Question

why is sustaining change often more difficult than initiating change?

Answer 1

Change is always difficult at first, but often, it is the only way of survival. Talking about the organizations and the intense competitive landscape that they operate in, changing, innovating and evolving is not just an option but a necessity to survive in the business. Constantly increasing customer demands and increasing business pressure provokes organizations to initiate change.

However, the common mistake that most of the organizations make is that they abruptly initiate change without having proper change mechanism or an effective change process in place. Successful change not only requires basic infrastructural and structural changes in the organization but it also needs the change to take place in the organizational culture and mindset of the various stakeholders such as the employees of the organization. Often, the change process take place from top-to-bottom where the top management decides to make certain changes in the organizational functionalities without properly communicating it to the rest of the employees or without actively involving them in the change process.

As a result, employees and customers fail to acknowledge change and be a successful contributor in the change process. The employees don’t find themselves comfortable in the newly introduced systems and processes. Lack of training and development activities in the organization also contributes to the unawareness of the employees towards changed process. Because of this, sustaining change becomes more difficult than initiating change.