As digitalisation becomes a necessary survival tool, the race towards online dominance became the talking point across many industries. In the education and training sectors, organisations are racing to establish better Learning Management Systems. In the travel agency sector, businesses race towards capturing the DIY (Do It Yourself) travellers. Within the food & beverage industry, home-based businesses are now directly competing with established food chains and restaurants offering sumptuous menu at competitive prices.
Why Rock The Boat
However, not many businesses succeeded in augmenting their business quickly to adapt to changing market needs and sentiments. Leaders often tell themselves, we have successfully run the business for decades making profits, why change? Kodak, Nokia, Blackberry, familiar big household names just in the recent past. Where are they now?
Why Not Do These
As we deal with leaders who are resistant to change, there are also a fair proportion of leaders who overwhelm themselves with too many ideas. Strategies were laid out and resources have been committed. Barely leaving the planning stages of the execution, new ideas and strategies are mooted and leaders go back to the drawing board. Another series of discussion ensues.
Is It Worth To Change?
There are also instances where strategic changes have been discussed and final plans presented. Then decisions come late. Leaders wait for concrete opportunities before deciding to embark on organisational changes. Some invests in several exploratory engagements using internal resources and external consultants seeking for change recommendations, without making actions afterwards.
So, where do we go from here?
- Establish Sense of Urgency
- Leaders tend to procrastinate, repeatedly evaluating options to ensure that these changes are necessary. By the time a decision in made, there is a possibility of like-minded others who have reached to the market first
- By establishing a sense of urgency, great enough to warrant immediate action, these must be undertaken to maintain a potential first mover advantage. Situations like post-pandemic will push many organisations to review their operational processes and products and services. Such delays could be costly and the subsequent impact from the change undertaken would be less impactful than if it was done much earlier
- Establish and Communicate Your Vision
- Why keep your cards very close to yourself without communicating them to the people who will be impacted and needed to see these changes materialise?
- Once a clear vision has been established and what these stepping-stones are which will lead to the desired outcome, COMMUNICATE with the most important people, YOUR EMPLOYEES!
- Maintain a clear and consistent communication of this vision to remind everyone on how they too have a role to play and contribute ideas towards achieving them. They are an expert in their respective fields, and it is imperative that their voices are heard and considered in the changes to come. Don’t you like your ideas to be heard?
- Build Your A Team
- While a leader plays a critical role in initiating the change and planning it, its takes more than an Elite Commander to win a war. Sharing this load with a powerful team of like-minded and reliable middle management is of utmost essential to drive and steer the changes and see it to fruition.
- Clear responsibilities with measurable outcomes are critical to ensure that each department lead is aware of the expectations and where they should be heading. Do not encourage an environment where toxicity can seep in, and incoherent ideas spoken to inappropriate leaders, which brings to the next tip
- Clear Obstacles Leading to the Desired Changes
- Leaders often remind the employees to not be distracted by other matters while at work or even questioning why targets are not met. However, leaders fail to realise that at times, not all the time, employees are unable to achieve due to the obstacles placed by the leaders themselves.
- The goal post keeps shifting that, employees are unclear of what exactly is required of them. Priorities get changed without clear bearing on its rationale and alignment to overall strategy
- While situations can be dynamic and organisations need to remain agile and nimble, there has to be strong reasoning and purpose behind any deviations from the planned changes to be made to ensure that everyone remain onboard and that the buy-in is intact. Without clearing such obstacles away, any significant changes arising from such management approaches will take years before it materialises, if any!
- Strengthen an Adaptive Organisational Culture
- Many of the above tips have a commonality within them, a need for a strong positive organisational culture. Changes can only be brought about if the work culture has sufficient positive vibes can proliferate among the employees. There has to be a sense of “Yes! this can happen” and “Yes! we should work together to achieve this” must be present.
- For a positive and healthy culture to blossom, no matter how big or small an organisation, the leader plays a critical role when leading new changes. If an organisation wishes to do away with paper, LEADERS MUST START and be the role model. If the leaders wish everyone to perform, do not allow ‘specific individuals’ to get away with poor work quality
There is no science in leading changes. However, an art or persuasion and communication, combined with effective science of strategic planning, research and forming effective teams could potentially be the ideal recipe for a better outcome to achieving your future strategies.
