Why do so few changes lead to the desired results? Why is it that many significant investments just run out of steam and give poor results or just bring about short-term improvement? Through surveys, we have asked hundreds of managers what has actually been achieved by change processes in their organizations. Just under half of all the change projects are perceived to lead to the expected results. A major service company has told us that perhaps 25% of all their initiated change projects led to a satisfactory result.

It is also notable that many managers feel insecure in their role as change managers, and are uncertain of the scope of their mandate as well as their responsibilities. Some find it difficult to reconcile this kind of work with the ongoing operations. This vivid picture from the real world of managers has inspired us to develop a mindset, tools, methods, and pedagogy to promote change processes and to ensure lasting results. In our approach, we emphasize the necessity of the collaboration that must take place between the intentions of the change and the prevailing organizational culture.

When people have to change, for example in order to accept the results of project content, a change process is involved. Often, change involves a human maturity process to ensure that the staff are able to begin working in another way or relating to the user via new content. Such a change process should always be implemented within the line organisation. It involves affecting/developing people’s beliefs, ways of working, skills and values. People are affected by taking part themselves in developing the new situation. This means that in all change processes that require people changing their current behaviour, attitudes and values as a basis for a new way of working, the thinking should be oriented towards the development or culture processes rather than towards the project. The project models have been constructed to deal with adjacent and clearly described needs which are extracted from the line process, receive additional resources and then continue to function outside the ordinary line process. This involves clearly delineated tasks which are often easy to concretise, such as development of new products and systems. They can then be quite complicated in terms of substance.

Project thinking can fool us into believing that people will change because we tell them to. Even if they want to, they don’t always have the right circumstances to be able to change. The entire responsibility for a different approach is given to people without them having the insight into or knowledge of what they are expected to do – and therefore nothing happens. This is a waste of people’s time and an example of poorly managed processes – in other words, no real management is actually involved.

In the case of a project, the manager goes in front of the group and shows how they should work. In the case of the process, the manager goes behind the group and follows their movements. It is necessary to wait for the right time for various activities in order to obtain an implementation which affects and impacts upon the maximum number of people.