The Stage of Business – Making a Plan for Change – Get Creative and Be Flexible

While identifying areas of change is not difficult, organizing an approach to deal with change may take a little work. Organization becomes very important because of the sheer magnitude. It can be overwhelming. To prioritize areas of change, businesses should look to their specific business activity to discover that which changes with the greatest frequency and has the biggest impact. Most businesses can organize change into 4 primary categories or arms:
1. Technology
2. Economy
3. Business
4. Industry
They are at least 4 other areas of change that are certain to have an impact, but the impacts tend to be more indirect.
5. Political
6. Social
7. Environmental
8. Cultural
These indirect change areas, tend to have influence across the primary impact areas. They can have even a bigger impact than the primary change areas but are more difficult to deal with on a project basis.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and get creative.
How do businesses implement change without interruption of operations? It can be a big challenge figuring out how to do it. It certainly starts with a plan. Managing change has always been difficult, but it is becoming increasing problematic. The pace is astounding.
Change is happening much faster than many big businesses can handle. Small businesses have an advantage in this arena. Small businesses can be nimble. They can adapt much quicker. Trying to implement change can be crippling for big companies. If you have ever worked in or around a big company of more than 1000 employees, you have come to realize it is very difficult to get things accomplished quickly. This is due, in part, to a love affair with meetings, committees and levels of approval. That is not good if you are trying to keep up. It is like racing a boat with the anchor down.
“If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
Because the trend is in the opposite direction, big companies better move quickly to establish a change management plan or they will fall back into the wake. They should become fluid. Becoming fluid means having a system in place to identify, assess, conceptualize and execute a solution to effectively respond to the imposing change. How do you do this? One thing you will have to do is train your people well and trust them to make business decisions. Keep in mind, changes made today, have a much shorter life cycle than changes five years ago did.
Make a plan for change. Get creative and be flexible.