Thursday 30 August 2012
4 Things to Consider When Designing Change Plans
Do you find change management plans difficult? Here are 4 things to consider when planning organisational change.
Sunday 26 August 2012
5 Reasons Why I Love Change Readiness
If you're managing change - personal or organisational - there are 5 good reasons why you too should love change readiness. Read more here.
Friday 17 August 2012
Why Managing Change is Only Half the Story
Do you realise that managing change isn't enough to bring about organisational change? Of course, it's important, but it's only one half of the story of change. Read more here.
Saturday 11 August 2012
Implementing Organisational Change - 7 Tips
We all change, both as individuals and as organisations. Sometimes the challenge is in directing the forces of change so they take us where we want to go. At other times, the challenge is to get the snowball of change moving - to overcome inertia and resistance.
Whatever your change challenges might be, here are 7 tips to help you on your journey. Just follow this link.
Whatever your change challenges might be, here are 7 tips to help you on your journey. Just follow this link.
Wednesday 6 June 2012
The Importance of Aligning Individual and Organizational Change Readiness
Read our new article entitled 'Aligning Individual and Organizational Change Readiness' at http://www.redequip.com.au/articles/aligning-individual-and-organizational-change-readiness/
Tuesday 5 June 2012
Change Readiness and Sales
If you’re anything like me, you regularly receive calls from
telemarketers trying to sell their goods. I had a call from a
salesperson just the other day, and it reminded me of the importance of
change readiness in the sales process.
It may not be one of life’s momentous changes, but shifting from one phone carrier to another involves a change. And although it’s only a relatively small change, the process I would have to go through is exactly the same as it is for life’s really big changes. First, I would have to think about whether the change is needed, what the pros and cons would be, whether I could see benefit in the change. I would then have to make a decision for change, and be committed to that decision (i.e. I wouldn’t change my mind about it). Then I would need to make the necessary preparations and follow-through with the proper actions – sign a contract, or whatever. Finally, for the salesperson to be completely successful, I would need to maintain my commitment to his company into the future.
The difficulty the salesperson had is that he didn’t know whether I was ready to make the change he was hoping for. What could be my motivation for changing service providers? Maybe I was dissatisfied with the service I was currently receiving. He had no idea, but importantly, this salesperson didn’t even ask. He didn’t bother to find out whether I had any motivation for change. Instead, he tried to ‘sell’ me by telling me I could save money with his company because they were ‘wholesalers’. This didn’t really make me feel comfortable. Questions arose in my mind – What does it mean to deal with a wholesaler? How did he get my number? What sort of service would I receive from this company? He never bothered to ask whether I had any questions at all.
It was also a problem that he was ringing me. If I had rung him it would have been because I had a motivation to change carriers. But I wasn’t making the call and he hardly put any time into discovering what my motivation for change could be.
He also had a problem of trust. Why should I trust someone I don’t know calling me without my consent saying he can save me money? This must be an issue all telemarketers face. Perhaps he could save me money, but the levels of trust were very low, and low levels of trust work against change readiness. Unless he spent the time to build up some trust between us, I was always going to be less likely to buy. Ultimately, he made a fatal flaw with respect to trust. At the end of our 10 minute conversation, I told him I would speak to my business partner about the issue, and if we wanted to proceed, I would call him. The next day he called me, interrupting an important meeting. That did nothing to increase my trust.
The point I am making is that a readiness to buy is also a readiness to change. Unless salespeople understand the nature of change readiness they are going to be less successful at selling.
Steve Barlow
It may not be one of life’s momentous changes, but shifting from one phone carrier to another involves a change. And although it’s only a relatively small change, the process I would have to go through is exactly the same as it is for life’s really big changes. First, I would have to think about whether the change is needed, what the pros and cons would be, whether I could see benefit in the change. I would then have to make a decision for change, and be committed to that decision (i.e. I wouldn’t change my mind about it). Then I would need to make the necessary preparations and follow-through with the proper actions – sign a contract, or whatever. Finally, for the salesperson to be completely successful, I would need to maintain my commitment to his company into the future.
The difficulty the salesperson had is that he didn’t know whether I was ready to make the change he was hoping for. What could be my motivation for changing service providers? Maybe I was dissatisfied with the service I was currently receiving. He had no idea, but importantly, this salesperson didn’t even ask. He didn’t bother to find out whether I had any motivation for change. Instead, he tried to ‘sell’ me by telling me I could save money with his company because they were ‘wholesalers’. This didn’t really make me feel comfortable. Questions arose in my mind – What does it mean to deal with a wholesaler? How did he get my number? What sort of service would I receive from this company? He never bothered to ask whether I had any questions at all.
