Change Management

Change Management is at the heart of every business even if we don’t label it so. Every director, manager or entrepreneur knows that if things are not working you have to change them. Unfortunately with a lot of business processes, we don’t actually know if they are not working efficiently or in the best interests of the business.

As Albert Einstein once famously said Insanity: is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

So, why are we so reluctant to change business processes? Well it is very simple, in business we don’t actually like change, we fear change and unless we have a really big issue, we don’t embrace change.

There has always been the mindset – If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. However, with business change, it doesn’t have to be broken, it just has to be not working properly. And, once we get our head around that analogy, it becomes easy to change.

Reluctance to Change Management

At Unleashed, we can empathise with any business that is reluctant to change. it is normal. We know that change means upheaval and it may be that you went through a particularly difficult change period in the past and it has put you off.

However, we are here to help you with your change management.

10 Tips to Effective Change Management

  • People issues – Keep your end-users engaged at all times and take feedback from them. After all, they know their job better than you do!

  • Top-down approach – You have to start at the top with senior management, most of the time, they are part of the problem.

  • Transparency – With change, there is no them and us. Everybody has to be involved and engaged or it won’t work.

  • Business case – Your employees are highly skilled and intelligent people, you have to make a good solid business case for them to change the way they do things and buy into the whole process.

  • Ownership – Allow each employee to own their process, they will tell what they can do better.

  • Communication – So important, if you don’t communicate what you are doing, you will fail and it would be a costly and wasted process.

  • Behaviour – With any change, you have to be mindful of culture and behaviour within that given department

  • Culture – When you have understood the culture of the department, you have to try to keep that within the change process or you will lose the end-users

  • Unexpected – Prepare for the unexpected, it will raise its ugly head at some point, so keep some contingency measures in place.

  • Constant communication – Yes I know I have mentioned communication before, but this is so vital. You have to constantly communicate everything to your staff and more than once. Some people believe that if you tell someone three times they should remember it. Others, think the rule of 7 applies.

I want to start planning, what are my next steps?

Before you start, it is important to know that change management is not an easy and straightforward process. Many companies have been burnt before by implementing software or processes that don’t work or have been poorly implemented.

But before you begin,  ask yourself the following questions:

  • Why do you want change?

  • Is the process I am looking at going to benefit the business?

  • Have you done a business case?

  • Have you spoken to stakeholders?

If you can answer yes to all the questions, then you are ready to go. If you answer maybe, then you need more help in deciding what you want to change then we can still help you. Have a look at our digital transformation information and give us a call.

Having said that, change is good and will impact the way you do business in the future. We have a number of good no-code or low-code solutions that will help you in the process. Two simple ones to look at to start with are KissFlow and Microsoft 

GET IN TOUCH

Don’t leave it too late.

To find out how unleashed can help you achieve genuine business agility, speak to us today.

GET IN TOUCH