Managing Business Changes

Managing Business Changes

Businesses constantly modify their plans to either keep up with the competition, or squash it altogether. Modification is a necessary, every-day part of business. Sometimes those plans are hardly noticeable, like when a company quietly starts publishing in a targeted trade magazine. Other changes hit us like a ton of bricks, such as when a company downsizes or drops a significant application from its product line.

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In the online outsourcing industry, we’re not only seeing changes on a massive scale, we’re noticing people have some rather loud opinions about those changes, most of which are embedded within a not-so-sugary coat of resistance.

That’s to be expected when changes interrupt the workflow. But when we’re not in control of what’s moving around us, and we find ourselves lost in places we once knew like the back of our hand, interruption takes a back seat to feeling uneasy or even threatened. We might even feel like abandoning ship in pursuit of something more stable … something less risky.

What can you do? What can any of us do?

Accept that Change is Inevitable

First and foremost, accept that there isn’t a single thing you can do about changes other than scream out a random expletive here and there. If there’s anything consistent about business, it’s that it changes all the time. And as a website user, you have no control over any of the decisions that go into them. You will not be invited into the board room, you will not have a vote or say about new ideas, nor will you be consulted.

As a matter of fact, as a website user who has agreed to a site’s terms of service, you agreed to accept changes without your input. Example:

This Awesome Website reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace any part of this Agreement. It is your responsibility to check this Agreement periodically for changes. Your continued use of or access to the Website following the posting of any changes to this Agreement constitutes acceptance of those changes.

Some sites are nice enough to warn users that changes are coming, but most indicate they’re not under any obligation to warn anybody about anything. They operate according to a “Don’t like it? Don’t use it!” policy that suggests your continued use is your acceptance of this inevitable, constant thing called, ‘change.’

Accept that Change is Good

At some point, we have to realize that successful businesses are successful for a reason. If you’ve studied any aspect of business at all, then you know that successful businesses market-test like crazy before releasing new versions of whatever it is that’s bringing in the moolah.

Recommended Reading: Managing Change and Transition

No lucrative business will suddenly change things around without seriously considering the financial impact. So we must give credit where credit is due, and trust that the changes we encounter exist for good business reasons, like increased visibility, differentiation, and profitability.

A more appropriate reason to panic is when we’re faced with a business that doesn’t change. A static business is a business that’s bathed in stagnate methods which become outdated within a click’s time. Continuing on with an inflexible business, in fact, is a sure-fire way to become inflexible in your own ideas, methods, and results.

Accept that Change is Plateau-able

Change is not entirely chaos. At certain parts of the process, things may appear chaotic, but after a while, they plateau so that we can evaluate the effect of the transformation. This plateau offers a calm in the storm – a period in which we can readjust our behavior to accommodate what just occurred.

For recent events, check our Business Change Management news section

So take advantage of the plateau and adjust. Study new additions and consider how they’ll benefit what you’re trying to accomplish. Discover what has vanished and either compensate for missing components within your own processes, or simply model the same.

It simply makes no sense to resist that which we have no control over, that which is good, and that which is plateau-able.

Check out this brilliant video, developed and produced by Paul Brown, that introduces change management and delivers a simple message:

“Change is pervasive in our society and a fact of life in organizations. Change management is about modifying or transforming organizations in order to maintain or improve their effectiveness.”

External Resources:

1. HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change Management
2. Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business
3. Managing Change and Transition