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The 5 forces of change: a blueprint for leading successful change

Published on May 26, 2010 Reviewed on October 31, 2017   38 min

A selection of talks on Management, Leadership & Organisation

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0:00
Welcome to the "Five Forces of Change, a Blueprint for Leading Successful Change". My name is Antony Greenfield.
0:09
Over the last 20 years, I've worked with a wide variety of organisations, both large and small, in the public sector, and in the private sector, all of whom have been dealing with change. What I'd like to do today is introduce you to a systematic and practical approach to dealing with leadership and people during times of change. Too often during change, there's a great deal of focus on planning or project management, on executing tasks, and on processes and on systems and structures to the detriment of people. This causes all kinds of repercussions, and is often responsible for the failure of major change.
0:53
The statistics make for grim reading. According to one survey by the UK government, 65 percent of all major changes in organisations fail. Other surveys tell a similar tale. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development survey in 2004 said, "Employee attitudes and behaviour, specifically resistance to change, are the key constraints to effective organisational change". What I would like to do in this presentation is to scratch below the surface, to understand what's driving these attitudes and behaviours which is so restraining to effective organisational change.
1:36
We live in a time of mind boggling change. Between the year 1750 and 1900, the world scientific knowledge doubled in size. Now that doubling takes place every one or two years. In January 2008, there were 875 million Internet shoppers. In 1993, there were none. So in the face of all this change, organisations have no choice but to change, just to keep pace with the environment around them. In short, "organisations have to change. But for people, it's optional". This may not seem obvious at first. Organisations feel that they've been through change, they've changed a structure, they've changed the processes, they've changed systems. They feel that the change is done and dusted, and yet, people can be left behind. Often within mergers, many years later, individuals still feel part of their old organisation, and have not yet created that link or feeling of being part of the new merged organisation. Change requires people to sacrifice time, energy and emotion. People can become de-motivated by change causing performance to drop, but without people change, there is no change. Leading people through change is now a core skill for all managers and executives. For some, leading change, initiating and executing change is the very definition of leadership.
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