This one key insight will change how you think about change

"It's become almost a cliché to talk about how consistently organizational change fails. Study after study finds that roughly three-quarters of change efforts don't achieve their objectives. There are underlying forces that work against us adapting to change-including synaptic, network and cost effects-that lead to resistance. Another problem lies in how we study change itself. Typically, researchers at an academic institution or a consulting firm interview executives that were involved in successful efforts and try to glean insights to write case studies."

"One unlikely place to look for insight is a little-known academic named Gene Sharp, who wasn't interested in business at all, but political revolutions. What he found was that there are sources of power that support the status quo and these have an institutional basis. As long as they remain in place, nothing will ever change. But if you can shift them, anything becomes possible."

Organizational change frequently fails: roughly three-quarters of efforts do not meet objectives. Underlying forces—synaptic, network, and cost effects—create resistance to adaptation. Research methods focusing on successful cases yield biased, uncontrolled findings because they rely on self-serving interviews. Institutional sources of power uphold the status quo; changing those sources enables transformation. Historical shifts around 1789 redistributed power, and late-19th-century abolitionist and suffrage movements developed nonviolent techniques. Gandhi refined nonviolent methods, demonstrating that nonviolent campaigns can be effective because violent revolts are disadvantaged when regimes control the means of violence.

Read at Fast Company