Why Most Change Initiatives Fail?

How to D.R.I.V.E Purpose-Driven Systemic Change - Part-1

Initially very successful GM's Hummer toppled in later days. Either in the well-known crashes of Blockbuster, Kodak, and Nokia, or in less-known cases like Wistia, Tarsus Distribution, and ConvertKit organizations miserably failed either because of lack of change, or failed change initiatives. Experts state about 70% of all change initiatives fail and attribute many reasons for these failures. One of the consistent topper in these lists is lack of right leadership and issues revolving around it.

We all know change is the only constant and is inevitable. In Verse 9.10 of Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna, indicating the material world (jagat or sansar) always changes, says:

mayādhyakṣheṇa prakṛitiḥ sūyate sa-charācharam hetunānena kaunteya jagad viparivartate

Life changing events like world wars, revolutions - like Industrial, Green, dotcom etc - force the organizations to change a lot to adapt, and COVID-19 is no exception. To be resilient, and agile in a new, more challenging market environment, organizations need to take necessary steps for changing the way they operate, by laying a solid foundation for it now.

Whether businesses just go through or grow through this phase fully depends on how the change is handled. Because 'how you change things' is just as important as 'what you change'. Changes come in different shapes and sizes and fall somewhere in the spectrum between Adaptive and Transformational Changes.

It is neither easy or straight forward to improve performance of the organization through a comprehensive change program, thus making the job of Change Leaders tough. Change Leader need to understand unique and challenging demands of the specific situation and tailor the entire change initiative accordingly. Leading and managing change program requires a vastly different style of leadership, with special skill-sets, different mind-set, and heart-set, than the regular leader managing day to day operations.

D.R.I.V.E® Framework, with its associated models and tools, is an arsenal that equips Change Leaders with all the necessary tools to drive the purpose-driven systemic change. This framework can be applied effectively throughout 'Change Spectrum' to accelerate sustained change, with good Return on Invested Capital (ROIC).

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