Organizations and businesses get every day confronted with change: a new technology, a new player in the market, a new software application, the moves from a competitor, environmental changes, a changing economic situation, and whatever else… This not only requires sufficient agility from management, but also – and not at least – from staff and the entire company workforce.
Change-ahead
Most people are creatures of habit, looking for stability, avoiding hassle and disruption, settling themselves quickly in a situation they perceive as stable and not hostile.
Introducing a new back office software or rolling out a new workflow with new procedures will never be succesfull without good communication and a strong change management approach. Preparing workforce for upcoming change is surely one of the most essential parts of management and strategy execution.
Change management stands for substantial (financial) efforts and a lot of energy. So, making change part of organizational culture is a huge challenge for most companies.
The principal question is, ‘how can we get our workforce embracing change?‘ The reason behind this ambition is obvious: if change is perceived as a natural part of everyones working environment, it will need less energy and effort to the company as a whole… and the implementation of project-results will be guaranteed a higher chance of success …
Is there a holy grail? Yes there is.
Get you people accustomed with change. Make them ‘part of it’. Get them looking themselves for change-opportunities, every day, every week and every month.
Lean Management is the perfect environment to challenge your people, at least once a month, to think about the way they are doing their job, about efficiency, cost and quality, linked-up with customer expectations. It brings them in a state of mind which is used to change. A new software platform or a new workflow will never be as threatening as it was before.
What are we waiting for?