Change or Die: How to Initiate Positive Change in Your Company
Look at any failed company and you are likely to find leaders who were set in their ways and content with the status quo. They were dead in the water long before they realized it. To remain relevant in any industry, companies must constantly be reinventing themselves—or, as businessman Alan Deutschman says, "Change or die.”
To do this, start with a Process Accountability Chart, also called a PACe. In order to find better, faster and cheaper ways to operate, you have to know what your organization is doing, how it’s doing it, and why it’s doing it. Write down every process that your company has and the person who is accountable for it—even the small processes.
You’d be surprised how many business leaders find this task extraordinarily difficult. If companies haven’t been vigilant about inducing change, much of what they do can be routine or unnecessary. They may not even realize how many systems are actually in place. This kind of stagnant leadership is detrimental to innovation and growth in a company, and is an issue that should be addressed.
Once you have a completed PACe, start analyzing each process—this is the fun part. Choose a process and write it on a blackboard or sticky note. Step by step, write out the tasks that are involved with this process. Even if it’s as simple as approving copy, write it down.
Make a list of each person involved and how much time they spend working on a task. What decisions need to be made throughout the process? Does that draw more team members into the fold?
At the end, step back and take a look at the intricate chain you’ve created. Are there any steps that can be combined with another? Can one team member handle more of the workload? I guarantee there are opportunities to be more efficient.
If you are not constantly doing this with every process you have, your business is likely not growing or improving. To encourage change, ingrain a culture of “Why?” in your team. Encourage them to question processes and reward them when they find ways to improve them.
This kind of change can happen at any level, for any process–no matter how small. Think about it. A time savings of just three minutes a day translates to more than 12 hours a year. Imagine how efficient you could become by saving six minutes or even 10 minutes a day. Play around with your processes to find ways to shave off this kind of time.
If needed, host a company-wide brainstorming session. Ask team members for the craziest, most impractical ideas they have. Starting with broad, extravagant ideas will lead you to real, productive changes. If you start small, you will think small, and any changes you make in the organization are likely to be—you guessed it!—small.
Change doesn’t happen overnight. The process requires daily attention from the entire company. The changes initiated by this kind of effort will help ensure your business isn’t dead in the water or headed towards obscurity.
