Peak Potential Article

The inclusion of progress reviews has been shown to increase the likelihood that a change initiative will be successful by nearly 15%. However, to be effective such reviews should be frequent and rigorous.

Change initiatives should be formally reviewed at least every two months. Very complex initiatives should be reviewed every two weeks with moderately complex change projects being reviewed every month.

In addition to being frequent, reviews must be rigorous; involving far more than just five minute, ‘keep us up-to-date’ agenda items during leadership team meetings. Reviews should focus on identifying what is happening as objectively as possible and then:

• Celebrating successes and planning ways to repeat them.
• Learning from failures or partial failures and planning ways to avoid the same mistakes in the future.

Failure is often considered a dirty word in organisations, especially by individuals who are afraid of being blamed. Yet, any change involves both risk and learning. Failure is part of this process but the lessons from such failures must be harnessed and applied.