Overcoming the failure to pivot – the key to successful change in
organizations
It is costly to organizations when
they fail to change successfully. Over
70 percent of most organizational change initiatives fail. That failure is often
mistakenly blamed on employee “resistance to change”.
However, two top organizational
behavior experts say that the real reason is what’s called a “failure to pivot”.
Victoria Grady and James Grady,
authors of the new book, The Pivot
Point: Success in Organizational Change, say that organizations fail to
change because individuals don’t change their behavior at the critical time or
place. WHY?
Human nature guides us to do what we
are familiar and comfortable with. To
make change successfully we must be trained to do new things, new ways. We struggle with making the change until we
are comfortable with the new methods, systems, or changing circumstances.
“It’s not just the addition of new,
but it is also the loss of the old,” say the authors.
To achieve the change in an
organization, employees must leave those familiar things behind, and at the same
time learn exactly how to act and perform in a new way. The pivot point is that
place in time and space when employees must abandon the old and adjust to the
new.
The Pivot Point explains that we are
all attached to “objects” in the workplace that we lean on or attach to for
support in order to complete our day to day work tasks. An “object” can be a person, a technology, a
system, a location, a process, familiar equipment, even an abstract concept or
idea – anything that serves to provide an individual employee with a sense of
consistency and stability.
The success rate of change
initiatives can be improved by measuring and tracking how employees (real
people) respond to specific actions during the change implementation
process.
Navigating through organizational
change requires training, patience, and encouragement. Most organizations fail because they don’t
zero in on the people and the specific pivots they need to make. They just wish
it to happen.
“Resistance to change” diminishes
significantly when our human nature to form attachments is actively
understood. Giving people open, clear
and tactfully delivered feedback in ways that allows them to respond positively,
maintain their personal pride, and develop comfort and confidence that they can
do the right things without fear of criticism or pain.
Maximize the success of the change
process by first understanding the people and then collectively the
organization.
The Pivot
Point
Victoria
M. Grady and James D. Grady
List $14.95 (softcover) $7.99
(Kindle)
8 in. x 5 in. 140 pages
ISBN 978-1-61448-300-7 --- Paperback
ISBN 978-1-61448-301-4 --- e-Book
Morgan James Publishing
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