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It’s Time to Abolish the 70% Change Failure Rate Statistic

You don’t have to be in or near the field of change management long before you hear a daunting statistic:  70% of change initiatives fail.

It’s mentioned in passing as a fact in most change management books and articles nowadays. I’ve quoted the statistic myself in presentations, and I’m sure the mention of the number has helped me (and many others) gain business over the years. Google “70% change failure rate,” and you’ll see 1.96 million results.

The trouble — and the great news — is that there is no solid evidence that it’s true.

Surprise

In 2011, Mark Hughes of the University of Brighton wrote about his research into the source of the statistic in The Journal of Change Management:  Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail?  I encourage you to read it for yourself, but to summarize, he found that all the references can be traced back to a few main books or articles:

  • In 1993, Michael Hammer and James Champy stated in Reengineering the Corporation:

“Sadly, we must report that despite the success stories described in previous chapters, many companies that begin reengineering don’t succeed at it…Our unscientific estimate is that as many as 50 percent to 70 percent of the organizations that undertake a reengineering effort do not achieve the dramatic results they intended.”

  • One quote that never seems to be mentioned is this follow up in 1995, where Michael Hammer said:

“In Reengineering the Corporation, we estimated that between 50 and 70 percent of reengineering efforts were not successful in achieving the desired breakthrough performance. Unfortunately, this simple descriptive observation has been widely misrepresented and transmogrified and distorted into a normative statement…There is no inherent success or failure rate for reengineering.”

  • Another oft-quoted source is Beer and Nohria’s 2000 HBR article, Cracking the Code of Change, in which they state, with no reference or evidence whatsoever, “The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail.” How do they know?
  • In 2008, John Kotter wrote in his book A Sense of Urgency, “From years of study, I estimate today more than 70 per cent of needed change either fails to be launched, even though some people clearly see the need, fails to be completed even though some people exhaust themselves trying, or finishes over budget, late and with initial aspirations unmet.” Again, this is an estimate (albeit from one of the fathers of change management) and not a research-based statement. Interestingly, many people quote the 70% failure rate in John Kotter’s seminal HBR article, “Leading Change” from 1995, but the statistic just isn’t there. In that article, he does say, “I have watched more than 100 companies…make fundamental changes in how business is conducted. A few of these corporate change efforts have been very successful. A few have been utter failures. Most fall somewhere in between, with a distinct tilt toward the lower end of the scale.”
  • In 2009, McKinsey published “The Inconvenient Truth about Change Management,” in which they first incorrectly referenced John Kotter’s 1995 article, then shared the results of their own survey of “1,546 business executives from around the world, asking them if they consider their change programs “completely/mostly” successful: only 30 percent agreed.” This is the closest thing to real research Hughes found, but does that mean that everything short of complete success is a failure? He also found in the same set of research that only 10% of executives said their change programs were completely/mostly unsuccessful. Isn’t that closer to a failure rate, in the truest sense of the term? And notice the number is based on the opinion of executives, and not an actual study tracking projects over time to see if they actually achieved their goals.

In my own digging into this topic, I’ve found experts like Ken Blanchard and Daryl Conner also referenced their own research and estimates that 70% of change initiatives fail, without citing specific evidence. It’s hard to argue with the experts! But for a statistic that is taken as truth at this point, there is a serious lack of concrete evidence.

The 2008 “Making Change Work” study by IBM shares a survey of more than 1500 change practitioners, in which they found that 41% of projects met their objectives. The remaining 59% missed at least one objective or failed completely. It’s important to point out that this statistic is not 70%! And it also assumes again that anything short of perfect is failure.

Is change management challenging? Yes. Do we always get the results we expect?  No. We can’t predict with certainty how people will react to change and what will work to move them in the same direction. Measuring ourselves with a failure rate ignores the fact that change is a discovery process. What we think success will look like and what it looks like when we get there may be vastly different, and it’s something that is uncovered as you manage the change.

If the 70% failure rate is a myth, it explains why:

  • The number never changes, even as change management becomes more prevalent in business.
  • Despite the authors and consultants that tout the failure rate statistic, none of them claim that their methodology has a better success rate.
  • It is only ever used to sell the importance of change management or to get people’s attention in an article. The statistic is not used to help us get better, because there is no data to show us what’s really going on.

So let’s call it like it is:  The 70% failure rate is a myth, an urban legend. Let’s stop claiming that “studies show” and it’s “a well-known fact” that 70% of change projects fail. If you have real data, by all means, please share it. But let’s stop perpetuating a misleading statistic that has no concrete evidence.

