Sponsorship remains the strongest signal in the change data

In Prosci's 2023 benchmarking report, projects with extremely effective sponsors met their objectives 79 percent of the time, against 27 percent for projects with extremely ineffective sponsors. The finding has a long record. Active and visible sponsorship has been the top-cited contributor to success in every Prosci study since 1998, and the executive summary of Prosci's 2023 edition calls it "the single greatest contributor."

Prosci reports a similar pattern for change management as a whole. In its benchmarking research, as reported in 2023, 88 percent of practitioners who rated their change management excellent met or exceeded project objectives, against 13 percent of those who rated it poor, roughly a sevenfold difference. Prosci's 2023 figures put practitioners who rated it good or fair in between, at 73 and 39 percent.

Other research points the same way, less sharply. McKinsey's 2015 survey found four practices most closely tied to transformation success: communicating effectively, leading actively, empowering employees and continuous improvement. Active leadership, the closest match to sponsorship, made the list, but communication contributed most. Sponsorship is the most consistent signal in Prosci's data and one of the strongest in McKinsey's.

How the research was done

Prosci's benchmarking surveys change practitioners who choose to take part. Its 2023 study, the 12th edition, drew 2,668 respondents from 101 countries. Each respondent judges whether a project met its objectives and rates the sponsor and the change management behind it. Prosci sells change management methodology and training, and its data come from self-selected practitioners rating their own projects.

The evidence is consistent enough to act on and uncertain enough to test.

The sevenfold figure has two stated bases. Prosci's 2023 executive summary presents it as drawn from more than 10,800 respondents across its benchmarking research, while a 2023 Prosci blog post reporting it cites more than 2,600 practitioners in the latest study.

McKinsey's 2015 results come from an online survey fielded in November 2014 among 1,946 executives, 1,713 of whom had been part of a transformation in the previous five years. McKinsey weighted the self-reported answers by national GDP. Like Prosci's data, the 2015 survey shows correlation, not cause.

What it does not show

Neither source shows that sponsorship causes success. In Prosci's data the same person rates the sponsor and judges the outcome, so a project that went well can make its sponsor look better in hindsight. Practitioners who opt into a benchmarking study may also differ from those who do not.

The headline comparison takes the two ends of Prosci's sponsor-effectiveness scale. It shows the widest gap on that scale, not the typical one. The common shorthand that sponsorship triples success overstates what was measured.

A second figure from Prosci's 2023 study matters as much to leaders: only 48 percent of participants said they had an effective or very effective sponsor.

What to do with it

The evidence is consistent enough to act on and uncertain enough to test. Leaders can do both with the programs they already run.

• Rate the sponsor before the result is known. Ask the change lead and the program lead to score the sponsor at launch and at each major milestone, and keep the scores. Compare them with outcomes at close. That removes the hindsight problem in the benchmark data and builds evidence of your own.
• Define active and visible in observable terms. For each sponsor, list the messages they will deliver in person and the decisions they own, with dates. Then check whether those things happen.
• Write the sponsor's part in communication into the plan. McKinsey's 2015 survey found communication contributed most to success. Specify which messages the sponsor delivers and to whom.
• Treat a weak sponsor as a program risk. In Prosci's 2023 data, fewer than half of participants reported an effective sponsor, so a sponsor who falls short is common. Put the gap on the risk register with an owner and a remedy.