secrets to Successful and Sustainable Business Change

Campbell Macpherson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781119386261
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119386216
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Development
• Index: Business

WINNER OF BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 (The Business Book Awards)

"Essential reading for CEOs and leaders of change." - Martin Davis, CEO, Kames Capital

88% of change initiatives fail. The Change Catalyst provides you with the insight, tools and know-how you need to make sure your next change, strategy or M&A is the one in eight that succeeds.

Whether you're trying to change a process, a culture, a behaviour or an entire business, success demands complete clarity of what you are trying to achieve and why, followed by a clear plan to align your people to deliver. All change is about people, and one of the most important ingredients for successful change is the identification and appointment of a Change Catalyst. This is the person who can guide your organisation – its people and its processes – to the ultimate delivery of the outcomes your business needs.

The book takes you deep inside the culture and process of change to show you how to set yourself up for success in both the short and long term; identify your goal, clarify your vision, stay focused on the outcome and develop and deliver a do-able plan. It will also explain how to genuinely engage stakeholders at all levels in every stage of the process. Real-world case studies show you what a successful change initiative looks like on the ground, and the Change Toolbox offers a collection of proven tools and models to streamline planning and implementation. Clear, intelligent guidance cuts through the buzzwords to get down to business quickly, and a pragmatic, holistic approach helps you tackle strategy, culture, execution and more.

People don't like change; it rattles their cages and makes them uncomfortable – and emotion trumps logic every time. This book shows you how to pinpoint the emotional triggers, coax logic out of hiding and get everyone on board as you drive real, lasting change.

• Learn why typical change initiatives are far more likely to fail than succeed.
• Identify your Change Catalyst to strengthen both process and outcome.
• Overcome cultural challenges and turn understanding into transformation.
• Develop and implement a solid strategy for successful change.

Whether you want change at the team level or on a government scale, no initiative is immune from the perils of inertia, misguided focus, distracted leadership or muddled planning. Change is inevitable. Successful change isn't.

The Change Catalyst will tilt the odds on your favour and enable your next change initiative to be among the 12% that succeeds.

Part One
Why 88% of Change Initiatives Fail

After several decades of instigating change in many dozens of organisations of all sizes – as a consultant, as an adviser and as an in-house change leader – I have come to the conclusion that there are ten main reasons why the vast majority of change initiatives fail:

1. People don't like change
2. Lack of clarity regarding what we are trying to achieve and why
3. The implications are not fully understood
4. Obsession with process over outcomes
5. Inertia
6. The project is set up to fail
7. Poor communications and disingenuous stakeholder engagement
8. We forget that emotions trump logic every time
9. A change-averse culture
10. Leadership doesn't stay the course.

All of the above are intertwined. We humans seem to be hard-wired to resist change, which means that every change initiative starts with an inherent handicap. On top of this, change leaders can be unclear about what they are aiming to achieve and why – a cast-iron guarantee that the change programme is unlikely to deliver. ‘Implications' are often overlooked. Outcomes are often overshadowed by process. The power of inertia is such that it is difficult enough getting a change programme off the ground let alone diverting it when it starts to go off-track. Accountability can be unclear or the governance structure inappropriate. Communications can be far too superficial, stakeholder management can be a ‘tick-the-box' exercise and we forget that people need to be motivated emotionally to embrace change. Sometimes, an organisation's culture can work against the adoption of new ways of working. Then, to top it all off, leadership commitment can wane, often as implementation begins.

Let us address each one of the above points in a little more detail.

Chapter 1
People Don't Like Change

‘The world hates change, yet it is the only thing
that has brought progress.’

Charles Kettering¹

Source: https://www.torbenrick.eu/blog/change-management/change-management-comic-strips/

The over-riding conundrum that change leaders must continually confront is that we humans simply do not want to change.

And yet we have to.

Companies certainly have to change constantly – or there is a very real danger that they will cease to exist. Does anyone remember Netscape and its once-dominant Navigator web browser that Microsoft saw off with Internet Explorer 20 years ago?