Instead, let’s rejoice that our projects do not have a 70% chance of being doomed from the start. Through steady plodding, stepping out with courage, and using practices that respect and involve the people going through the change, our projects can succeed.

Other bloggers who have also explored the myth of the 70% failure rate make some great points as well:

  • Time to Kill the Phantom 70% Failure Rate Quoted on Transformational Strategy by Gail Severini
  • 70% of Change Projects Fail:  Bollocks! by Jen Frahm. You can also listen to my interview with Jen on the same topic here: Debunking the 70% Failure Rate of Change Initiatives
  • Is the 70% Failure Rate a Myth? by Jason Little
  • In 2011, I wrote a blog post called “The Most Misleading — and Exploited — Statistic about Change” at a time when I still believed the statistic to be true, but felt that measuring a failure rate didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Gail Severini

    June 3, 2014 at 2:10 pm EDT

    Bravo, Heather. I am all for long-tenured practitioners stating their own anecdotal statistics – which is basically how Ken Blanchard, John Kotter and Daryl Conner come at it. Let’s face it tho, the work they are called in on is not your “run of the mill” transformational change. It is probably a BHAG at least. So while their comments are legit in context, they are neither statistics nor representative of all change.

    Where I get really ticked off consultants or training companies using this statistics indiscriminately to scare prospects into buying, and into buying more than they need. In fact, I am increasingly suspicious of any one waving that flag.

    Calling out this issue raises the bar on the work that all of us do and how we talk about it. Great post – I will be sharing it.

  2. Heather Stagl

    June 3, 2014 at 3:05 pm EDT

    Gail, thank you for saying what I wish I had about the anecdotal evidence of long-time experts in the field. I certainly don’t mean to challenge their experience or to infer that their statements are untrue. Only that, as you say, they are neither statistics nor representative of all change.

  3. Garrett Gitchell

    June 4, 2014 at 10:19 pm EDT

    Kudos Heather and welcome to the club.
    My own post in the 70%-is-bogus club from last year:
    http://horizontalchange.com/2013/09/time-topple-bogus-70-statistic/.

    My twist was encouraging (as Gail states above) clients to either run from anybody using that stat or play with them until they fold.

    Change practitioners and ugh “thought leaders” have really gotten wrapped up in group think around this made up stat. For some it might be a little hard to back track now. Back track they need to though.

    Change, especially big change as Gail also mentioned, moves in small incrementals and does not lend itself to blanket numbers. All engagements and initiatives fail and all succeed…

  4. Marc Mewe

    August 28, 2014 at 1:40 pm EDT

    What I miss in all the discussions about de 70% faillure rate is what is the definition of faillure.
    For example, is a (change) project that exceded time and budget, but indeed reached the pre-defined objective a faillure ?
    From a projectmanagers view I would say yes, but from a business view you could say , ok it took longer and ithe costs are higher than first expected, but we are where we wanted to be, so it is a succes.

    Read for example the Dutch book “Het veranderboek” from Ten Have et all. They have a nice view on the 70% myth.

  5. Nene

    September 20, 2017 at 10:11 pm EDT

    As someone who has been on the receiving end of change initiatives or transformation programs in at least four organizations, my entirely experience based statistic is 100% – failure. I take the point that the oft-cited 70% has (apparently) no basis in fact. But I didn’t hear any counter stats offered. I guffawed at the part where “only 10% of executives said their change programs were completely/mostly unsuccessful”. Well what would you expect them to say? That they’ve wasted all that time, money, human sweat, for nothing? So no, it’s NOT “closer to a failure rate, in the truest sense of the term”. I’m all for evidence based stats. If industry practitioners want 70% to be retired maybe they could spend some effort to provide new stats. Surely that’s one change initiative they can all get behind.

  6. Colin Kennedy

    October 17, 2017 at 5:32 pm EDT

    I’m yet to experience a change initiative that worked.

    I’d also say that Kotter is a pretty reliable source – certainly far more so than ‘surveys’ and ‘studies’ by academics who aren’t on the coal face. So yes, I’d say that at 70% of transformations fail is fact.

  7. jo

    July 20, 2020 at 11:27 am EDT

    There are 3 frequently used success criteria ie meeting original goals/business intent (aka benefits), meeting budget and meeting schedule. If the 3 success rates of these 3 success criteria are combined ie multiplied, do you think the product success rate will be low or high?

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