Don’t Change…. at least not just for the sake of it!
In order to grow as a person, as an employee or as a business change is needed......
I know you keep hearing that right! You only need to pick up any number of personal development material or listen to a business coach, consultant and the likes of me. It’s a bit like getting one of those annoying birthday cards that every time you open start blaring out some crappy tune.
But what the hell does it really mean? I mean there are plenty of folks and businesses out there that do just fine without seemingly making changes. Is it really just the luck of the draw like those kids in school who could seemingly breeze through classes and exams without any hint to having studied?
What seems is not always what is
Unless you have intimate knowledge of someone you don’t actually know how hard they are working to achieve something or how many tweaks and changes they make to their businesses or themselves to help shape and grow them. The question is, is it worth the risk to just plod along doing what we have always done or as Robert Collier said ‘if you don’t make things happen then things will happen to you’. I know I much rather have some control over what happens to me and my business.
Not for the sake of it
So back to growth = change. We decided we don’t really want to leave our businesses and lives up to what fate throws at us so we take control and start thinking about how we can grow our businesses and what changes we could perhaps make to keep them growing.
A wee tip for you….I figured out a long time ago that changing for the sake of changing is not the answer (really that Betty Boop haircut did me no justice). If we are to make changes, make them for the right reasons, know why, I mean really know why you are making them and what you expect the outcome to be.
Some changes just suck
See here is the next pause moment, we know that sometimes change can be good, great even but it can also really turn out to be well, let’s just say not the best decision we ever made. So how do we know what changes are going to grow our businesses and those that won’t?
I’m not big into looking into crystal balls (unless it’s the shiny sort dangling from my ears), so how do we know when and what change is needed and if it will work, if it will grow our businesses?
Whilst I agree that change can bring growth we know that not everything we change is going to succeed, and that’s okay too. The whole lean, agile philosophy teaches us that failing is good as long as we do it quickly and learn from it (and don’t spend a fortune doing it) or as Spotify puts it you need to limit the blast radius of experimental changes.
Be informed
However since we don’t set out to fail but to succeed here are my top 3 pointers of where to begin when looking at what changes could work for you.
Look at your current business operations. I mean really look. We are usually too tied up with our daily business to stand back and ask ourselves some pertinent questions:
Is the way I work still relevant?
Does it still work?
How can we shake it up a bit?
How can we go that extra mile for our customers?
2. What’s going on in the marketplace? It’s constantly changing. Where’s it going to next? Don’t just look at what is happening in your own industry. The trends are more likely to come from other industries. How are those new trends going to have impact for you, your business and your customers?
3. It’s not a one man job. “Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential.” – Andy Stanley. Seek feedback on how things are going, what changes could be made, what’s working and what’s not…ask your customers, ask your staff, seek outside counsel…just keep asking and weighing up the feedback you get.
So in your growth = change journey remember that you are taking control for making things happen, your employing an experimental mindset and you are looking both internally and externally for ways to improve and grow.
