In the most recent AIM magazine, more notable people were quoting the millions lost to poor change management practices. $100 million annually was the number mentioned by Martin North, Industry Director at Fujitsu.

No surprise right? Haven’t we been reading about these numbers for years now? We keep getting feedback that we are “crap” at managing change. And yet not much changes.

It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. Doing more of what we are already doing will not help us to turn the corner. We still rush to solution, don’t talk to our people enough, don’t connect change with strategy, often underestimate people’s reactions and time-frames to get “comfortable” and so on.

My fundamental belief is that we need to rethink our approach to change and start building awareness of change processes, frameworks and tools at all levels. If change is the big constant, why aren’t we equipping all our people to work in this environment?

When computers changed our world, didn’t everyone have to learn enough to use them?

Here we are in a world where everyone experiences change, some welcome and some not, and yet we provide no context about how change gets implemented, what gets considered as part of a change program, how people respond to change, and how companies “manage” it. We are asking people to operate in a vacuum of knowledge.

Imagine if everyone had a base level of knowledge about these things. Then they could recognise aspects of the change program as  they happened. They could provide feedback if they felt engagement was insufficient. They could contribute to the process from a place of knowledge rather than a place of forced ignorance.

We need to change the game and give our people the information and tools they need to thrive in this ever-changing world.

What do you think?