Ensure the success of your change initiative: stress test your case for change!

Last week I attended an interesting Webinar from Gartner about change fatigue.

According to data collected by Gartner, change fatigue is quickly becoming the number 1 priority for most HR organizations in 2023.

The reason is that the number of change initiatives in organizations is increasing exponentially; simultaneously, the enthusiasm of the workforce to embrace, or at least support these changes, is plummeting.

As a result, many organizations are currently looking for resources to address this, for instance in the form of change management methodologies (e.g. ADKAR), or by asking for support from specialized consulting boutiques.

The why of change

However, as valuable as these resources might be, it is important not to jump to the ‘how’, without paying attention to the ‘why’, the ‘what’ and ‘the team’.

In my personal experience, most people do not resist change if they understand the ‘why’, the ‘what’, and if they recognize ‘the team’.

In this post, I will deal with the why.

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What we can learn about change management from Sigmund Freud

One of my core beliefs as a management consultant is that the root cause of why change projects fail is the lack of a clear and convincing business case. In my experience, the vast majority of people are willing to change (even if this change has negative implications for them), as long as they understand the rationale behind the change and have the means (resources) to change.

However, I also have come across a number of people who did not want to change, even when there was a clear need to do so, and they had all the required capabilities and resources at their disposal.

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