Change Management – the Only Game in Town.

Change management is the only game in town.

Everything depends on it.

Business success.

Profits.

Client satisfaction.

Staff performance.

Everything.

The Ten Laws of Change Management:

1. Manage change – or change will manage you: Lead the introduction of change, new ideas and innovations in your industry. If you don’t, then time, situations and circumstances will force change on you. The best ideas win!
2. It is harder to manage not changing than to manage change: It is far more difficult to manage people, places and practices that don’t change or are incapable of change than it is to manage change. There is a natural energy to change and people will embrace it and become part of it if they understand it.
3. It is not a popularity competition: Change hurts. Change can be painful. Change can produce conflict. But out of change comes progress and performance.
4. Accept and embrace change actively – don’t change passively: Seek opportunities to change. Look for ideas and innovations which can be the catalyst of change. Be committed to change as an integral part of your daily life.
5. Learning and change are married – one does not happen without the other: Learning = change. Learn faster, change faster, win sooner.
6. Most people can change what they do: only the great ones can change who they are: Every one can and will learn to change their practices. Very very few people are capable of sustainable change to who they are.
7. People change when it is too late or almost too late:Most people will not change until they face disaster, catastrophe or certain peril. Sometimes you have to present these options to them to get them to change.
8. The time to make your biggest change is when you have been successful – because the resistance to change is greatest in those who feel they don’t need to: The reason repeating success and sustaining success is so difficult is that resistance to change is greatest when people and organisations are at their most successful.
9. Small changes often rather than catastrophic changes every five years….Change is like exercise. Do a little every day and stay fit and healthy. Or do nothing for five years and enjoy a coronary by-pass and lipo-suction. Continuous improvement and ongoing performance enhancement are the keys to success.
10. Be inclusive, seek buy in, embrace collaboration but in the end change anyway: Ideally change will come as the result of everyone in the organisation feeling ownership for the change process and will give it 100 % support and buy in. But, in the end, if you are a leader, a senior manager or someone who is accountable for the success of the organisation, you have to change anyway. Seek support – but do what you have to do.

That’s my Ten Laws of Change Management – what’s yours?

Wayne Goldsmith