Lead Your SME through Change

Managing Change is not only for Big Companies:

The theory of evolution teaches us one fundamental fact as Charles Darwin put it: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change- the most adaptive"

The business world is just like the natural world, take some time to study the evolution that has taken place in the business world ever since the industrial revolution times or even the internet revolution times to date and you will notice some interesting events, giant companies that were considered invulnerable turn into dead and buried, small start-ups with bright ideas fail to navigate sharp turns and collapse, and companies that have survived, even when confronted with problems beyond their control, because leaders learned their environments some well enough to even anticipate correctly and adapted to survive.

Things never stay the same, so the ability to lead in times of change is vital. This ability becomes even more vital to small and medium size firms since you are small in size and pockets, weighs less influence and more vulnerable than the big fish. We often resist change because it takes us out of our comfort zone, but change can be exciting, healthy, and profitable if well managed., for small firms it even gets sweater due to the flexibly advantage and less bureaucracy to move ideas into action.

  "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change- the most adaptive"

There will always be change we only have to anticipate it earlier than competition and if you fail adapt early before you become obsolete in the market. Lately I’ve been reading some notes and watching some change videos from the American John P Kotter (b 1947), Kotter is a Harvard Business School professor and leading thinker and author on organizational change management. Kotter describe a helpful model for understanding and managing change in his eight step change model. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change.

Kotter's eight step change model can be summarized as:

1. Increase urgency - inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant, this helps your lean team to learn fast and take action early.
2.  
3. Build the guiding team - get the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels. They will enjoy the feeling of being leaders and thus do their best, the rest will enjoy the security associated with following the people they trust.
4. Get the vision right - get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency.
5. Communicate for buy-in - Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials, simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications - make technology work for you rather than against.
6. Empower actions - Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders - reward and recognize progress and achievements.
7. Create short-term wins - Set aims that are easy to achieve - in bite-size chunks. Manageable numbers of initiatives. Finish current stages before starting new ones.
8. Don't let up - Foster and encourage determination and persistence - ongoing change - encourage ongoing progress reporting - highlight achieved and future milestones.
9. Make change stick - Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, and new change leaders. Weave change into culture.

Kotter's eight step model is explained more fully on his website www.kotterinternational.com. Take sometime get to more grips with this.

Making ourselves and our business successful in an ever changing world more so with the recent pace of change call for being the one most responsive to change- the most adaptive.

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By Andrew Ekwang. SMEs Finance & Accounts trainer at Analyst Business Solutions