How Effectively Managing Change Can Improve Your Business

One of the most challenging, yet rewarding, aspects of being a business leader is managing the process of change.  Illustrating its importance, a former boss of mine from a recent company had a saying, “You don’t get better unless you are willing to change.”  He was a strong advocate of that philosophy, and I learned to appreciate its value in enhancing business operations and improving employee productivity.

But what does it entail to be effective at implementing a business change?  It is certainly not an overbearing or domineering approach, for that will surely result in eroding employee morale and minimizing any opportunities for success.  Instead, the most effective path to achieving the best results from a change is to involve affected employees in the process to gain their feedback and implement their suggestions, where appropriate.

Mary Ellen Slayter addresses this topic in her December 6 article in “SmartBlog on Workforce” in which she interviews Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners.  In that article, Bregman states, “The way to make a change happen successfully is to give choices to the people who need to make the change successful.”  Clearly, this is the basic and underlying principle of effective change management, and I have successfully utilized it in my career. 

I recall one of my best examples of exercising this technique centered on consolidating the export shipment activity at the major retailer where I formerly worked.  At the time, we were operating in a decentralized environment with multiple stores being permitted to fully process their own export shipments of sold merchandise to international customers.  However, with the lack of proper expertise at the stores to accurately complete the strict and precise export documentation, customer shipments were being delayed in the foreign countries and occasionally seized by government authorities.  In some instances, fines were issued by U.S. government agencies before the shipments departed the United States.  Customer dissatisfaction was a growing problem. 

As a result, we decided that we needed to consolidate the export processing with the corporate international compliance team in my area.  Initially, this process was met with extreme reservation by our stores because they felt it would delay the delivery to the customer even further.  However, we elected to partner with the stores to design a new logistics and compliance process, plus, we solicited the input from associates in my area.  Because of our decision to involve those affected by the change, the new process was embraced by the stores and ultimately improved the customer deliveries and satisfaction.

Had we not consulted with the stores to garner their support, their ownership of the change would have been much more difficult to achieve, and the success of the program would likely have been in doubt. I like reflecting on that event because it demonstrates how to engage others in the pursuit of effective change management.