Change Management; Radical vs. Consistent

In the world of business, as with life in general, change is an inevitability. You can choose to ignore it, or you can choose to embrace it. However, it should be said that, should you choose to ignore the evolving changes in your business, you will fall victim to them. Whether you ignore an increase in material or service costs and allow your margins to deplete, or you ignore industry standards shifting and allow your dated qualifications to jade your consumer rating, or you ignore the evolution of your target market and allow your brand to lose its voice…the bottom line is that your business will change, with or without you. But, it can only succeed with you.

Supporting the inevitable changes your business will experience is embodied by change management. This is achieved through the methods and workflows in which your business documents and implements change, both internally and externally. Simply put, change management is the management of changes. This is accomplished through four core principles:

• Understand change

  • What’s changing? Why is it changing? What are the key objectives of the change? How will it impact the business? How does the business need to adjust?

• Plan change

  • What is the timeline of the change? Who needs to be involved? Who fills which roles? What is the reach of the change? How long will it take to adapt? Who needs to be informed?

• Implement change

  • How often do updates need to happen? What type of training needs to be considered? What does the change roll out look like? How do we offer continued support?

• Communicate change

  • Why did this change happen? How does this change affect the business? How does it affect each role? What type of support is being offered? Why is this change important?

Beyond the four core principles of change management, there are a myriad of disciplines, theories, and methods that can be adapted. For now, we will explore two high-level approaches to change management: business reengineering and continuous improvement. Otherwise labeled as radical vs. consistent, or reactive vs. proactive. Let’s start with the reactive option.

Perhaps one of the most aggressive, results-driven change management methods out there is business reengineering. This strategy involves the radical redesign of core business processes in order to drastically improve productivity, cycle times, and how you serve your clients overall. Business reengineering is considered radical due to the fact that it requires you to strip aspects of your business down to the studs, examine each building block, and rebuild from the ground up. This method is not for the faint of heart, or the narrow-minded. It will force you to reimagine the potential of your business, and then bring that new vision to life. All the while, continuing to serve your clientele, and pushing the business forward. 

Sound impossible? It's not. It is a challenge, make no mistake. But business reengineering is the most viable option for companies that need radical change to survive. Sometimes businesses face such a drastic change in their industry that no amount of continuous improvement could have prepared them. One of the most notable examples of such a drastic change would be the Industrial Revolution, which took the manufacturing industry by storm. The change from hand crafting to machine manufacturing rewrote the manufacturing and distribution industries forever. Aside from the equipment, training, staffing, and logistic transition that the revolution required, it also created the ability to mass-produce and mass-distribute. Thus began the era of consumerism.

Whether it is an industry change, internal workflow, audience, or the evolution of our society, change can come on like a ripple or a tidal wave. Business reengineering is meant for the tidal waves, making it somewhat reactive in its methodology. For the ripples of change, the best approach is a proactive approach. While it can seem daunting to get ahead of an unknown change, continuous improvement provides an incremental set of data points to be monitored and refined, which significantly reduces potential change blind-spots.

The continuous improvement method, otherwise known as Kaizen, seeks to improve every business process by focusing on enhancing the workflows that generate the most value for your audience, while removing and limiting as much waste as possible. This approach requires a constant tracking of data, trends, and other concrete numbers. The more interaction with such data points, the easier it is to see change coming and adapt in a timely manner. This level of foresight allows for a more proactive overview. 

Continuous improvement is a major piece of Lean Management, where they expand on different types of waste, and their approaches to applying the method. One of the most effective tools for continuous improvement is the 2-second improvement. This method is intended to eliminate waste and effect change incrementally by making weekly 2-second improvements. Due to its ongoing, incremental nature, changes are not only expected, they’re encouraged. This allows for getting ahead of change, or at the very least, see it coming with plenty of time and support to adjust. And, in the absolute best scenarios, provides the capability to effect change.

There are many other forms of change management out there, with varying schools of thought. The more you familiarize and adopt these methods, the better prepared you will be when change comes your way. Ideally, you will practice some form of them all, so you can be as flexible as change itself.

When you’re ready to take the next step, we’re here for you.