3 Questions Every Change Consultant Should Be Able To Answer
Managers are trained to lead operations, not change. You usually get promoted to management by being good at your job. You try to keep things running smoothly, service your customers, develop talent, take care of your employees, and improve things where you can. It’s often a struggle to keep the trains running on time.
So when the need arises to pursue a transformational initiative, an organizational change management team is usually brought in, either from a consulting firm or from a vendor. They will usually bring a formal change management model like Kotter’s 8 steps, Prosci’s ADKAR or something similar, formulated internally.
Don’t get fooled by fancy charts. These models are notoriously unsuccessful and you shouldn’t just accept them. McKinsey has found that 69% of transformation efforts fail. A more recent study by Bain found that only 12% succeeded and 75% had mediocre results. Change is an investment and, like any other, you need to ask good questions. Here are three:
1. What Evidence Is The Change Model Based On?
We know a lot about change. Everett Rogers published the last edition of The Diffusion of Innovations in 2003, which contained hundreds of studies of how change spreads. These ranged from the seminal study of the…
