The challenge of change

Regardless of the organization, change is often one of the toughest challenges that most leaders face.  Most people don't like change, and that includes many of the leaders as well.  Change means that something becomes new, and we prefer the old and familiar.  Under the old ways of doing things everyone knows their role.  Whether you are the CEO or the janitor it's easier to function as long as things don't change because you know how to fulfill your role in that structure.  But, when things change it often means our roles change as well.  Now we face our work with caution because new things are expected of us.  However, whether we like change or not it is necessary in a rapidly changing world.  As Marshall Goldsmith entitled his book What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful.  No matter how successful your small business may be today, it will have to change if you want it to be successful tomorrow.  As I often tell people in some of my workshops, forget the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  A better saying in the 21st century is "If it ain't broke, break it" because it will soon be obsolete anyway.  You may as well embrace change because it is here to stay for the leader who wants to be successful.  And, if you are a leader, you need to learn as much as you can about how to successfully introduce change to your organization.

One of the places I recommend you to start learning how to be a change agent is by reading John Kotter's book Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author.  It remains in my top three leadership books and is essential reading for anyone called to be a leader.  One of the key learnings I got from reading the book is that the failure to create urgency is one of the primary reasons most change efforts fail.  When I first read that several years ago I immediately thought back to some of greatest failures I had related to changes I tried to implement and realized that I had not taken the time to create any sense of urgency in any of those efforts.  I just announced to people what changes I wanted us to make without ever explaining the why behind those changes.  I also never took the time to allow others to think about the changes and how they might benefit from them.  In my mind I understood the importance of the change and how it would positively benefit us, but I forgot that I may have spent weeks (maybe months) thinking through the change.  I seldom gave others that same time frame.  How much better might it have been if I had explained the why something needed to be changed, explained the change I wanted to see us make, and then gave people time to reflect on the change and ask whatever questions they might have had?  If I had done that many of those change efforts might have been much more successful.

Creating a sense of urgency is only one of Kotter's recommendations for the leader who wants to introduce change into his or her organization.  The book is a goldmine for anyone who needs to bring change to the organization he or she leads, and that would include anyone in a leadership capacity.  If you haven't read it I cannot emphasize too much how valuable it will be to do so if you want to successfully lead your organization.  Goldsmith's book is also helpful to anyone who isn't convinced that change is inevitable in every organization.