Top 20+ change management mistake to avoid

Top 20+ change management 

mistake to avoid

Mistake - #1 - Starting too late 

• Pressure to act quickly undermines values and culture 

• Leaders take drastic steps quickly with no time to explore 

alternatives 

• Values about participation, involvement, or concern for 

people disappear 

• Cynicism grows 

20 July 2013 www.torbenrick.eu 2

Mistake - #2 - No winning strategy 

• The best change program in the 

world won’t do any good if your 

organisation doesn’t have a strategy 

for getting where it wants to go 


Mistake - #3 - Fanfare 

• All too often organizations announce big 

changes and new programs with big events 

and fanfare, but then very little actually 

happens 

• The initial energy and enthusiasm fades, 

specific changes are never identified let 

alone implemented, results aren’t realized, 

managers don’t adjust, or maybe something 

even better comes along leading to a new 

“launch” with new fanfare 


Mistake - #4 - Employees hear it from the media first 

• Journalists dig for information, and 

items can run in the media before 

employees hear about them 

• Middle managers look dumb and 

uninformed 

• Employees feel insulted and left 

out 


Mistake - #5 - Failure to make a compelling 

and urgent case for change 

• Failure to create a strong sense of urgency causes a change 

movement to lose momentum before it gets a chance to 

start 

• Establishing a true sense of urgency without creating an 

emergency is the first objective achieved to overcome the 

routine of daily business 


Mistake - #6 - Only focusing on the rational elements 

• Organizational change will be extremely difficult in most 

cases if managers rely only on making a case to the rational, 

analytical, problem-solving side of the brain 

• Instead, they must also make an emotional case for change 

and align the rational and emotional elements of the appeal 

• Before you can get buy-in, people need to feel the problem 


Mistake - #7 - Not dealing proactively with resistance 

• Managing resistance to change is challenging and it’s not 

possible to be aware of all sources of resistance to change 

• Expecting that there will be resistance to change and being 

prepared to manage it is a proactive step 

• It’s far better to anticipate objections than to spend your 

time putting out fires, and knowing how to overcome 

resistance to change is a vital part of any change 

management plan 


Mistake - #7 - Not dealing proactively with resistance 


Mistake - #8 - everyone’s reaction will be 

even remotely like yours 

• One of the biggest mistakes you can make in initiating major 

company changes is to expect that everyone’s reaction will 

be even remotely like yours. 

• Regardless of the catalyst for the change, it will be your 

employees who determine whether it successfully achieves 

its desired outcome. 

• Organizations don’t change . People do – or they don’t. 


Mistake - #9 - Lack of communication 

• Change management communications need to be 

targeted to each segment of the workforce, and delivered in 

a two-way fashion that allows people to make sense of the 

change subjectively 


Mistake - #10 - Not enough leadership 

• To many leaders focus too much on management and too 

little on leadership 


Mistake - #11 - Ignoring current corporate culture 

• All change in organizations is 

challenging, but perhaps the 

most daunting is changing 

culture 

• When people in an organization 

realize and recognize that their 

current organizational culture 

needs to transform to support 

the organization’s success and 

progress, change can occur. 


Mistake - #12- Failure to understand and shape 

the informal organization 

• Organizations usually have networks and coalitions of 

people that are not visible on the formal organization chart. 

These networks and coalitions help shape opinion 

• They can either accelerate or retard change. Ignoring or 

circumventing these groups can result in actual resistance 


Mistake - #13 - Not involving the employees 

• Leaders must actively involve the people most affected 

by the change in its implementation 

• This will help ensure employees at all levels of the 

organization embrace the proposed changes 


Mistake - #14 - Over-reliance on structure and 

systems to change behavior 

• Structural and systems changes help create a new context 

and orientation. And they have the surface appeal of being 

visible and fast 

• But people do not become different just because you put 

them in a new context 

• Structures and systems, by themselves, don’t change 

people’s behavior or give them new skills 


Mistake - #15 - Failure to distinguish between 

decision-driven and behavior dependent change 

• Getting people to change their behavior requires a different 

mindset and a different set of leadership skills than making 

decisions about strategy 


Mistake - #16 - Lack of skills and resources 

• Change does not happen through goals and exhortation 

alone. Like any business operation, It also calls for the right 

skills and resources 

• Organizations often simply fail to commit the necessary 

time, people, and resources to making change work 

• Paradoxically, successful behavior change often demands 

the very skills the change Is trying to create 


Mistake - #17 - Focusing only on the long term 

• Large-scale organizational change is a long process 

• Break down your vision into smaller short-term goals, and 

communicate short-term successes at each opportunity 


Mistake - #18 - Failing to plan small successive 

successes 

• An important part of sticking to the vision is to create 

opportunities to achieve smaller goals along the way 

• These small successes will not only work directly toward 

achieving the desired change, but will create positive 

feelings of accomplishment and the drive to pursue the next 

goal 


Mistake - #19 - Using the wrong indicators 

to measure progress 

• When a major change effort gets under way, executives 

often are scared off by the symptoms of their success 

• Don’t panic if you see problems vis-à-vis morale, job stress, 

loyalty, the trust level or job satisfaction 

• It could be proof that you’re doing precisely the right things 


Mistake - #20 - Assuming that change is complete 

once initial goals are achieved 

• If you declare victory too soon, the focus will be taken away 

from your efforts, and all traces of your hard work could 

soon disappear 

• Successful companies consistently re-evaluate their change 

efforts to determine where other areas can be improved, 

such as employee development and retention, new projects 

and new systems and structures 


Mistake - #21 - Excessively open-ended process 

• Achieving fundamental change in an organization is at least 

a 2 to 3 year process 

• But organizations often run out of energy or lose focus after 

9 to 15 months 


Good luck 

© Torben Rick 

http://www.torbenrick.eu 

Blog: 

http://www.torbenrick.eu/blog

Top 20+ change management mistake to avoid

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