Change Is Good

For many businesses, change can be a four-letter word. If you're a business owner, you had a clear idea of what you wanted to do when you started your business. You had a vision and you expected potential clients would beat down your door as soon as you started. No matter how much preparation went into your business plan, however, there are always factors that don't play nicely. Things like the economic climate, competition, public awareness, outdated technology and even staffing issues can potentially derail the best laid plans. As a business owner or the manager of a business division, you need to be able to turn on a dime. And you need to be able to keep the core values and business focus in mind when you make these turns.

There's a time when sticking to your guns no matter what is effective - and there's a time when it's necessary to throw the whole works up in the air. Embracing change is often the determining factor in the success of any business. So where do you start? Change for change sake is reckless - change that is dictated by quality intel is what will set your business apart. Start with processes. These are things that you control and are designed to make your entire business run smoothly. If your answer to the question, "why do we do this" is "because we've always done it that way", that's the first thing to target. Don't hold on to outdated processes simply because they've always been there. Consequently, don't abandon processes that actually work. The point with the "because we've always done it that way" question is to actively understand why your business does what it does. There can be a perfectly valid reason why process X is done - process Y and Z may depend on it. If so, that's a good process. But if process X exists simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time, try something else. Start by eliminating this process. Does work still get done? Does it get done better?

An important exercise many businesses engage in is what's called a "process walk". If it's done properly, it's a time consuming thing. But the value to your business can be monumental. Start with the beginning of your business process - is it manufacturing? Retail delivery? Client order? Using Post-It notes and a wall, document each step of your business process. For complex areas, break it down into simple, single line descriptions. If you can't describe the process in a single line, that means it's a complex process and has steps you'll need to document. Color code like items - is there a decision point? A client interaction point? A vendor contact point? Walk through your entire business process. Involve as many members of your team as is necessary. The more robust the organization, the more compartmentalized it can become. The process walk can serve also to illuminate and educate your staff on what actually goes on. Remember that you hired the staff you did because you wanted their input. The more brains you have involved, the more likely you are to start thinking outside the box. And that's what the process walk is all about.

When you stand back and look at your wall of Post-It notes, take a look for duplication. That's the low-hanging fruit you can eliminate. Then look for other ways to streamline. Does the physical location of staff isolate them from each other? Can different departments merge? Can functions from one department migrate to another?

Look at the Post-It notes in another way. Where does your product or service get bogged down? Is it slow vendors? Are you waiting on customer approvals? External sources of delay are harder to address, but not impossible. Consider incentivizing early approvals. Offering a small discount if a project is moved forward more quickly may initially cut into your bottom line, but the idea is you'll be able to move more projects forward faster. A minimal discount can allow you to produce and invoice more within a shorter period of time.

The process walk is a commitment. It will take time and it will take staff away from their specific duties. The impact of this, however, can be a game changer. By simply knowing each step of your business process, you can clearly see opportunities to tighten and, in some cases, eliminate processes altogether. A week of your staff's time could save your company a ridiculous amount of money, and can eliminate huge amounts of waste.

Change is good. Smart change is the difference between growth and stagnation.