Ben Fletcher Advisory Helping Startups

1 minute guide to managing change

If you are running a fast growing company, you will be doing lots of new things and having to change from the old way of doing things to the new way. This is a major headache. There’s a huge amount of inertia that means people tend to do things in the old way because they feel more comfortable with that.

However, there are some simple things you can do that will help the change process

1. Make sure everyone understands why the change is necessary. If you can’t clearly express the benefits to the business, it’s probably not worth doing. How does this affect the team undergoing the change? Why will it make things better for them? It’s very easy after a lot of thought and discussion about something new to assume that everyone will ‘get’ the idea quickly. This is rarely the case. If they can’t articulate the reasons and benefits in their own words they are unlikely to have really understood it. If you can get people to take ownership of the change, they are much more likely to make it happen.

2. Don’t rush out lots of changes at once. It’s very easy to sit in a meeting and come up with a long list of new things that you ought to be doing as a company, then dole out tasks to managers. Often this results in things getting half done or ignored as people can only take so much change. I know it is tempting once you have discussed how amazing your business will be after these changes to rush into them. After you have come up with your list, prioritise first (by whatever metric you prefer: quick wins might be a factor, biggest impact on profit, the need for new product, market share etc – just make sure you decide on the priorities). Then look at which projects overlap (involve the same people). Then you can start on the projects with the top priorities that affect only one group of people. As another note, if you have lots of meetings where you generate ideas, you are likely to run into difficulties unless you are always comparing them to your master list of priorities. If you are not doing this you just aren’t managing your business, you’ll always be working on the hot new idea.

3. Have a project leader/cheerleader. You need someone that is on the front line of the project that really ‘gets’ it, and can make sure everything is being implemented properly.

4. Have clear objectives that are measurable, and check on them. Don’t assume that just because you’ve had a great idea and explained it clearly that it will happen. You need to have regular checks. If people never feel they will be checked on, what’s to stop them taking the path of least resistance and carrying on doing things the same old way. Also, you need to check that the changes have been implemented correctly. Again, if you’re always focussed on the shiny new ideas, old change projects will just run out of steam and noting will happen.

If you follow these steps, you will start far fewer change projects, but get more completed. Remember, there’s a limited amount of time available – you can only get so much done in a given period of time. Starting more will not result in more work getting done. I like the story about the British general who said during WWII that our problem was we planned a battleship for a year and took four years to build it whereas the Japanese planned a battleship for three years and took one year to build it.

Worth bearing in mind!

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