Give Change A Chance

My Soap Box: Give Change a Chance

Thirty years ago I was living in Tel Aviv, Israel and one of the few radio stations that broadcast in English had a wonderful tag line – “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” Implying of course, that peace takes time to take root. So does change. I have seen a disturbing trend in businesses lately. Changes are made to improve the business, but before the changes can even take root someone declares them ‘unsuccessful’ and begins the process of implementing new changes. As many businesses will tell you, they don’t have time to wait and give change a ‘chance’. I would contend they can choose to give the changes they’ve invested in a chance to work, or be doomed to the downward spiral of falling business and short-term measures that don’t work.

Companies who want to rush change results usually have good reasons for it – they need the profits to rise or their shareholders won’t be happy, they need the cash to invest in the business or acquire another one. No one doubts the urgency, I just question the method. All businesses need profits to rise – or they won’t be in business for long. In this all businesses that are for-profit are alike. Publicly held companies not only answer to shareholders but to the media and analysts as well. Everyone seems extra impatient these days, and companies that make the mistake of putting the happiness of shareholders, media and analysts above the long –term health and well-being of their companies will be caught in a never ending quest for more.

I am not recommending that all change needs a slow pace to come about. Change can be implemented successfully and quickly if the right plan is in place to help it along. But it is still important to give the changes a reasonable amount of time to succeed. Those companies that give changes a chance to take hold and actually return on the investment made on them will have a different outcome. These companies will focus on the method of change and meeting both short and long-term goals as opposed to demanding an immediate result.

Don’t misunderstand me. Some business changes do result in immediate benefits. But many others need to be given a chance to work. This can be related directly back to the magnitude of the change – to the people affected not the decision makers – and how many people are involved. The more people involved the more attention needs to be paid to all those implementing the change. Whether it is a division manager or the individual employee who now has to do his job in a completely different way – the individual impact of the change may affect the time it takes to be considered successful.

Measurement is an important component of this as well. For example, changing the way a sales force sells in order to increase sales has an easy measure – have sales increased. But perhaps the sales increases take a bit longer because the sales representative has had to completely change the way they’ve been selling to this customer. That is a double-whammy! Not only does the sales representative have to fundamentally change the way they sell but the buyer has to fundamentally change they way they buy. So yes, increased sales are a good measure, but there may be others that can be added to the mix to help the journey along. For example, perhaps the new way of selling requires the sales representative to get more time with the customer. This may take time to accomplish but having the sales representative keep track of this temporarily will help you measure this critical component to the end of the sale. Continuous improvement should be the interim goal here, not just looking at increased sales. The idea of measurement and continuous improvement doesn’t just apply to sales forces – any part of the business that is implementing change can use those principles.

Analyzing the magnitude of the change and realistically calculating the return on investment, and then supporting the effort required to make the changes will ensure companies “give change a chance”.