“Hear about the proposed update?” “Hairy Paul proposed to Kate?!?” Poor communication and doomed organizational change.

Constant evolution is essential to the continued success of any organization. The ability to identify and respond to changing attitudes, trends, opportunities and needs is what separates your Blockbuster’s from your Netflix’s.

Change is good. Change is essential. Also, change is confusing and exhausting.

Many employees feel like they’re never more than a few weeks away from another change initiative: a re-org, latest tech fad, new structure, rebrand, efficiency drive, updated financial processes and on and on and on.

Time is as precious as employee goodwill, and constant innovation or procedural adjustments or organizational transformation has the potential to destroy both. This isn’t helped by the fact that an estimated 70% of change programs fail to achieve their goals.

The answer isn’t to avoid change (see paragraph 1), but to understand why organizational change initiatives fail so often.

Recent research has shown that the one constant across virtually every change management theory or framework is the need for clear and consistent communication between workers and leaders.

Your vision might be spectacular, your processes cutting edge, and your printed plan so perfect and glossy it would make Patrick Bateman jealous, but if you don’t effectively communicate this with your staff, none of it matters.

Do employees know what’s happening and why? Have they been involved in the process? Can they see the value in the proposed change? Has it been made clear how it will impact their daily activities or performance goals? Was it mentioned briefly once about three months ago at the end of a two-hour-long meeting and never mentioned since?

As a leader, you may have felt like you’ve shared details, but have your team heard these through the noise of their day-to-day responsibilities and deadlines? Were you clear and unambiguous? Did any follow-up thoughts or comments suggest that they’d misunderstood the endeavor?

Poor communication causes frustration, and diminishes not just the chances of success for your project in the short term, but employee engagement and social capital, and overall organizational impact in the longer term.

Email or reach out to discuss how you can become one of the 30% to successfully land their change initiative.