Making Changes
I was asked “when do you know when to make changes?” I have some thoughts about changes and when to make them. Change is difficult, complicated, but still possible.
First, you have to feel the need for change before you can want to make the change. This is tough because you are trying to substitute new, unfamiliar behaviors, for old comfortable behaviors. You might be feeling the need for wanting to make changes, but it seems exhausting and over whelming to get things going. This is when you have to overcome your ego and face your fears.
Facing your fears takes courage, lots of it. You have to look in the mirror and deal with current reality. It boils down to the process of dealing with the elephant in the room. Change is a process that you feel. It is an invisible emotion laden process which is why courage, commitment, and considerable effort are absolute necessities for making change happen.
Change is a process. You’ll instinctively know when you need to take action. Whether it’s a personal or a business change, you have a vision of your existence and what you want to achieve. You have a purpose and a standard for what needs to be accomplished. This provides the basis for how we improve and determines what work needs to be done. These soft skills tell you the problems that need to be solved.
From this starting point you need to buckle down and face the reality of moving to something different. It will take more than just measuring, monitoring, and planning what needs to happen. At this point, it is a matter of just doing it and taking action. I hope this deals with the question of when to make change.
The first step after beginning the process is making sure you’re doing the right things. From doing the right things, you need to move to doing things better. Here’s where you are focused on creating improvement. Creation evolves into innovation and doing things different and better than your competition. It is often copying best practices or eliminating unnecessary steps.
It might sound crazy that you are trying to accomplish things that can’t be done or seem impossible. But in reality this is exactly what you need to do. You’ll never do it if you don’t begin the change process and then keep it moving forward. As I write this, I am reflecting that this is exactly what Blue Ocean Strategy is all about. It is doing something different and better than what others are doing.
Change is essential for success. It takes effort and courage to tackle the impossible. But, you will never achieve the impossible if you don’t initiate the process of change and just do it!
