There’s a very good chance that the project or change initiative for which you are responsible will fail.
I’m sorry to be the one bringing this unfortunate news.
However, if it is helpful for you, your project is unlikely to fail catastrophically.
Instead, like many other initiatives, it will fail by falling short of expectations:
- over-budget
- completion beyond the original deadline
- quantity or quality of the change results is less than expected
- sustained impact does not endure once the ‘project spotlight’ ends
Phew! That’s a bit discouraging, isn’t it?
It can be a relief for change leaders to acknowledge that it is really hard to deliver something on-time, on budget and to expectations. There are just too many variables that influence how the initiative will proceed, many of which are outside the control and influence of the project team.
But change leaders are not completely off the hook… Many of the reasons that projects do fail (to meet full expectations) is for a whole set of known and fairly predictable challenges.
Challenges that are most certainly within the influence of the change team in many cases.
Challenges that can be anticipated and for which mitigation measures can be applied to reduce their impact on the initiative.
We know what these challenges are, and we know what to do to avoid them, or to mitigate them.
And yet, too often, we fail to do so!
Resulting in our projects falling short of expectations. I think this is what’s called a ‘vicious cycle.’
Allow me to provide a little bit of hope for leaders and change teams…
My research with organizations has identified what many of these challenges are!
And I’m happy to share them with you, through my free self-assessment tool.
Contact me for your own copy of “Taking Root: Assessing Your Readiness for Leading Change and Growth.”
