Your small business can’t survive and stay the same over time because around your company occur tremendous changes constantly. You will simply need to change your company as an answer to outside changes or leave your company to die. So, your change process is an important part of your business processes.
But, when we talk about changes there are many obstacles that you will be faced on your transformational journey. For example, your changes will require great plans, you will need to overcome resistance to change, you will need to lead the whole change process perfectly, you will need to ensure that everything planned will be implemented, you will need to check if the results from your company’s efforts in the change process are really worth, you will need to implement different adjustments in the implementation process…
And that is only a fraction of what you will cope in the change process.
Here are 10 steps that can help you from a start to finish if we can say that there is a finish of a change process.
1. Look into the future.
You need to look into the future as clearly as possible and see where your business is, what it will make, and how it will look in that future. There are many factors or sources of change that will tell you what you will need to make, but the best way to prepare your company for an uncertain future is to work to create the future.
2. Learn from the past.
How much more experienced you are and how much more experienced your business is, the more valuable information you will have to create a better future for your market, and also for your small business. You need to learn from the past and mix that experience with your vision if you want to implement a really important change in your company.
3. Mix knowledge from outside your industry.
There are many successful examples that show us how knowledge from one industry that is not related to your own industry can bring impactful changes in your own industry. Who will be the first in the implementation it will be the leader in the industry.
Because of that, do not limit yourself to base all your work on information from your own industry, look much wider around you, your company and your industry and you will find amazing things that can be implemented in your small business.
4. Start asking your customers.
Another great source that will have a large impact on you in initiating change process in your company is customers. You can’t start to build something if you don’t ask your customers for their thinking and their recommendation. Because in the end, your purpose is to improve your small business and in such a way to build systems that will serve much better to your customers.
5. Plan what you will need to do.
Even sometimes you will feel that you don’t have enough time to plan your change process, I highly recommend you to take part of your time and plan the change processes you will need to implement. The change process is a highly complex process and without a plan, you can easily find yourself despaired because it will not produce the results you want to produce.
6. Build a sense of urgency.
I know that you think you are the entrepreneur or manager, and you have the power to plan and initiate the change process. But, you are not alone. You can change yourself, but you can’t change other people if they don’t want to change and in most cases, the change process will also require the change in other individuals in your company.
On the other hand, the change process will require support from your whole company, and if you don’t build a real sense of urgency, the support will not be on the desired level.
7. Predict possible resistance to change.
You need to be aware that always there will be persons who will support the change process, but also there will be the persons who will be resistant to the specific change process. Persons with high resistance to change sometimes can have the power to harm your overall change process. Because of that, you as an entrepreneur or manager will need to predict possible resistance to change. You can check my list of 28 reasons of resistance to change that can help you in identifying possible resistance in your own company.
8. Work on overcoming resistance to change.
When you discover all possible reasons for resistance to change, in this step you will need to work on overcoming that resistance to change. The implementation of the change process will be much easier without resistance.
9. Don’t stop, implement what you have planned to implement.
Now, when you are sure you have the right change, the right plan for the change process and you have already removed possibilities of resistance you can start with the implementation of the process. Simply don’t stop implement what you have planned to implement, observe the implementation of the process and create adjustments if there is a need for something.
10. Celebrate and present you next change cycle.
The last step in this process is to celebrate the success of the change process implementation. When you come to this step, it means that your company is much better than it was when you start with the first step, but in the same time, it doesn’t mean that you have reached the state of perfection. Yes, ending one change cycle means that you need to start another one, and because of that you will need to energize yourself and your team celebrating the success of this one project and announcing the next one.
In the simplest words, this is the best process steps to implement continuous improvement through the change in your company. But, it is important for you to be systematic and strategic when it comes to organizational changes because there will always be many more other things that will need to be changed. Prioritize what you will change as a first.
Do you have experience in the change implementation in your company?
