When it comes to making big changes in an organization—implementing a Six Sigma program, optimizing business processes, adopting a new sales strategy—executives know that the wild card in the pack is their employees’ capacity to adapt to a new order. Although the hoped-for benefits of a major initiative can shrink dramatically if employees misunderstand or resist it, success or failure depends as much on how the change is made as on the project itself. Fortunately, when companies attempt to change, a little improvement goes a long way.

To determine the role of people and process issues, we studied change programs at 40 organizations, including banks, hospitals, manufacturers, and utilities.¹ Each of these projects was initiated by senior management, could potentially have had a large economic impact on the organization, and required major company-wide changes in behavior, tasks, and processes.

Two dimensions interested us. First, we gauged the difference between the expected value of a project (essentially calculated in the business case for it) and the value the company claimed to have achieved when it was completed. Second, we rated each company’s strength in 12 widely recognized factors for managing change effectively, including the roles of senior and middle...