Unfortunately, it’s all too common for these changes to fall short. Last year Towers Watson¹ reported that only 25 percent of companies could sustain long-term gain from their change management initiatives.

Reasons for this vary: the status quo is too entrenched, priorities are in conflict, funding and resources are lacking, etc. Where do these barriers correspond, in terms of staff? Oftentimes, the bottlenecks start at the top. And these are the people tasked with implementing changes.

The fact that changes so often fail to take root doesn’t suggest that managers and supervisors are somehow dropping the ball. Rather it suggests that change management is a heavy, complicated lift.

Here’s a look at how to approach change management in a way that relieves the burden from middle managers and yields the results your company desires.

Bill Mullins began his career with Ricoh as a Managed Services Site Manager in 1997. He was responsible for one of the largest Managed Services locations in the US. Mullins has over 30 years of management, 10 years of training and 5 years of change management experience in multiple industries.