8 reasons why change management fails

Change management is vital in implementing, achieving, and sustaining business transformation and process excellence. However, change management fails. In fact, change nitiatives are worryingly synonymous with failure.

The PEX Report 2025/26, which examines the results of a global survey of more than 200 professionals, found that change management is the leading methodology organizations use to support transformation.

More than half (58 percent) of respondents apply change management in their business transformation strategies, ahead of advisors and consultants (53percent), and cultural transformation (42 percent). Meanwhile, 34 percent of businesses are planning to advance change management approaches in the next 12 months.

Despite the importance of change management, a wealth of research indicates that most change projects fail. Recent data from Gartner revealed that only one in three (32 percent) mid-to-senior level business leaders say the last change they led achieved healthy change adoption by employees, with 79 percent of employees reporting low trust in organizational change,

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Why change management fails

Let’s explore eight reasons why change management fails!

1. Treating change like a project, not a human experience

Most change management initiatives are expensive exercises in making things worse, according to Leah Brown FRSA, founder and CEO of The WayFinders Group. One of the leading causes of failure is when leaders treat change like a project, not a human experience, she says.

“Change isn’t a timeline with milestones and a go-live date. It’s messy, emotional, and deeply personal. Yet leaders approach it like they’re implementing new software rather than asking people to fundamentally alter how they work, think, and relate to their colleagues.”

You can’t project manage your way through grief, resistance, and fear, Brown adds. “When organizations prioritize delivery dates over people’s capacity to adapt, they create compliance theater: everyone nods along whilst privately planning workarounds. Real change happens when leaders recognize they’re not managing a process, they’re navigating emotional disarray.”

2. Underestimating the importance of buy-in at every level

Another reason why change management fails is because leaders underestimate the importance of buy-in at every level, says Leyland Clowsley, managing director at Apex Manufacturing. “Lean transformation, for example, is not about tools or templates; it is about culture. Without genuine engagement from shopfloor staff, suppliers, and even investors who may not be present day-to-day, improvement initiatives collapse under their own weight.”

In legacy businesses, this is even more pronounced, Leyland says. When employees have worked the same way for decades, introducing digital systems or Lean methods can feel like a threat rather than progress. “Successful change happens only when people are involved in shaping it, not when it is imposed from above. The same applies to external suppliers and investors, who must understand the long-term vision so that they remain aligned, patient, and supportive through the transition. Change fails not because the idea is bad, but because people were not brought along for the journey.”

3. Missing accountability on tasks and projects

Change management initiatives often succeed or fail at the lowest level, i.e. the task, says Milly Barker, founder of Pay As You Go COO. “If the daily, small steps that power the big pieces of work that are going to move the needle aren’t completed, the initiative fails. Failure often occurs because of a simple lack of accountability tied to the execution of the work.”

Every task and project (the inputs and outputs of the work) must have three non-negotiable elements: an owner, a clear definition of success and a deadline, Barker adds. “Without an owner, no one is responsible. Without a clear definition of success, the work remains ambiguous. Without a deadline, there’s no sense of urgency to drive completion.”

Watch: Leading with empathy: Managing the head, heart, and guts during cultural transformation

4. Communication is one-way traffic

Traditional change communications are often just broadcasting disguised as engagement (where leaders talk at people, send emails full of corporate speak, or promote consultation exercises that are really just box-ticking). This approach fails because it doesn’t create space for the conversations that actually matter, says Brown

“People don’t need another PowerPoint deck. They need to voice their fears, challenge assumptions, and understand what this means for their daily reality. When communication only flows downward, organizations miss the critical intelligence about where change will break down in practice.”

Diego Borquez, regional business process manager, LATAM at Pacific International Lines and PEX Network Advisory Board member agrees, adding that complex language that is hard to understand, sugarcoating drawbacks, and a lack of cohesion between speech/actions are factors that also fall into this change management failure category.

5. Middle managers get crushed in the transmission

When it comes to change management, middle managers can get tasked with an impossible job, according to Brown. “They’re supposed to champion change from above whilst simultaneously managing their teams’ anxieties, workload pressures, and resistance. They’re piggy in the middle, blamed by senior leaders for slow adoption and blamed by frontline staff for imposing unwanted change.”

Yet, organizations rarely give them the tools, authority, or emotional support to navigate this impossible position. “It’s nearly impossible to achieve the operational goals when this is the reality for middle management. They aren’t the problem; rather, they’re the canary in the coal mine showing you where your change approach is failing.”

6. Short-termism and thinking faster equals better

Another reason why change management fails lies in the short-termism of corporate priorities. Executives expect visible results within quarters, while sustainable change demands consistency, not campaigns. “Real transformation is a marathon disguised as a sprint. If you only run the first 100 meters, you shouldn’t be surprised you never reach the finish line,” says Niels Brabandt, owner and founder of NB Networks.

The pace of change often reflects leaders’ impatience rather than people’s capacity for adaptation, echoes Brown. “Leaders who’ve been planning for months expect immediate buy-in from employees who learned about it last week.”

This expectation gap doesn’t accelerate change, it drives resistance underground, where it festers and sabotages implementation. People need time to move through the psychological stages of transition: letting go of the old, navigating the messy middle of confusion, and genuinely embracing new ways of working. “Rushing this process creates change zombies where people go through the motions whilst their hearts and minds remain firmly fixed in the past,” Brown adds. 

Watch: Enable teams to embrace change: Riding the roller coaster of transformation

7. Lack of leadership alignment and sustainability

Lack of leadership alignment and failing to plan how to sustain change are major contributing factors to the failure of change, says April Callis-Birchmeier from Springboard Consulting. “Change initiatives must have a sponsor who is not only in alignment with the reason for the change, but they must be able to describe the relevant and relatable story of the change to the stakeholder, particularly frontline stakeholders.”

An example of this is a technical sponsor who describes a change as “seamless integration” and cannot get stakeholders interested in learning about the change. “When the messaging is revised to pose the change as a move to an information ‘super center’ one-stop shop experience, those same stakeholders understand and begin to support the change,” Callis-Birchmeier says.

Planning how an organization plans to sustain a change is the other issue that leads to failed change. “For change to be adopted and then operationalized it’s critical to plan for project/initiative tasks to be transitioned to operations and for the change sponsor to relinquish ownership to an operational unit. Failure to do so means that a sponsor refuses to release the change and it becomes a ‘pet’ project which isn't sustainable for a number of reasons.”

8. Change management that’s not actually change management

Finally, most of the time, change management fails because it’s not actually change management at all. There’s a crucial step that gets missed: uptake and adoption, says Rachel Murphy, founder of The Grafter and former CIO of the UK Department for Education.

“If you’re implementing new software, you can’t just focus on the process of change, you need to make sure people actually use the damn thing. That means investing properly in training, communications, and building desire before and after the rollout. Otherwise, nothing sticks.”

The other big reason? Value creation, adds Murphy. “People only really care about themselves. If you’re asking someone to do something differently, you have to show them what’s in it for them. What’s the value? Why should they care? If you skip uptake, adoption, and value creation, no amount of PowerPoint decks or ‘change champions’ will save your project.”

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