Business Change: It's Mandatory
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Growth is Not an Option, It's Life
People and organizations have only two
alternatives: get better or get worse, improve or decay. While the thought
of status quo might seem comforting, status quo is really decay in sheep’s
clothing. Certainly status quo is decay relative to companies who are
improving and innovating in the competitive market place. In the personal
career arena, status quo is decay relative to those who are improving
their career potential.
Take a look at everything that is going
on around and in us. Everything seems to be in the process of getting
better (growing) or decaying (dying). An example of this is a steel beam,
which one might tend to think of as being permanent. The fact is the beam
is decaying from the moment manufacturing is complete. On the personal
side, we are all constantly changing physically and mentally. Our choice
is to manage this process and improve the things that can be improved, or
ignore the process and decay. This idea is a key element in the concept of
life long learning.
Underlying this concept is the thought that we can all decide to learn and grow, or decay (doing nothing is a decision). The same is true for organizations. When we hear about revitalization, remaking, redesigning, restructuring reengineering, etc, we are usually talking about changing the momentum from known decay or status quo (unknown decay), to improvement, innovation and growth.
The question for us as individuals, and for organizations, is how to keep on the growth, innovation and improvement upward vector. It can be done, but it takes positive, continuous action and energy. It has to be made to happen because the inertia tends to be towards status quo and decay sets in.
Growth is Painful
When people ask a manager if all the problems are solved, the response should be: “I hope not”. This is because if there were no problems, there would be no need for managers. Problems include creating and updating plans, adjusting the organizational charts and work processes, leading people to new motivations, and reacting when the controls indicate a problem exists, or is about to exist. In almost all of these tasks, the required decision-making leads to changes. Therefore, change is what we are actually managing. The issue is whether we view change as an opportunity or a nuisance.
This
brings us to our old friend ‘resistance to change’. When facilitating the
introduction and implementation of a new concept or process, one can
boldly make the assertion that everyone loves change and does not resist
it. That always generates a response of disagreement. However, when one
asks: Who resists a promotion? Who resists a pay raise? The response is
usually, well not those kinds of changes.
The point is the blanket comment; “I don’t like change” is untrue. We generally like changes that affect us positively and tend to resist changes that affect us in a negative way. The challenge is to take our positive attitude to some changes and apply this attitude across the board.
Breaking up a Frozen Organization
Implementing change is a three-step process: unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. Unfreezing is the most important step in this process. This involves preparing people for change. It is the step that needs to be taken to help people accept and support the up coming change. Getting people to buy-into, and support, change can be accomplished by combinations of: participation in change definition and planning, education classes/meetings, and extensive communications.
All this needs to take place well before the change is implemented so people are ready and supportive. This is the step that is usually ignored or insufficiently completed. When this happens, the likelihood of successful change is greatly diminished.
Implementing the change itself needs to be carefully planned to be successful. We need to also remember that in many cases we will be operating the old way at the same time we bringing on the new way. Finally, refreezing means making the new way permanent. One needs to periodically check to insure the change has remained in place and we have not drifted back to the old way. In working with a change process that is failing, there are three areas in which to look.
Change is Inevitable
During the change process, people resist
change for one or several reasons. First, they may not like the change
itself. Second, they may not like the way the change is being implemented.
Third, they may not like the person who is leading the change - the change
agent. If a change implementation is having difficulty, check in all of
these three areas. The problem could be in one, or several, of the areas.
Of course, when you are fixing a failing change process, you are engaging
in another change process.
So change is what we manage. We all know the rate of change is continuing to accelerate. For example, we usually talk about a five-year time frame in the strategic planning process. However, when you think in terms of the increasing rate of change, the amount of change that has occurred in five years in the past, may now take place in two to three years. This presents an interesting challenge for strategic planning.
One of the best steps you can take in creating positive growth strategy is talking to Extensis. We have years of experience working with small and medium sized business to help create corporate cultures and HR policies that accelerate, instead of hinder, you reaching your business goals. We have the tools to ensure your business' ability to deal with the changes that are inevitable in today's business world.
For more information, go to www.extensispeo.com, or call 888-473-6398.