I Hate Change!
Just as you’ve mastered doing things one way, someone comes up with a better way and your company, boss or whoever is fooled by the sales patter of that slick salesperson into adopting it. Alternatively, a competitor comes on the scene with a newer/faster/better/cheaper or better quality way of doing things and you either adapt or perish.
Result: more time spent on learning yet another way of doing
things with corresponding impact on you, your team, your boss, IT, customers
and so on. Tempers fray, people ask “Is
this another white elephant?” or “Is this just another fad?”
Sound familiar? Change
is one of the few constants in our lives, along with death and taxes. New technology means that change is hitting
us faster and more frequently than ever.
As an example, it took telephones more than 70 years to reach 50%
household penetration, 28 years for radio and 10 years for internet access (not
sure in which market or markets). Facebook
took 852 days to reach 10 million users; Twitter took 780; Google + took 16. Ernst & Young see the future happening
ever faster.
The message is clear: keep up with the pace of change, or
lose relevance. Some businesses are
learning this the hard way. Just to make
life more complicated, different generations adopt different technologies
and/or change at different rates. The
focus now is on “Generation Y” (or “digital natives”) – the current crop of
youngsters.
The implications of change are varied: loss of control or
perceived expertise, loss of relevance (and loss of job), uncertainty,
re-allocation of resources, motivating staff, communication. People resist change for all these reasons and
more. It has been the cause of
considerable industrial unrest (strikes) and even litigation. In some cases, heavily unionised labour
forces act in concert to prevent change that is actually beneficial, but
results in losses of jobs or other benefits.
The businesses that “do change” best are often highly
skilled at communicating the change, the reasons for it and how people will be affected,
what is expected and how they will be rewarded.
Sadly, this skill seems to be monumentally lacking in most cases, with
the distance between those who see the need for and advantages of change being
outnumbered by those who don’t growing ever wider.
How do you effect change without bringing your business
down? The key, as mentioned above, is communication. A simple starting framework would be to use
Kipling’s “Six Honest Serving Men”, i.e. what, why, when, how, where, who. In other words:
1. What
is the change required?
2. Why
is it needed?
3. When
does it need to happen?
4. How
will it happen? How much will it cost?
5. Where
will it happen (country, location, building, department, team, individual)?
6. Who
will be affected (not just staff in the buisiness, but others in the wider
community)?
Just answering the questions above is a start that many don’t
even make – they jump straight to step 4, announcing the plan, where it will
happen and who will be affected as in their eyes if it doesn’t, then disaster
will strike so everyone has to get on
board!
Staff concerned will be asking:
·
What does the change mean to me (longer hours,
less overtime/pay, change in methods)?
·
Why should I support it?
·
When will it happen?
·
How will I need to change?
·
Where will I work (or need to find new work if
my job is no longer needed)?
·
Who will support me during the change?
Managers/team leaders will be asking, among other questions:
·
What does the change mean to me and my team
(longer hours, less overtime/pay, change in methods)?
·
Why should we support it?
·
When will it happen?
·
How will we need to change our processes,
systems, etc? How long do we have?
·
Where will I and/or others work (or need to find
new work if my job is no longer needed)?
·
Who will be most affected?
Another group who need to be considered are other stakeholders – the local community,
shareholders/investors, bankers, accountants.
What could their concerns and questions be?
As you will realise, change management can be a daunting
process but, if managed well, will raise your business’ profits, productivity,
profile and perception well above the rest.
The keys are involvement and communication.
Labels: Career, Crisis Management, Productivity, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 14:53
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