Every business has a life cycle of its own. With the phases of this life cycle, a business ought to go through many changes. These changes might be smaller or bigger. But they would affect everyone connected with it, directly or indirectly.
Business owners tend to make changes in their organization based on their knowledge and understanding from an analysis. These changes, when implemented, might not be accepted by employees working in the organization as they are completely unaware of the reason behind the sudden change.
Making your team blindly follow the instructions might not help you manage the change. And chances of people getting frustrated with your decisions might increase.
To avoid being in such situations, preparing your business and team for the upcoming change becomes a must.
Here are five ways you can implement the change without having a negative effect:
1. Be Loud and Clear About the Changes
The first mistake that most business owners make is hiding the upcoming transformation from their team. The fact that their team needs to know every small traction that’s going to affect them is taken for granted.
So before you announce the decision and its implementation, try to discuss it with them openly. Tell them why you’re making this change. If they are convinced with the points you have put forward, implementation of the change will become easier.
2. Analyze the Effects of the Changes
It’s always good to be prepared for the consequences before they arrive. You know you are bringing a change that can affect many people’s routines and work patterns.
So while you are sharing the information about the upcoming change, make sure you have a handy solution for all the challenges that will arrive after the implementation of the change. List down what could come and how your team would react if things didn’t go very well.
Keep in mind all these aspects while you discuss the changes with your team. They will only be convinced about the transformation if they find you confident enough to make the change possible.
3. Set Your Team’s Expectations After the Change
The change, when not accepted by the team, makes it harder for managers to handle the consequences. Be clear about your expectations for everyone.
Tell them you are making this decision with some expectations of growth and improvement in work productivity. Make them mentally ready to deal with the situation by removing all uncertainties connected with the change to make sure they understand the situation better and set their output margins accordingly.
4. Plan Your Actions After the Change
The next thing that comes with the decision to change is how it’s going to be implemented in the running process. Making a plan of execution that lists the actions that will be taken will make it easier for the people who are part of the transformation process to understand their part better.
Try to solve issues that arise during the process, be precise about what you will do after the change has occurred, and let people know what actions they have to take to be part of the transformation.
5. Give Time for Acceptance
The best way to handle the change is to give people time to accept it. Let their minds process the concept of change. Everyone might be having their own views on the concept of change and they all will think about how this change would affect them individually.
Try to help them manage how they are going to deal with the changes, along with validating the reasons you have given for the implementation of change.
Organizing
You don’t want your business to get into a loop of stagnant growth, so making changes in the organization becomes inevitable. But the hardest task here is acceptance of the change by your team.
Positive or negative, change always affects people. The important part here is the way the concept of change is presented and the time that the person, on the other hand, takes to accept the change. So before you plan to implement something new, try to use the above tactics to make the transition smoother.
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The list is a concise guide to change managers and regular managers. I am grateful to James Vergas.