Changing Old to New

Change management is one of the key skills in modern business.  The world changes around us.  Staff get new positions.  Customers come and go.  Marketing wants a new look.  Sometimes, we get bored.

And most of us fear change.  Or at least, we fear the change initiated by others.  What would be the business equivalent of stepping out on the glass floor of the Calgary Tower?  Our instincts scream NO, even while our brains accept the underpinning facts.

We step onto the glass floor because it is a floor - it is fundamentally something we are familiar with.  Plus, we trust the infrastructure standards established and implemented by industry.  We can accept a huge change in visual perspective because it is actually just an incremental change.

Most change is incremental.  As managers and project leaders, we can take advantage of this by building on what has been successful in the past.  Analyze problems and possible solutions to find the minimal change to achieve stated goals.  While this concept goes against the idea of "shaking things up", we don't really want to "shake up" what is working well.  For example, Apple's great innovations are usually extensions to their celebrated form factor and design - disastrous to change those.  Communicate both how the desired change builds on existing products or practices and how the change will improve functions and satisfaction.

Smaller changes are easier  -  less expensive and less time-consuming  -  to sell and to implement.  Our responsibility is to adapt quickly to the market place by ensuring that less time is taken and that costs are kept low.