Change in Behavior is Required

The interesting thing about change initiatives is that executives that launch them, I feel, generally do so with all of the best intentions: the optimistic business results, the return on investment to the shareholders, and the notoriety of having made a significant impact to the corporation's direction.

However, I believe that in every case, they fail to read the fine print embedded into the contract for the initiative. It clearly states "change in behavior is required". As we know, it is this basic element of change that has the power to undermines the corporation's leaders. In a lot of cases, they achieved their position doing whatever it was they did - ethical or not - and they'll be damned if somone else is going to tell them that now that is no longer good enough. It is this attitude that is the root causes for change failure. However, it is only damaging to change, when their resistance goes unchallenged by their superiors, and accountability is non-existant. In other words, failure of business leaders to accept change is not inevitable.

Beware the Ides of December. Watch how well the scythe-wielders perform the tasks at hand. It promises to be a bloody Christmas.