Putting people at the center of change- an article by BCG.

Today I would like to recommend this short article by BCG, that I found helpful in one of my recent projects. The authors are very perceptive in their diagnostic of why so many corporate transformations projects fall short of their goals these days and how putting people at the heart of the change process can make a significant difference. 

The BCG team start by highlighting that “75% of change programs fail to capture long-term value”, and it describes a common trend in our economies which is that “as companies strive to increase the speed with which they generate and implement solutions for their transformation projects, they tend to overlook a critical limitation factor on their efforts: the speed at which employees can absorb and internalize change.”

These results, unsurprisingly, in “strained individuals who were unable to adapt and poor business outcomes”. “Their ability to absorb change becomes the bottleneck that needs to be managed.”

The BCG team argues that, to have a chance of success, teams must first develop a “granular understanding of their workplace ecosystem” and of the kind of pressures and demands that individuals face in the performance of their daily tasks. Only then can they put in place appropriate support strategies, which they describe further.

The article concludes with this insightful advice- “Competitive advantage is shifting to organizations that can not only generate and implement great ideas but also support their employees in adopting them. Whether the issue is assessing employees’ ability to absorb and internalize rapid change or developing change leadership capacity, … this kind of organizational knowledge and skills … will be increasingly critical for a successful transformation.”