Hang on, really? 70% of the changes I make FAIL? That seems harsh.
Sadly, it’s true. I discovered the hard facts as I spent years researching why my own changes fell flat so often. What was going on, I wondered and what can be done about it. I’m bright, motivated, capable and still change was tough going.
There is an entire field of study dedicated to change called Change Management. These folks ought to know about change, right so I looked at their data. Twenty years ago when the field was just getting started, change initiatives FAILED at a rate of 70% according to research by John Kotter in 1996. Ouch, that’s not good.
A study twelve years later in 2008 by McKinsey & Company re-examined the failure rate. Change initiatives were still FAILING failing 70% of the time.
A study by IBM echoed the same dismal results.
In 2013, the prestigious journal Harvard Business Review concluded that most studies “still show a 60-70% failure rate”. Nearly thirty years of applied work and the vast majority of change initiatives still FAIL.
If the experts are having this much trouble, is it any wonder the rest of us are?
What about the 30% of change initiatives that succeed?
I set out to unlock the secret of that 30% and the result of my study knocked me over.
It turns out that change, lasting and extraordinary change IS possible when the key steps in the science of change are followed. The problem has been skipping steps.
There are THREE Steps or Keys to making deep and fundamental change. Skip a step, the change doesn’t work and you join the 70% of failed attempts. Sure, you become briefly inspired to be brilliant, to shift, to leap and then it fades. Envisioning change by itself doesn’t work.
The problem has been thinking that following only one or two of the change steps will bring full change andit doesn’t work.
The book stores are full of self-help books mostly outlining how to fix this, solve that, improve something else. These books are talking about steps one and two. They miss the third step entirely!
Guess what? Mostly people don’t get the change results they wanted from the self-help books. I sure didn’t.
Think about it, most people who own a diet help book or an anger management book or a distress book buy more than one. The first one didn’t work. They second didn’t work either.
Follow the steps, all three steps, implement them fully and yes, change follows inevitably. No, not a two day high of excitement that fades a week later. No, not the “feel good” at the end of a great workshop that’s entirely gone by the end of the first week back at work.
Lasting and extraordinary change will come when you follow all three steps. You’ll join the 30% of change success stories.
If you’d like to learn more about the Keys to Change, I’d love to send you my free book, “Ditch Your Vision Board, Immediately”. Click the link below and I’ll rush it right to you.