Change is Bad!?

Paste this address on your web browser http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?p=2829&tag=nl.e713 and take a look at this article! At first, I couldn't believe what I was reading. Jeffrey Pfeffer says that change often fails, causes disruption, and uses up resources. So, listen up (new) leaders; that to change for the sake of changing or"putting your own stamp on the organization", is shortsighted and harmful. Okay, so far I agree. From there things went down hill; "evidence shows that change is bad for everyone". I'm sure I'm reading this wrong (haven't had that second cup of coffee yet). So I continue. Then I get to the end and now I'm really steaming! The next few paragraphs could be an ad for why you should cling to the status quo, "Don't Ever Change, It's Bad for Your Health". And yes, as I read further on, he does explain that change should always be well thought out and so on and so forth. Yet some of that seems to be lost on the bloggers who responded with joy that change is bad; "I totally agree with you", "Finally, a leader speaks the truth", "very enlightening", and "I love this and agree". What? Wait!

First of all his thesis on the work of Jim Baron and Mike Hannan makes way too many assumptions. He assumes that the reason for failure is in the management of people. First of all, that's wrong. It's certainly a reason for failure, but a lot of other stuff needs to be going wrong for the business to fail outright. Second, he assumes that if a business is founded with one model of management and it tries to change to a different model (commitment model - whatever that is), they will fail. Again, wrong. He doesn't say why these businesses failed, what type of change model was used (was it the same one?), what stage of change the businesses were in when they failed, how the change model was implemented, how involved the employees were, why the change to another management model was needed in the first place (could be the business was on its way out anyway), over what period of time, vision, mission....I could go on! I think Pfeffer needs to do his homework before he starts calling out "change management" as the variable that caused these companies to fail.

And there you have it! Another reason not to change; "See? It's in writing. See? We knew we shouldn't go through with this change; it's getting hard and taking too long and costing too much, things were fine just the way they were". I'm sorry, but it's hard enough to get clients on-board, involved, and persistent enough with change management, when they want and need it. Then to have people write "change and die". The article is poorly researched and written. From many different fields of work change is recognized for what it is - "hard work". But no where have I seen it written that because it's hard, disruptive, and most "new ideas fail" one should stop. Heck, if that were the case for the light bulb, we'd all be reading this by candlelight.

Now I know he says change for change sake is not good for business. But you and I both know that leaders who have all of 30 seconds to read this article may not make that express distinction. They will however remember that change is bad. You can see it in some of the bloggers comments. And that's what disappoints me - this article is sending the wrong message. You see, people remember categories not specifics as time expands. So in a few months readers will likely remember that change is bad, instead of "change for change sake is bad". So I am left feeling like pushing the snowball up the hill just got harder.

Read for yourself and see what reaction this causes in you and know that as OD practitioners and customers, we need to be diligent with and articulate when it comes to describing change management. We need to be change advocates.