Idea in Brief

The Challenge

Before you can solve an urgent organizational problem, you need to take a crucial step: craft a clear, compelling story that harnesses everyone’s energy and directs it toward change.

How to Meet It

First, understand your story so deeply that you can describe it simply. Then honor your organization’s past, articulate a mandate for change, and describe a rigorous and optimistic way forward.

The Payoff

Depending on the measurement used, up to 70% of organizational change efforts fail. These steps will greatly increase your chances of defying the odds.

Let’s say you’re a leader with an urgent organizational problem—anything from a broken culture to a product that no longer fits your market. You’ve taken several steps toward a solution: You’ve identified the core issue and surfaced roadblocks to progress. You’ve run smart experiments that point the way forward. You’ve tapped the knowledge and earned the trust of everyone whose help you’ll need, including people whose thinking is different from yours. With all that accomplished, you’re ready to tackle a critical challenge: crafting a story so clear and compelling that it will harness your organization’s energy and direct it toward change.
A version of this article appeared in the November–December 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.
Read more on Change management or related topics Corporate communications, Organizational change, Creativity, Management communication, Leadership, Managing people and Strategy