7 Secrets for Making Changes

HUMAN NATURE, FOR the most part, resists change. We love predictability and comfort, by and large. In business, change is an important ingredient to keeping business thinking sharp, its staff thriving and developing, and building adaptability in an unclear market!

Maybe you are looking to shift your marketing focus. Maybe you want to add a new capability. Or you may be expanding faster than you can add staff to help deal with it all. Maybe the economy tanks and you have to reorganize your business.

Whatever change you are going through, some predictable stages will appear. Knowing these stages of change are coming can make the ‘unpredictable’ feel more ‘predictable’ and make the abnormal feel a little more normal.

As with the classic parenting book What to Expect When You Are Expecting, you can look for certain markers in the process that you can trust and count on to help guide your way!

Use these principles for yourself, your leaders or for your entire team:

• Change will almost always feel wrong. People will complain, even if the changes are ultimately positive. Customers may be surprised. Even your leaders in the company might get uncomfortable and push back. Remember that discomfort is just part of the process and reassure everyone that what they feel is normal.
• Listening is communicating. Don’t shut down feedback — keep the lines of communication open through the process. Letting people share what they are going through is a way to ease the process. And you will find the recurring pain points that need attention.
• Be ready for the messy room. Have you ever reorganized a closet? It always looks like a bomb went off at some point. Don’t panic! You may find a moment of “WHAT DID I DO?!” in the process and want to undo it. But remember the “messy room” is what you have before you start to put everything back in the theoretical closet. Keep going! The messy room is normal.
• Plan for support. If you are making changes, plan for supportive resources. The bigger the change, the bigger the support. Completely remodeling your showroom and disrupting every single salesperson’s process? Plan for help in relocating desks and IT help in getting everyone set up again. Starting a new morning meeting process and everyone is complaining about it? Give them a clear guide outlining the changes and why they are being made.
• Reward the try! During change, as people are trying to adapt, notice their efforts and recognize them. If the new design process requires an extra step in the software, notice those who are taking the extra step willingly and give them a thank you. Efforts matter as people build toward success. Don’t expect perfection right away but notice those moving in the right direction and reward the try!
• Keep an eye on progress. Often as we move through change we only focus on what else needs to happen, what is undone, what is still not right, and we grow frustrated. Remind your team along the way of the progress they have already made! Noticing how far you are from the finish line should be balanced with noticing how far you are from the start.
• CELEBRATE! When you finally get done, or even mostly done through a process, choose a definable marker point and celebrate the efforts everyone made. New showroom remodel gets done, so we have a “ribbon cutting” with the team to admire and enjoy. Got a new printer installed? Celebrate by making a print of a team photo and pop a bottle of champagne or sparkling juice. New software got deployed? Take everyone out for pizza!

Change is hard. Don’t make it harder by not being prepared and ready for what is to come!