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Why change fails:

People don't like change

Lack of clarity

1. Implications unknown
2. Process over outcomes
3. Inertia
4. Set up to fail
5. Poor communications
6. Emotions trump logic
7. A change-averse culture
8. Ineffective leadership

Or PanAm, once the world's premier international airline? Polaroid? Circuit City? Borders? Blockbuster? Enron, Eastern Airlines, TWA, MCI Worldcom, Compaq, Woolworths (both the US and UK varieties), Standard Oil, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Arthur Andersen, General Foods, HMV, Kodak, Game, Clinton Cards, Jessops, Comet, Zavvi (nee Virgin Megastore), Ansett Airlines, British Leyland, Rover, NPI, Telewest, Northern Rock, RBS, BHS² … an infinitesimally small selection of the brands and companies that either no longer exist or are shadows of their former selves.

Corporate history is indeed littered with now defunct organisations which, once they truly recognised the reality of the situation and the seriousness of the dangers lurking ahead, were unable to change their business model in time. Complacency is the cancer that has killed many a corporation. But, as Clayton Christensen explained brilliantly in his book The Innovator's Dilemma,³ complacency is a trap that befalls a significant number of market leaders. It is inordinately difficult to instigate change when things are going well.

One company that has been able to change with the times is the perennial Microsoft, still one of the top five companies in the US. It has had its fair share of flops (Zune, Windows ME, Vista, Windows Messenger, IE6, Windows Mobile …) but this small list of fumbles pales into insignificance beside the gigantic successes of MS-DOS, Windows XP, MS Office,
X-Box, et al.

One of Bill Gates's most impressive accomplishments was the way in which he fundamentally changed the direction of the entire company in the mid-1990s. The arrival of Netscape alerted the world to the fact that the all-powerful Microsoft had missed the biggest development in computing since the PC itself – the Internet. As soon as Bill Gates recognised that he and his mighty company had been caught napping, he set about transforming Microsoft to be completely focused on the web.

The technological transformation (supported by aggressive marketing techniques that, in turn, almost brought Microsoft down) ensured that Windows and Internet Explorer were swiftly cemented as the world's de facto standards. Microsoft emerged even more powerful and more dominant than before. The clarity of vision and the determination to execute the change was one of the most impressive and successful major change initiatives that the business world has ever witnessed.

Of course, companies cannot change unless individuals do. Corporate change is the culmination of a myriad of personal changes. As individuals, we too must change continually. We need to learn, grow, adapt and improve. If we don't, the best outcome is that we will stagnate. More often than not, we will be left behind. If you are in any doubt about this, just ask any of the many millions of lower-skilled workers in the West who have been left jobless and hopeless by globalisation (an ideal case study of exceedingly poor change management on a global scale which we discuss in Chapter 34).

We humans don't like change. Why?

From my experience, fear is the main reason why people resist change: fear of failure, fear of the unknown and fear of being blamed for not changing earlier. Another strong obstacle to change is what I call ‘the comfort of victimhood’. Perceiving one's self as a victim is both seductive and destructive – and it is very common.

Sometimes, the long-term gains simply don't seem to be worth the short-term pain. The last major change resistor is a lack of support – we need help to change but it is nowhere to be found, so we give up at the first hurdle.

If you want your people to embrace a new way of working, these are the demons you will need to help them confront. And it doesn't matter where they sit in your organisation – in the Board room or on the shop floor – the demons are the same for everybody.

#1 Reason Why People Resist Change: Fear of Failure

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Why we resist change:

Fear of failure

1. Fear of the unknown
2. Fear of blame
3. Victimhood
4. Incredible upside
5. Lack of assistance

‘Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.’

Jack Lemmon⁴

Fear of failure is an extremely strong source of resistance.

We know that we need to change; we may even genuinely believe that the new world (if it arrives as promised) will be better than today. But then we pick up a damned business book and find that the odds of success are 8:1 against!

Fear of failure is a recognised condition – ‘atychiphobia’.

According to that repository of sometimes dubious wisdom, Wikipedia:

‘Those with atychiphobia create a direct link between the possibility of failure and competition; and in an inherently comp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Part Zero: Change is Inevitable
• Part One: Why 88% of Change Initiatives Fail
• Part Two: The Necessary Ingredients for Successful Change
• Part Three: Culture Change
• Part Four: Getting Down to Business
• Part Five: And Finally, Tell ‘em What You Told ‘em
• Index
• End User License Agreement