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

Change Starts Here

Despite the authors and consultants that tout the failure rate statistic, none of them claim that their methodology has a better success rate. 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.”

Kotter 143
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Stop Using the Excuse “Organizational Change Is Hard”

Harvard Business Review

Hughes traces the mythical 70% failure rate back to the 1993 book Reengineering the Corporation , in which authors Michael Hammer and James Champy stated: “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.”

Champy 8