Is it time
to re-invent or transition your business?
The world is
a different place than it was in 1980.
If you have been in business for more than twenty years and are dong
things they way you did when you started or even just five years ago – beware –
times are changing faster than at any time in history and it’s only going to
get worse do you have a choice – circle the wagons and keep doing what you have
been doing for years or let go of conventional wisdom, sacred cows and
traditional thinking and reinvent – yourself, your business, your association,
your church – everything – or accept being left behind and losing everything.
Over the
years I have worked with many organizations who for whatever reasons, decided
that they needed to re-invent itself in order to remain a competitive and
profitable enterprise in the marketplace.
During the
same period, I have also observed hundreds of organizations that obviously
needed to re-invent themselves but for whatever reasons failed to do so. Let’s take a brief look at five of the
critical areas that will have an impact on this process and will determine
whether your re-invention is an exercise in futility or a successful
transition.
What do I
mean when I use the term - re-invent/transition?
Re-invent,
re-discover, re-new, start over, begin again – the terms do not matter, what
does are the attitudes, values, prejudices, opinions, expectations, fears,
needs, desires and values of the owner or senior management who will ultimately
drive the process. Having said that, to
me, when an organization needs to re-invent itself, for whatever reason, it
implies that what was or used to be, is no longer working, effective,
profitable or competitive. It is time
for one or more new: policies, strategies, structures, methods, procedures,
expectations, rules, behaviors, leadership, direction, focus and even employees
– and probably all of them.
When is the
right time to re-invent/transition your organization?
My
experience tells me, that, the pain for management or the organization has to
be significant enough, however this pain is manifested, before executives or
management becomes willing to set a new course and transition its
organization. Unfortunately, because of;
arrogance, ignorance, ego or all of the three, many organizations either never
do it or recognize the need far too late and become just another business
statistic or illustration of a bad example in some author’s book. The time to re-invent is before you need
to. The time to do it is every year - at
a minimum and maybe even every month.
Better to regularly condition your employees for consistent constructive
and positive change and growth than to try and turn a battleship (your
organization) around in a small harbor in twenty minutes with a less than
motivated staff because they are not ready, equipped, motivated or interested
in doing so.
How do you
re-invent/transition your organization?
Let’s see if
I can summarize one of my all-day seminars here in just a few sentences. If you are not willing to seriously embrace,
at a minimum, each of these steps, I recommend you save your money and let the
market place decide your ultimate fate.
1)
You must be willing to let go of the
day-to-day details that will drive this process.
2)
You must lock your ego and your prejudices
and expectations in the closet.
3)
You must be committed to see the process
through to its conclusion, no matter how long it takes or what it costs.
4)
You must empower your management team to
implement and inspect the transition process - you can’t do it alone and still
run the business. If you can you have bigger problems than this transition,
believe me.
5)
You don’t lose your tradition al or
fundamental values.
6)
You must trust your employees to pull the
transition off.
7)
You need to lead the process, not manage it.
8)
You need to accurately assess your;
willingness to change, let go, delegate, empower and live with the
consequences.
9)
You should hire an outside resource to
ensure that the above items are adhered to.
Your employees are not going to do it all without some impartial
guidance and/or creativity.
10)You need to be an encourager and a champion of this
process in both easy and hard
times.
11) There’s a lot
more, trust me but you would be amazed at how few organizations can do most or
even in some cases any of the above.
Who should
be involved in the re-invention/transition process?
This one is easy - anyone who can contribute ideas, reality,
information, inspiration, creativity, value, feedback, accountability,
integrity or support to the process and I mean everyone.
What will the new organization look like after the
re-invention/transition process is complete?
It’s anyone’s guess. In a
rapidly changing world it is becoming increasingly difficult if not impossible
to accurately forecast future outcomes. All you can do is remain flexible,
open, receptive and willing to make change your partner and the partner of your
organization.
So, it’s a choice – stay stuck and hope you survive or reinvent
and get ahead or at a minimum stay with the trends and the curves ahead.
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