Why change projects fail and how you can make yours a success

To stay competitive in today’s rapidly changing business environment, you need to be willing and able to adapt.

However, delivering a change project successfully can be a challenge.

There’s comfort in the familiar, so you might find that your team is reluctant to come along for the ride.

Fortunately, the Melo team knows exactly what it takes to create an effective vision for change and get everybody on board.

So, here are our thoughts on why change projects fail, along with four handy tips for making yours a success.

You need to rally the troops if you want your change project to succeed

Throughout our careers, the Melo team have worked with hundreds of financial planning firms that are on a journey towards significant growth or change. Some were even our own!

Often, there’s a solid plan of action in place, but no strategy for change management, and in particular, change communication.

If you forge ahead and leave your staff behind, you may end up in a scenario where your team doesn’t really understand what’s going on. This can lead to misunderstandings, frustrations, and ultimately, the failure of your change project.

Research from the Project Management Institute has revealed that effective communication is the most crucial success factor for business projects. What’s more, 56% of the money spent on projects is at risk due to ineffective communication.

At Melo, we understand that people always come first. Effective change requires constant communication so that your team know what’s happening, when, and how they’ll be affected.

It’s about winning hearts and minds and taking your people with you.

4 Melo tips for managing change like a boss

Here are a few tips from the Melo masters of change to help set your change project off on the right foot.

1. Start with a well-defined strategy

Set yourself up for success by creating a clear vision and a strategy for achieving it.

This means getting to grips with why change is needed and what you plan to do. But also – and here’s the important bit – how you want the transition to happen.

The “how” is at the heart of effective change management, yet it’s often overlooked.

How will your staff and clients be affected? How might the change influence any wider business objectives and initiatives? How long do you expect the transition period to be? How will you measure success?

Investing the time and effort to create a robust change management strategy could help you pre-empt potential problems and ensure that everyone involved is fully on board.

2. Communicate your plans with clients and staff

As mentioned above, communication is crucial for a winning change project.

It’s not enough to tell your team about your plans at the start of the process and hope for the best. You need to continually reinforce your message and provide opportunities for people to ask questions.

This will help to build trust and ensure that everybody supports the change strategy, rather than reverting to the status quo.

3. Align support with individual needs

Everybody responds to change differently. You might have some people in your team who pick up new tasks and systems without a second thought, while others might take a little longer to adapt.

So, it’s important to tailor the level of support you provide to individual needs. That way, nobody gets left behind.

For example, you might offer additional one-to-ones, extra training, or peer-to-peer support for someone who finds change hard.

Equally, if you have a change champion in your midst, they could be a valuable asset for driving forward your project.

4. Call in a change management expert

Change management is often tacked on to a project as an afterthought. Yet, it’s a vital part of your business, and needs to be valued as a topic in its own right.

While you might have an operations manager who knows their stuff, or a compliance officer who has meticulous attention to detail, they may not have the specialised skills to deliver a change project successfully.

Somebody who not only knows how to execute a strong change project, but also understands the emotional effect that change could have on employees, clients, and stakeholders.

And we know just the people to deliver this expertise.

All of us on the Melo board have run our own business, so we know the pitfalls to avoid and the winning strategies to adopt when planning significant change.

So, if you’re ready to shake things up, but need a little help, get in touch.

Drop us an email at hello@melo.co.uk or call us for a chat on 0113 4656 111.