We have all read it, probably even plenty of times: ‘70% of all change initiatives fail’. Indeed, this “fact” celebrates its 30th birthday next year (Hammer and Champy, Reengineering the Corporation, 1993). It appears in virtually every article of the HBR’s ‘10 Must Reads on Change Management‘ (2010), and the likes of McKinsey and Deloitte still use the claim to promote their own subject-matter expertise on their websites.
We all know that change management is a true challenge – as we deal with individual human behaviors and attitudes. We also all know that the real result may differ quite a lot from what we initially projected. But is that difference really an indicator of failure?
First of all, change isn’t a game of chess in which you win or lose. It is not black or white but includes a lot of grey. Take McKinsey’s own research from 2009: Out of 1,546 business executives from around the world, 38% agreed that their change program was “completely” or “mostly” successful in improving performance (while 30% saw a positive impact on their company’s health). McKinsey takes this as supporting evidence that true (McKinsey) expertise is needed to address the remaining two-thirds. On the other hand, the same survey also only had 10% of the surveyed executives considering their change programs to be “completely” or “mostly” unsuccessful. Judging by the actual statements, this 10%, to me, is a more accurate indicator of true failure, while we also see 50-60% in the “grey area” between a full success and a full failure.
Secondly, change is a dynamic process. If I think about change projects, I would challenge the idea of success and failure only being linked to the initial project targets. I would even claim the opposite: sticking fiercely to the initially specified scope and not being able to adapt along the way will, in the end, be the biggest reason for a change project to actually fail. Adapting your framework and approach as the change unfolds is a key enabler of success.
Michael Hammer, author of the initial article, even admitted himself two years after publication: “In Reengineering the Corporation, we estimated that between 50 and 70 percent of reengineering efforts were not successful in achieving the desired breakthrough performance. Unfortunately, this simple descriptive observation has been widely misrepresented and transmogrified and distorted into a normative statement. There is no inherent success or failure rate for reengineering.”
Still, the famous “70%” seems impossible to eliminate from the public discourse on change management. And even more surprisingly: despite all progress in the role and methods of change management over the last decades, this figure remains shockingly constant. But next time you are confronted with the number, you are aware it’s just an urban legend and marketing myth.
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