Making Change Stick With The Help Of Your Colleagues

19th December 23

Everyone is looking for new ways to improve their business. But making changes is rarely as simple as going from A to B. It’s a process, with toing and froing, uncertainty and – if not implemented correctly – it can even have unintended negative consequences. 

Because change isn’t easy, there are businesses that have become risk averse. They might delay or avoid making changes and fail to put in place the best plans for successful implementations. 

But this can be a huge missed opportunity as, in many instances, making a change would result in improvements across daily operations.

What affects change?

The psychology of change can be of fear and uncertainty which, often, turns out to be in the mind. Making changes can be great for a business, as long as it’s done with care and planning.

Making a change that’s based on robust data, with a clear and achievable plan, is much more likely to succeed. It’s essential to understand your current performance – otherwise, how will you know whether you are improving? And devising a plan beforehand will ensure you remain on the right track, taking the required steps in order to achieve your ultimate goal.

And don’t underestimate the power of communication with your colleagues. It is key to ensuring you achieve the change you originally wanted because everyone is invested in the same goal.

Colleague involvement

• Customer interaction – Throughout your entire business, your colleagues are the engine of your connection with customers. Colleagues are the people that interact with customers on a daily basis. Use their insight to your advantage
• Value colleague relationships – Post-Covid, and as we live through the current cost of living crisis, your connection with colleagues has never been more important. Be sure to value and nurture these relationships
• Link to your KPIs – Are your incentives aligned so that the different teams throughout your business are aligned and incentivised to pull together in the same direction?
• Inject confidence – If you want colleagues to truly represent your business, you need to make sure they know and – more importantly – believe in your brand and strategy

How ReThink can help

Over the years, we have helped many companies to identify and plan for crucial changes. Our business consultants listen, plan, measure and analyse, all to gain a full understanding of your operation and identify opportunities for improvement. We are happy to share best practices in making changes and highlight some common pitfalls to avoid. Some clients involve us during the implementation when some quick onsite measurement can identify when changes are delivering all the benefit they can and to double check benefit delivery versus the business case.

Not only that, we understand how important it is to value colleagues in order to achieve wider business goals. We’ve spoken in the past about Top Right Thinking and how both positive and negative interactions can impact a colleague’s productivity.

Be confident in your business decisions. Contact us today to discover how our team can help make your change stick.