Abilene and IKEA: How to Make the Next Corporate Initiative a Success

“Abilene, Abilene, prettiest city that you’ve ever seen,” George Hamilton IV sang in 1963.

The central Texas city, but not the song, comes up in “How Change Really Works,” by three consultants with management advisory firm Boston Consulting Group, published last month.

A common behavior named after the Central Texas city helps explain why so many corporate strategy shifts and change initiatives so often fail, the authors say.

How often? About 70% of change programs fail to accomplish their original objectives, a grim statistic that has been replicated over many studies, the authors note. In a business world where the motto is supposedly “Change or die,” most change programs die.

The authors aim to explain why so many initiatives fail with principles from behavioral science.

“When organizations struggle with change, they usually do so not because leaders have a poor strategy or insufficient opportunities to win new business, but because they don’t focus enough on how executives and employees are likely to behave, feel, and think throughout the process,” they say.

The point is well taken, even though many leaders’ decisions flop because they are just plain wrong.

The book is filled with examples, from Schlitz Beer at the turn of the 20th Century to Danish jewelry company Pandora in 2019. The book also has plenty of tips on communication.

Remembering the principles behind those tips will help you know when to employ those suggestions.

IKEA effect
To understand how people value things, a Harvard Business School professor asked a group of college students to assemble a plain black compact disc box from the retailer IKEA. Michael Nortn called them the “builders.” Their boxes generally had flaws, as anyone who’s put together furniture from Netherlands-based retailer would know.

Another group, the “nonbuilders,” were given an identical box fully assembled. Each of the 52 participants was asked to bid on their own box.

You might expect the builders to bid less. After all, they had already assembled their boxes, which is a key part of the value. Again, as anyone who’s put together IKEA furniture would know.

Meanwhile, the nonbuilders were pricing a fully assembled, flawless box. But, in fact the builders bid 63% more than the nonbuilders. Why?

“Putting effort into something makes you value it,” Norton explained to the authors.

He and his research team have found the same effect when the experiments involved an origami cranes or frogs, and LEGO birds, dogs, ducks and helicopters.

Why it matters
When people help create a new strategy or initiative that they’ll have to put in place, they are more invested in its success. They own it.

Reflecting on the IKEA effect, the authors ask: If a third group of participants had been invited to give advice to the builders that is “mostly ignored,” would they have bid as much for the boxes?

“We doubt it,” they write.

That hypothetical third group is where employees often find themselves. Ignored.

The goal is to develop among employees a sense of agency in changes that affect them. Of course, every employee can’t weigh in on every decision.

In particular, what do you do for employees who aren’t given decision-making power or a say to influence decisions? They should be represented. Someone who has their same interests has been given the change to decide or influence.

Abilene paradox
Abilene may have been the prettiest city George Hamilton IV ever saw, but not to Jerry Harvey.  A native Texan, Harvey was a longtime management professor at Georgetown University before he died in 2015.

He recounted a long trip to go to dinner on a very hot day from the tiny town of Coleman, Texas, to Abilene with his wife and mother- and father-in-law. Before they left, everyone said they wanted to go, but they all regretted it after they returned.

None of the participants actually wanted to go but said they did because they believed it would make the others happy.

“Here we were, four reasonably sensible people who, of our own volition, had just taken a 106-mile trip across a godforsaken desert in a furnace-like temperature through a cloud-like dust storm to eat unpalatable food at a hole-in-the-wall cafeteria in Abilene, when none of us had really wanted to go,” Harvey wrote in 1988. “In fact, to be more accurate, we’d done just the opposite of what we wanted to do.”

Why it matters
Harvey’s story helps explain that some change initiatives fail because of “false alignment.” Senior leaders say they agree on a large-scale initiative, but don’t agree on what, why or how.

The authors present five tips for gaining “true agreement” among leaders, and four tips on what do when agreement seems not likely. Those tips can be applied just as well to getting “true alignment” between leaders and employees.

In discussions about change management, much attention is paid to a lack of understanding between management and workers. But the authors remind us that the seeds of discord are often sown among the leaders.

Too much is …
The dismal results of strategic shifts and business initiatives have done little to dampen CEOs’ ardor. The average employee in 2022 dealt with 10 planned enterprise changes — restructurings, culture transformations or big tech changes, according to a widely cited estimate by research and consulting firm Gartner.

If more initiatives were successful, perhaps there would be fewer of them. But most employees are weary. When another initiative is announced, they feel like the title to the Broadway musical (and movie), “Stop the World ― I Want to Get Off.”

Tom Corfman is a senior consultant with Ragan Consulting Group and a fan of classic country music like the songs of George Hamilton IV. Do you need help planning the communications about a strategic shift? Email Tom to set up a free call with him and RCG co-founder and senior partner Jim Ylisela.

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