Purple Paper^TM: A leader’s guide to change management

Organizations must respond to a wide range of events that require strong change leadership to maximize opportunities. These events include adopting new technology, reengineering processes, completing mergers and acquisitions, conducting large-scale layoffs, implementing new reporting structures, moving to a new location, and addressing new regulatory requirements.

Working through big changes like these can be very difficult—and success is far from guaranteed. In fact, a variety of research studies during the past couple decades have suggested as many as two-thirds or more of major corporate change initiatives fail to realize their intended gains.

Why this poor track record? It seems clear at least part of the answer is the quality of change leadership. A study of several diverse change initiatives revealed the organizations with the best change management capabilities experienced the greatest returns on their investments.