Change programmes have a 70% failure rate. McKinsey has been saying this for two decades, and the number hasn’t moved. The plan gets signed off, the town hall goes well, and then six months later, everyone’s back to the old way of working. Change doesn’t fail at launch. It fails when it is no longer reinforced.
Most change training focuses on the announcement: the deck, the vision statement, the kickoff. Almost none of it addresses why change doesn’t stick, which is communication that fades after week two, problem-solving that stalls the moment reality doesn’t match the plan, and meetings that burn hours without moving anything forward.
Those are three separate, trainable skills. Think on Your Feet® gives leaders a structure for communicating change clearly under pressure, not just once, but every time someone asks “why are we doing this again?” Lateral Thinking gives teams a method for solving the problems that a change programme throws up, rather than freezing at the first obstacle. Six Thinking Hats® makes the meetings where change actually gets decided shorter and less adversarial, so momentum doesn’t die in the room.
Then there’s the accountability piece. Our Leading Change simulation puts people in charge of a transformation’s outcome, making the calls, getting it wrong, and adjusting before it’s their real transformation on the line.
If your last change programme was one of the 70%, another kickoff deck won’t fix it.
Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/transformation/our-insights/perspectives-on-transformation
