Abstract
Let’s not beat about the bush. Most of our strategic change efforts aren’t being realized successfully. Most of our leaders aren’t consumed with organizational strategy but are instead overwhelmed with managing day-to-day operational challenges. Most organizational leaders don’t have a longer-term strategic focus but are overridden by short-term performance requirements from shareholders and analysts. Most of our strategies aren’t distinctive and created from the Outside-In but rather from the Inside-Out based on current resources and capabilities. Most of our organizations aren’t really customer centric but are mainly sales and marketing driven. Most of our workforces aren’t engaged but are paralysed by inertia and collectively withdrawing extra-energies. Most of our values and desired behaviours aren’t being demonstrated consistently and enduringly throughout our organizations today. What’s going on?
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Notes
Composite data from the following sources indicate that between 70% and 90% of (strategic) change programs fail: Hoverstadt, P. (2008) The Fractal Organization: Creating Sustainable Organizations with the Viable System Model, Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons;
Higgs, M. and Rowland, D. (2005) ‘All Changes Great and Small: Exploring Approached to Change and Its Leadership’, Journal of Change Management, 5 (2): 121–151;
Miller D. (2002) ‘Successful Change Leaders: What Makes Them? What Do They Do That Is Different?’, Journal of Change Management, 2 (4): 359–368;
Kotter, J.P. (1995) ‘Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail’, Harvard Business Review;
Decker, P. et al. (2012) ‘Predicting Implementation Failure in Organization Change’, Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 16 (2): 29–49;
Bunres, B. and Jackson, P. (2011) ‘Success and Failure in Organizational Change: An Exploration of the Role of Values’, Journal of Change Management, 11 (2): 133–162.
Adapted from: Bryan, L. and Joyce, C. (2007) Mobilizing Minds: Creating Wealth from Talent in the 21st-Century Organization, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Based on empirical research from Stigter, M. (2010) ‘(DIS) ENGAGEMENT: Critical Drivers and Outcomes as Perceived by Employees’, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK.
Based on empirical research from Stigter, M. (2010) ‘(DIS) ENGAGEMENT: Critical Drivers and Outcomes as Perceived by Employees’, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK.
Stogdill, R.M. (1974) Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research, New York, NY: The Free Press.
De Vries, M.K. (2001) The Leadership Mystique: Leading Behavior in the Human Enterprise, London, UK: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Bacharach, S.B. (2006) Keep Them on Your Side: Leading and Managing for Momentum, Avon, MA: Platinum Press.
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© 2015 Marc Stigter and Cary L. Cooper
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Stigter, M., Cooper, C.L. (2015). What’s Going On?. In: Solving the Strategy Delusion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137394699_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137394699_1
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