Organizational change fatigue is a general sense of apathy or passive resignation towards organizational changes by individuals or teams. Organizational change efforts are all too often unfocused, uninspired and unsuccessful. Research shows, 70 percent of transformation efforts fail, often caused by change fatigue.
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Overview
Organizational Change Fatigue has become a chronic problem facing companies in today's world of constant, concurrent and often competing changes. To successfully deploy and adopt change, organizational change fatigue often represents the single greatest risk for an organization. However, companies can combat and overcome organizational change fatigue.
Constant and Concurrent Change
Most organizations are constantly undergoing some form of change, either locally, regionally or globally. However, as humans, we inherently need stability, order and predictability, essentially our need to maintain a sense of status quo. Organizational changes often directly challenge the status quo, creating resistance and conflict. When change is always occurring, individuals begin to become overwhelmed, their ability to adapt becomes depleted, and the loss of control and uncertainty skyrocket. So, individuals are unable to align their thoughts and actions because they are always changing.
Organizations that plan and manage change thoughtfully and with long-term goals in mind make a point of providing a clear start point, an unambiguous transition phase, and a clear goal (end point) for each change undertaken. Only via such a careful approach will fears be reduced -- and thus individuals will become able to comfortably cope with each change.