Change management: why change fails and how to measure adoption
Why good plans stall when people do not change how they work, what makes change stick, and how to measure adoption step by step.
Key takeaways
- A plan creates value only when people change what they do every day.
- Common traps: Measuring training or log-ins and calling it adoption: log-ins show access, not use.
- No clear reason. People hear "new system" but not why it matters to customers or to them.
- Leaders say one thing and do another. If senior managers keep asking for the old report, staff keep making it.
- Incentives and targets stay the same. If people are still paid for the old behaviour, they keep doing it (see the incentives lesson).
Key idea
A plan creates value only when people change what they do every day. Change management is the work of getting them there: explaining why, giving them the skills and tools, changing how they are measured, and checking that the new way is really used.
You will often read that "70 percent of change programmes fail". Be careful with that number. A peer-reviewed review in the Journal of Change Management (2011) traced where the claim came from and found no valid, reliable evidence behind it. What is well supported is simpler: many programmes deliver less than planned, and the gap usually comes from people not adopting the new way of working, not from the plan itself.
Why change fails
- No clear reason. People hear "new system" but not why it matters to customers or to them.
- Leaders say one thing and do another. If senior managers keep asking for the old report, staff keep making it.
- Incentives and targets stay the same. If people are still paid for the old behaviour, they keep doing it (see the incentives lesson).
- Too little training and support, so the new way is slower at first and people give up.
- Too many changes at once, so nothing gets full attention.
- Nobody measures use, so the problem stays hidden until the benefits do not arrive.
What makes change stick
- One clear reason in plain words, repeated by the people staff actually listen to: their direct managers.
- Leaders who use the new way in front of everyone.
- Targets, pay and promotion tied to the new behaviour.
- Training at the moment people need it, and quick help when they get stuck.
- Early wins that show the new way works, shared widely.
- Switching off the old way once the new one works, so there is no path back.
- Measuring adoption at each step and fixing the biggest drop first.
Bar chart: Adoption of a new client system at a fictional Malaysian bank, six months after launch. Values in relationship managers. All relationship managers: 1,200; Trained: 1,080; Log in every week: 864; Use it for every client meeting: 540.
So-what
Fewer than half of relationship managers use the system fully, and the biggest drop is between weekly log-in and full use.
Worked case
Where the value of a new system leaks away
The prompt
Using the chart above: the fictional bank's business case assumed every relationship manager (a banker who looks after a set of clients) would use the new client system fully, adding MYR 20,000 of extra revenue each per year (illustrative). Six months in, the bank says the system "is not working". Measure adoption, find the biggest drop, and put a number on the gap.
The structure
- Value delivered = full users x value per full user
- Adoption at each step: trained, weekly use, full use
- Key: People lost at each step: where is the biggest drop?
- Value planned against value delivered
Working it through
1. Trained share
1,080 of 1,200 relationship managers.
Trained (percent):1,080 ÷ 1,200 × 100 = 902. Weekly users among the trained
864 of 1,080.
Weekly users among trained (percent):864 ÷ 1,080 × 100 = 803. Full users among weekly users
540 of 864.
Full users among weekly users (percent):540 ÷ 864 × 100 = 62.54. Drops at each step
120 never trained, 216 trained but not using it weekly, 324 using it weekly but not for every meeting.
Largest drop (weekly users not using it fully):864 - 540 = 3245. Value planned
1,200 full users x MYR 20,000.
Value planned (MYR million a year):1,200 × 20,000 ÷ 1,000,000 = 246. Value delivered
540 full users x MYR 20,000.
Value delivered (MYR million a year):540 × 20,000 ÷ 1,000,000 = 10.8
The recommendation
The system is not failing; adoption is. Only 45 percent of relationship managers use it fully, so the bank gets MYR 10.8 million of the MYR 24 million a year it planned. The biggest leak is the 324 people who log in but still run some meetings the old way. Find out why (ask them, and watch a few meetings), then fix that first: for example make the system the only place to record client meetings, and add full use to managers' targets.
Risks: The MYR 20,000 per user may itself be too high; check revenue of full users against others.
Next steps: Interview 20 weekly users who do not use it fully; Report adoption by branch every month so branch heads own it.
A hospital in Dubai rolled out electronic prescribing to 400 doctors. 340 log in each week and 238 write all their prescriptions in it. What share of all doctors are full users, in percent?
Measuring training or log-ins and calling it adoption: log-ins show access, not use. Blaming the tool before measuring use. Quoting the "70 percent fail" figure as a fact. Recommending "better communication" without saying who says what, and how you will know it worked.
What is the best single measure that a new sales tool is adopted?
Staff are trained on a new process but keep the old one. Their targets have not changed. What is the most likely cause?
Sources for this lesson (2)
- Journal of Change Management, volume 11, issue 4 (2011): "Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail?" (peer-reviewed article)
- Recognized public explanations of case-interview concepts and terms
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