Are you implementing a change in your business?
It’s not easy.
Change is necessary for just about all businesses. It’s not that you want to lurch around changing everything.
But from time to time it’s necessary to change the business in ways that will keep it competitive.
The issue, however, with change is that team members are often against change.
You’ll often hear:
But that’s not how we do it.
That’s a natural human reaction. It seems that only a few people are ready to take on new challenges of learning new things.
It’s scary to think about changing something in life especially with a business. Usually the business has done really well in the past and with changing markets and technology it just comes time for a change.
But you’ll get pushback because something has worked in the past. The issue is that you know it won’t work in the future.
So you have to get the team on board with change.
Here are some tips for doing that.
1. Communicate Why Change Is Important To Your Team
You’ve done your research and you know why change is necessary for your business.
You can tell your team that the change is good for the company. You might think that people will then think about why what’s good for the company is good for them.
But that’s not how we’re conditioned.
We need to hear why things are important for us. And it has to make sense and it has to come when we’re in the right mindset.
To start the change, studies have found that it’s good to get people thinking about what’s important to them. For most people that’s usually a good life for themselves and their families.
When you get people thinking about what’s most important to them they are more open to change.
From there, explain how changes for the company, if enacted effectively, will create a better company that offers more opportunity for employees. If possible, show the specific advancement opportunities.
It still might not be entirely easy, but you’ll get people in a better position to accept change.
2. Empower Your Team To Lead The Change
A new study has found that people were more convinced by a talk when they gave it themselves.
Seems obvious.
I’m not sure why it is that way, but it makes sense. When you’re presenting something yourself you typically know the material well. You’ve studied it and maybe it’s because you can see the point of what’s being presented.
That’s different than if you’re being told something for the first time.
The angle here is that you can let people convince themselves that change is necessary and that they’re excited about the change.
One way to do this is to empower your team to lead the change. It can start with the leaders in your company. Those were probably the people that came up with the change you’re working on now. Maybe it started with everybody coming to the table with ways to move into a new market. You picked the best one or ones and got everybody on the executive team on board with that change and started strategizing on how to implement it.
At this point you go down a level in management in the organization and get them on board with coming up with ways to implement the change.
And you can continue from there until each employee has ownership of part of the change. Give them the responsibility of teaching others and doing research and providing feedback.
These things seem to get people in a mindset where they convince themselves that the change is good for the company and for themselves.
3. Provide Tools, Lead By Example And Encourage
Finally, provide the tools necessary for the change to happen. If you’re unprepared for the change in terms of allowing the employees to get on board or to train then it’ll be really difficult for the change to occur.
And it’s also crucial to lead by example. It has to start from the top with the change. You have to be fully invested in doing everything from your perspective so others see that you’re all in on this.
If you’re still doing things the old way even once in a while it sets a bad example.
Why should I do it when the CEO isn’t even doing it?
It seems simple, but it’s important and you’ll need to change your habits if you expect others to change.
And I think encouragement is important. Feedback is good, but we tend to give negative feedback only sometimes when we are training people.
But positive feedback is just as useful and important for our minds.
Hearing what a person does well encourages that behavior again so use encouragement as your employees make the changes you’re implementing.
Final Thought
No change is easy for a business. From your perspective it will be hard to change what you’re doing because as humans we’re naturally, or so it seems, averse to change. We like comfort.
It’s hard for you and it’s hard for your team.
Follow the tips above and it should help you as your business transitions into a big change right now or for one in the future.