It was also a problem that he was ringing me. If I had rung him it would have been because I had a motivation to change carriers. But I wasn’t making the call and he hardly put any time into discovering what my motivation for change could be.
He also had a problem of trust. Why should I trust someone I don’t know calling me without my consent saying he can save me money? This must be an issue all telemarketers face. Perhaps he could save me money, but the levels of trust were very low, and low levels of trust work against change readiness. Unless he spent the time to build up some trust between us, I was always going to be less likely to buy. Ultimately, he made a fatal flaw with respect to trust. At the end of our 10 minute conversation, I told him I would speak to my business partner about the issue, and if we wanted to proceed, I would call him. The next day he called me, interrupting an important meeting. That did nothing to increase my trust.
The point I am making is that a readiness to buy is also a readiness to change. Unless salespeople understand the nature of change readiness they are going to be less successful at selling.
Steve Barlow
Sunday 3 June 2012
Change is the Journey, Not the Destination?
Have you ever heard that change is the journey, not the destination?
What people mean by this is that change is a means to an end, not the
end itself. In other words, don’t get too excited about change; get
excited about where it will eventually take you.
In a way, this makes perfect sense. If there is no compelling reason to change, why go to all the trouble? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
But does the emphasis on end points really make all that much sense? Increasingly in this day and age, your end point is unlikely to be your final destination. You may set a goal or pick a place you want to be in your personal or business life, but if you attempt to put down roots and stay there forever, you will surely run into problems. Things change, and we must change with them. In reality, ends are almost never destinations – they are goals; points along the way that may be good to reach, but will also eventually be good to leave behind.
If ends are not really destinations, what are they? They are actually parts of the change process. They may be “little ends”: points to aim for in one cycle of change. But if you see them from the perspective of on-going change, they are really parts of a larger process.
The stories we tell of our lives mirror the fact that ends are not destinations. We set ourselves goals that require us to change and grow – educational goals, employment goals, sporting goals, relationship goals, or attainment goals. We strive for them, and in the process, we change - perhaps a lot, or maybe a little. But in the end, the way we use language shrinks these goals and all we had to do to attain them to a single point. We say, “I went to university and got a degree”, “I met my partner and we got married”. Goals and processes become points in the larger story of our lives.
If destinations are actually part of the change process, doesn’t it make sense for us to focus more on the process? Change is not ‘just’ the process, less important that the final ‘destination’. In a way, change is the destination – a destination with many points along the way.
If change is so important, change readiness is just as important. People who are ready for change have greater ability to choose how and when they will change. In other words, the more capacity you have for the change process, the more ‘destinations’ you are able to choose. And the more able you are to move on when the time comes.
Steve Barlow
In a way, this makes perfect sense. If there is no compelling reason to change, why go to all the trouble? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
But does the emphasis on end points really make all that much sense? Increasingly in this day and age, your end point is unlikely to be your final destination. You may set a goal or pick a place you want to be in your personal or business life, but if you attempt to put down roots and stay there forever, you will surely run into problems. Things change, and we must change with them. In reality, ends are almost never destinations – they are goals; points along the way that may be good to reach, but will also eventually be good to leave behind.
If ends are not really destinations, what are they? They are actually parts of the change process. They may be “little ends”: points to aim for in one cycle of change. But if you see them from the perspective of on-going change, they are really parts of a larger process.
The stories we tell of our lives mirror the fact that ends are not destinations. We set ourselves goals that require us to change and grow – educational goals, employment goals, sporting goals, relationship goals, or attainment goals. We strive for them, and in the process, we change - perhaps a lot, or maybe a little. But in the end, the way we use language shrinks these goals and all we had to do to attain them to a single point. We say, “I went to university and got a degree”, “I met my partner and we got married”. Goals and processes become points in the larger story of our lives.
If destinations are actually part of the change process, doesn’t it make sense for us to focus more on the process? Change is not ‘just’ the process, less important that the final ‘destination’. In a way, change is the destination – a destination with many points along the way.
If change is so important, change readiness is just as important. People who are ready for change have greater ability to choose how and when they will change. In other words, the more capacity you have for the change process, the more ‘destinations’ you are able to choose. And the more able you are to move on when the time comes.
Steve Barlow
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