management-issues change management report

What is it with change? Why do so many co-called business leaders seem to think that 'change' automatically leads to 'improvement'? And why do they implement it so badly?

Very often, the answer is that they simply forget that "Consultation = Smart" or "the worker knows best". Trying to implement change without consulting with the people who know most about the work is a recipe for disaster - so is change that reverses something that already works well.

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Essential Reading

Top strategies for embracing change

Individuals and groups that are able to adapt well to new demands seem to be more successful than those that resist and accept the inevitable slowly. But change is so difficult and is almost always resisted, so how can we best embrace it?

More than managing during change

Change is not easy. Dramatic and repeated changes are especially challenging. When you think that you are barely managing, take stock, because you may be doing much better than you realize.

Silence - the root cause of project failure

Want to know the real reason that major business initiatives or projects fail? According to new research, failing to discuss five key issues before embarking on a new initiative almost guarantees that it will get derailed.

What the hell, I'll give it a go

If you can't get your pressurised, exhausted, confused and cynical managers to the tipping point where their response to a new initiative is "what the hell, I'll give it a go", it spells failure for your business and its ambitions.

Nothing changes if nothing changes

People will willingly engage in change if they have genuine input to the process. So if we want a successful change effort, we need to change how we implement change. If we don't, we just might be a little insane.

Change needs to shake things up to be successful

Much as making an omelette depends on first cracking eggs, successful organisational change almost inevitably involves disrupting the status quo, employers have been told.

The cosmic egg of change

Change management models don't tend to worry about what happened before. They start as though everything just "was". But with all the evidence suggesting that change is inextricably linked to the past, it's no wonder it so often goes wrong.

Latest on Change


Understand change to make changes

To make improvements you will have to make changes. But to make successful changes you need to understanding why change happens, how it starts, continues, and stops.

It's time to rethink the way you think

Recent discoveries in how the brain functions have resulted in some startling new conclusions about implementing change. In other words, it's time to rethink how we think.

New M&As left leaderless for two and a half months

It's perhaps no wonder nine out of 10 European M&As fail to meet their objectives when senior managers take more than two and a half months to parachute in their new teams.

Managers drowning in change

Most American managers are juggling so many "priority" change projects they can't tell what's important and what's not - and so end up achieving nothing.

Spare us this permanent revolution

Managers are sick of the strategic nonsense doled out by their senior executives and are being worn down by a permanent revolution of ill thought-out projects and initiatives.

A breath of fresh air or just sweet FA?

Just as young footballers watch and copy the bad behaviour of their sporting idols, so employees copy the actions and inactions of their bosses. So remember, change starts at the top – and actions always speak louder than words.

Change management a growing headache

Managing change continues to be at the top of the corporate leadership agenda, but with middle managers growing increasingly change-weary, organizations are meeting increased resistance along the way.

People stop change happening

It isn't inadequate processes, strategy or technology that lead so many organisational change programmes to run into the sand. The main reasons for failed change are all about people.

So how the hell did that happen?

While it is often easy to identify the triggers for change with the benefit of hindsight, most of us have a pretty fuzzy grasp of what needs to be done now to accomplish change later.

Lay-offs have become norm of American working life

Americans have accepted corporate layoffs as the norm, in the process creating a society of unstable, temporary workers, a new book has argued.

Survival is an option - sort of

We all know people who have been axed as a result of corporate mergers, buy-outs, acquisitions or restructuring. But what about those who stay behind and try to herd their charges through the maze? How do they survive?

Too much change leads to corner-cutting

Organisations that repeatedly attempt to alter strategy in the name of improved efficiency will only creating an environment in which employees are overloaded and start taking short cuts.

Getting to the heart of organisational change

Successful organisational change should be as much about changing the way people think and behave as about overhauling how they work, workplace specialists have said.

Blinkered attitude to training hampering change

Two thirds of British businesses fail to back up organisational change with proper training and development support for their workers, vastly increasing the likelihood of long-term failure.

A good left foot?

Unless you want to spend your working life in mediocrity, it's time to decide if you are going to choose a life as a pioneer, leading the way in a land that only you know or spend it trailing in hostile environments.

Sometimes the only way to grow is to change

As cold as it may sound, the only thing constant in this world is change. And if we're going to survive, we need to learn to roll with the changes.

People failures undermine flagship IT projects

Multi-million pound corporate IT projects normally go wrong because companies become too pre-occupied with the technology and overlook the need to address how it will change the way their people work.

Jim Collins and Level 5 Leadership

Jim Collins is best known for his highly influential books Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies and recent bestseller Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don't. In his latest book, he examines how a good company becomes an exceptional company.

We're not up to the job, worry U.S bosses

In a world of ever more challenging organisational change, today's business leaders do not rate themselves or even feel up to the job, raising serious questions about the future profitability of their businesses, a U.S study has warned.

Transitions: the old, the new and the bridge in-between

Professional transitions come in many flavours – downsizing, promotion, career change – but underneath it all, the same dynamics are at work.

Ground down by corporate jargon

British workers are bombarded by corporate jargon and 'communications initiatives', yet complain they are none the wiser about what is really going on or whether what they are doing is making any difference.

Adpating, not restructuring, is the key to change

Fewer than one in three big companies undergoing a major restructuring programme ever achieve their efficiency or effectiveness objectives, research has suggested.

Australian bosses get big thumbs-down

Australia's CEOs have received a big thumbs-down from their own management teams, with a growing number viewiing their bosses as incompetent and obsessed with restructuring rather than leading.

Crash, sell, opportunity?

Knowing the weaknesses of your opponents is clearly advantageous. To use a tennis analogy, you might remember Sharapova focusing on Serena William's, relatively, weak forehand to clinch the 2004 Wimbledon final.

Stick or twist? Sick or twisted?

If the impact of change can't be simply drawn then be on guard. If it hasn't been created with the knowledge of those who are expected to implement it then fear for the worst! If it reverses the best things about the organisation then worry.

Employees would rather quit than live with change

An office relocation, a new boss or being asked to work longer hours feature among the main reasons why people decide to quit their jobs, new research suggests.

One in three workers never consulted over major changes

As many as one in three UK workers claim they are kept in the dark and never consulted when a major change occurs in their organisation

Don't rely on myth and anecdote when measuring human capital

Employers need to measure properly how workers contribute to a business, not rely on myth or anecdote if managers want to make the right decisions in the future, a new guide has suggested.

Managers get the innovation they deserve

Investment in innovation is likely to be wasteful unless the agenda to innovate is driven from the very top of the organisation, according to new research.

Firms still getting it wrong when it comes to change

Businesses spend a large chunk of their time failing to get the results they want because they are so bad at pushing through change.