Let’s face it many of us find change hard. Even when what we have is not great by any stretch of the imagination.
I was working on a presentation recently about influencing change.
As part of that presentation, I was thinking about organisations that either lost their way or in some cases went out of business.
Woolworths is one that many will remember closing its doors about 8 years ago.
The thing is Woolworths was a generalist retailer and one that faced a lot of competition from places like pound stores.
Others like Marks and Spencer has lost its way in terms of clothing. Yes the food side still does okay but in terms of clothing one wonders if it will ever get back to a time of having a decent share of the market.
If you are leading the process of trying to make change there is a fine line to walk.
You don’t want to worry people unnecessarily.
At the same time you don’t want to keep going on a downward spiral.
Ultimately though if you are facing a lot of resistance to change you sometimes have to lay out the consequences of doing nothing clearly.
Will it be easy to do this? Probably not.
At the same time you take people right up to the decision line where they can decide to either:
• Stay put and leave things to chance
• Take control and start to do something different
What have you found works well when it comes to getting people to take control and contribute to making change?
Duncan Brodie helps accountants and professionals become effective leaders