Hint: It's not faulty strategy.
It's no lack of talented executives.
Nor is it insufficient funding.
No, it's something simpler and more fundamental: communication. Or more accurately, lack thereof.
That's the key conclusion of a new study, "Where Change Management Fails," from Robert Half Management Resources. The study (which included 300 senior managers at U.S. companies with 20 or more employees) notes that most organizational change efforts founder in the executional phase - on the shoals of broken or inadequate communication.
Survey respondents were asked, "Where do most change-management efforts commonly fail?" Only 10% said "strategy development," for example, while 46% said "execution."
Drilling down a little further, the research asked, "What is most important when leading your company or team through a major change?" 65% answered "communicating clearly and frequently" - far outdistancing "managing expectations" at 16% and "outlining goals" at 9%.
The research concluded: "The survey findings further suggest clear and frequent communication can be the remedy for what ails change-management efforts."
Objects at rest tend to stay at rest - Newton's first law of motion ("Objects at rest tend to stay at rest") provides a nice concise description of the core challenge facing organizational change efforts. Especially in well-established corporate cultures, my own management experience taught me it's considerably easier to rely on old readily understood ways of doing things than to find new ones. As I've written before, the nine most dangerous words in business may well be, "This is the way we've always done it here."
In short, I fully agree with these research findings. To counter normal organizational inertia, vibrant communication is vital. Ideally supported by senior management with the CEO playing a visible, genuinely involved role.
Otherwise, it's all too easy for a disconnect to develop between leadership and employees. Needs for change that are obvious to senior management actually may not be at all obvious to employees on the shop floor.
Hence the need for "clear and frequent" - and meaningful - communication.
And how big is the breadbox - how frequent is "frequent?"
My own unscientific but practical guidance: "Communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more."
Communicate before a project starts, so employees understand the background and strategic rationale for the endeavor.
Communicate during a project, so employees understand what they are doing and why - and why some dislocation is necessary.
Communicate after a project is completed, so employees will understand what was done and why it mattered.
Communicating with employees doesn't have to be an expensive proposition. It's largely an investment of management time and thought. As this study demonstrates, it's a most worthwhile investment.
In all my years in management I never heard one single employee complain he or she was being communicated with too directly or too often.
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Victor is author of The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World.
