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Change management

Change Management

There is a management puzzle for you to solve:

1. All the improvements that you wish to make imply making changes to your current methods.

2. But many people do not like making changes to their current methods: change unsettles them.

3. So many people DO NOT WANT TO MAKE THE IMPROVEMENTS necessary because that will mean they have to accept change - which they do not want to do.

Change
Change is the opposite of “staying the same”.
Change is radical.
It is improvement based upon throwing out the old design. Starting from new, new methods, new beliefs and new systems.

Changes can be dramatic, exciting and costly. They can also be hugely beneficial. Sometimes evolution  is not enough and you will have to manage someone through serious change.

For example:
Suppose you were in the vinyl record manufacturing business in the 1980s.  You were making the best vinyl records in the country. You were committed to continuous improvement. Every week you were thinking of ways to improve the quality and quantity of your vinyl records production.
Then you heard a rumour.
You heard that there was a new music format called Compact Disc, or “C.D.”.  Apparently, it was possible to record music onto this disc “digitally” to achieve a far better standard of sound than could be achieved on vinyl records.
But you know nothing about CD technology. You are an expert in vinyl. Your business is not tooled up for CD manufacture. You have millions tied up in vinyl manufacture.
So you say to yourself “I am safe. This C.D. technology will not catch on. Nobody will dump their record collections and buy the same music again on CD. It would be too expensive”.

If that had been your stance, what would have happened?

The world is changing.
It always has. It always will.
As a result, the context in which you find yourself is in a state of flux. Technological advances, changes in law, or political culture WILL make your current methods obsolete.

Sometimes it is a mistake to keep to the winning formula.
Sometimes you have to throw out the old, retool, reinvest and start from scratch.

Examples of this type of change are:
o Public sector finance to private sector partnership
o Redecorate the house or sell it
o Train and develop the employee or dismiss and rehire

There are huge potential gains to be made with change.
But with the huge potential gains are the following considerations:
Change is:
o Usually irreversible
o Often expensive
o Uncertain in the result
o Stressful

Change can be:
o Lucrative
o Exciting
o Liberating
o Necessary

As a manager remember this phrase from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus
 
“Everything flows and nothing abides”

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