The Science of Successful Organizational Change: How Leaders Set Strategy, Change Behavior, and Create an Agile Culture

1. Failed Change: The Greatest Preventable Cost to Business?

The Change Problem—How Bad Is It?

At a time when governments worldwide were desperate to cut deficits, and asking citizens—one way or another, whether by increased taxes or reduced benefits—to foot the bill, the 2011 headline in the British tabloid rag, the Daily Mail must have been unwelcome:

“£12bn [$18bn] NHS Computer System Is Scrapped...”

The UK government had, after a decade, canceled the largest civilian IT project in the world at the National Health Service (NHS). Initial cost estimates had come in at a mere £2.3 billion ($4 billion), which presumably seemed a steal at the time. On the other side of the pond, the U.S. Census Bureau canceled the planned automation of the decennial ...