Change is everywhere… especially in business. Maybe your company is undergoing a digital transformation or restructuring, or perhaps you’re in the midst of a leadership or personnel change? From mergers and acquisitions to company rebrands and new product launches, business is full of constant and dynamic challenges, no matter your industry.
And change shows no signs of abating… Research indicates that nearly 80% of people need to adapt their enterprises every two to five years to survive.1
Despite the ongoing nature of change in business, change management is still an area where many organizations struggle.
Did you know?
- Only 34% of change initiatives succeed2
- > 30% of project failures are caused by poor communication3
- This costs businesses $75 million for every $1 billion spent
The business implications for change management failure are clear. With these jaw-dropping costs of poor communication, you can’t afford (literally!) for another project to go awry. But what’s the root cause of these failures? Let’s explore some common threads that contribute to unsuccessful change initiatives:
- Employee resistance – According to McKinsey, 70% of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support.4 What’s more, Gartner research shows that in 2016, 74% of employees were willing to support organizational change; by the end of 2022 that number dropped to 38%5. People resist change for many reasons – unknown risks to their job, lack of trust in the organization, or general disagreement with the business strategy (just to name a few!).
- Poor communication by leadership – Change communication has historically been a “top-down” practice – that is, leaders communicate the change initiative to employees without seeking their input. To exacerbate this one-way channel, communication is typically not frequent enough, particularly after the initiative is underway, which leaves employees in the dark and feeling undervalued.
- Incomplete strategy – Many leaders focus on the what and why of change but not the how6 … It can be difficult to achieve desired results when you aren’t clear on defining what success would look like. Not having a complete change management strategy can also undermine your efforts to get buy-in, create difficulty in communicating your vision with employees, and ultimately break down trust within the organization.
- Lack of culture integration – Cultural incompatibility is cited as a top reason for many M&A failures.7 Culture represents the values, beliefs, and behaviors of an organization’s people – the human side of a company. Unfortunately, this often takes a backburner when it comes to planning and implementing change initiatives.
So, how do we overcome these roadblocks? Let’s address them head on with better communication throughout the organization. And (spoiler alert!), we believe business storytelling is an effective way to uplevel your change communication strategy, by giving everyone the ability to bring clarity and meaning to their ideas, influence decisions, and improve collaboration.
In short, storytelling can be your change management superpower.
Let’s dig in…
Here are 5 ways to bolster your change management strategy through storytelling:
- Deliver clear and digestible messages. Let’s face it – you want to be in the know and not have to read between the lines when it comes to change and how it might impact you. The not knowing causes employee anxiety which can lead to burnout, or worse – losing top talent. 73% of change-affected employees report experiencing moderate to high stress levels, and those suffering from change-related stress perform 5% worse than the average employee.8 Storytelling will help you deliver updates on your change initiative with clarity… so that your audience (employees) knows the information critical to them – and if they need to act on it.
- Establish a two-way communication effort. The days of top-down, one-way communications are on their way out. Employees need an approach that engages them in a dialogue and values their opinions and feedback. One way to address employee resistance is by making employees feel involved throughout the process, rather than telling them what will happen. Storytelling helps foster this by always putting the audience first in any form of communications; this is an authentic way to promote open dialogue, get feedback, and improve collaboration.
- Humanize the change. Even in the world of business, people just want to feel seen and heard… and one way to do that is to communicate in an authentic way that makes a connection to your audience. Storytelling helps you achieve this by establishing the proper context for your change initiative – setting and characters – to make your employees feel something rather than just receiving an impersonal business update. At the end of the day, when we humanize our messages and tap into people’s emotions, they are more likely to share their experience… and there’s no better way for people to connect than through shared experiences.9
- Align and empower teams. Being on the same page and feeling a sense of solidarity is hugely important for teams going through change – especially newly formed teams (in the case of a merger & acquisition, for example). Storytelling helps provide teams a common language for communicating, which can help break down silos and encourage collaboration. When teams are aligned, they’re more likely to feel like change agents themselves… and empowering employees to be active participants in your change efforts may be the difference between success and failure.
- Have cultural awareness. 88% of professionals say find cultural awareness is important to a change management initiative.10 Change management is most effective when leaders acknowledge and understand the cultural landscape of impacted employees and tailor their communications accordingly. For example, a message on a change initiative might be different depending on the culture of a particular audience. Storytelling helps you walk into your audience’s shoes and truly understand their perspective.
There’s no debating that strong communication is vital to successful organizational change management. Using storytelling as a tool to guide you through your business transformations is an effective way to build empathy, community, and trust with employees. When your people feel connected to and part of the change – rather than bystanders without any control – they are more likely to commit to its success. Change isn’t going anywhere… the best we can do is try to navigate its waters and communicate its impact as smoothly as possible.
References:
1WalkMe, Change Management Statistics You Need to Know in 2023
2Gartner, Organizational Change Management
3PMI, The High Cost of Low Performance: The Essential Role of Communications
4McKinsey & Company, Changing change management
5Gartner, This New Strategy Could Be Your Ticket to Change Management Success
6Harvard Division of Continuing Education, 7 Reasons Why Change Management Strategies Fail and How to Avoid Them
7Spiceworks, 6 Examples of Merger Failures Owing to Cultural Incompatibility
8Gartner, Change Management Communication
9Jake Jacobs Consulting, How Viral Marketing Can Support Your Large Scale Change Efforts
10Prosci, Culture and Change Management: The Water We Swim In