Implementing a Change in Your Business

We all want to implement positive changes in our businesses but making it actually happen is not easy. Even when the boss gets fired up and energized to do something, the program can lose energy quickly.  Two problems often occur:

1)      The boss loses his energy and slips back into the old routine.

2)      The team doesn’t ‘buy-in’ to the change because the last 10 times the boss was energized he quickly slipped back into the old routine!

With respect to the team, here is a practical tip to send the message subliminally that “this time it’s different”. The tip is to provide a minor but symbolic signal that things have changed. Here are some examples:

If you usually wear a suit, show up in your jeans.

If you usually wear your jeans, show up in a suit.

Clean up your workspace if it usually cluttered.

Shave your head (or if you are bald, start wearing a red haired wig).

I have a client who was always sucked back into the workshop to fix trucks when he was getting behind on his invoicing. On the day he wants to get his invoicing done, he now leaves his coveralls at home and wears nice clothes – the message is clear he is not going back into the shop.

This small but symbolic change will send a subliminal signal to your employees that this time things are different.

The second tip is to help you keep your energy and focus on making change happen. It is very similar to the first tip – do something different yourself. Here are some examples:

-          Drive a different way to work

-          Park in a different spot.

-          Change around your workspace – spin your desk 180 degrees.

-          Move to a different workspace.

-          Stop doing your typical time wasting routines ( you know what they are!)

The act of doing these simple routines (behaviors) differently, is good practice for implementing the new and bigger behavioral changes you are wanting to implement.

These are just little things, but what isn’t a little thing?