In business, a lot of us have been advised at some time that; “If you’re not pushing forwards you’re in fact heading backwards.” Essentially, this goes straight to the heart of why change is essential to a positive and healthy company. Strong businesses progress with the times and recreate themselves. Unsound businesses stonewall change, stagnate and die. In this Business Coaching Exposé, we investigate how to cause lasting favourable change in an enterprise.
Change is the central component of growth and in business change demands vision, a driving team and a tight context if it is to be generated successfully as well as positively. This is why reliable leadership is so essential in an organization.
However while discussing change, it is essential to not throw the baby out with the bathwater given that, on the flipside to change is the importance of consistency which is also vital, especially in processes that have to do with product line, quality, profit or even, to some extent, natural growth.
So, this pair of opposing ideas must exist side-by-side in a healthy and balanced business. Just how do we achieve that? The solution is to realise that successful companies need both change and also consistency. Change is the terrain of business leaders and consistency being the specialty of managers.
Thinking about this pair side-by-side, it is not very hard to see why consistency and change (or for that matter business managers and business leaders) are commonly challenging to unite successfully.
This article will explore the core components of first-rate leadership including how these components work together to achieve positive and sustainable change. The following formula is used to produce this adaptation entails a practical four step process, here it is!
1st STEP
Ask Yourself the Tough Questions
As business owners and entrepreneurs, we tend to succumb to the temptation of seeing our endeavours with rose coloured glasses and neglect to consciously perceive where we are starting from – our ‘Point A’.
Acknowledging your actual point A is not easy: it is solely accomplished by having the courage to ascertain, ask, then honestly answer all the in your face questions that apply to your business, your methodology and also how you are progressing to it. You know the questions; they are those tricky questions you often stumble over when they strike you without warning at a party!
Tip– pull on your thickest skin, have another person to pinpoint then ask the questions that need to be asked … and don’t enable your vanity to hinder the honest self-questioning that should follow. It may be the difference separating your success from your failure.
2nd STEP
What is Your Vision and Why is it Important?
Identifying both the specifics of your ‘change vision’ (your ‘point B’) in addition to the specifics of your deep and heart centred reason for change is equally difficult. If there is a number 1 key for attaining favourable and lasting transformation, though, this is it!
If you don’t have the specifics, your vision (Point B) is just a dream. Without a deep and genuine motive as to why you want to chase after your vision, you will certainly battle to move many people towards it. People need to share your enthusiasm. To move your team, you need to have the ability to move your team.
The good news is, those associates that do share and then take on your vision will certainly stay with you and become the driving force for creating it. This is why great leaders understand the carrot is mightier than the stick.
Tip– acknowledge the styles of individuals you will need to cause your change vision. Spend enough time to establish precisely who they might be and then what it is about your vision that may captivate them.
3rd STEP
Develop a Simple, Straightforward Plan of Action
From here on, the key elements of your success are sticking to what works, keeping it uncomplicated … as well as continuing to fuel the interest that binds your driving staff members to your vision.
Having clarified your ‘why’, assigning uninterrupted thinking time to identifying the crucial elements of your ‘how’ is critical.
Use the following points and involve your driving team in the creation of the plan:
Identify the repeatable tasks that will accomplish your aim (keep these simple).
Recognize both the resources you have available and the resources you will require (actually need!).
Figure out the finite checklist of things that might block your development. Develop backup plans for any that are legitimately risky.
4th STEP
Lead Your Team to Achieve Your Change Vision
Staying on course and accomplishing positive and lasting transformation is a 99% leadership and 1% management mixture of fuel, context and responsibility.
The fuel aspect is PR in its purest form. Its purpose is to create and then keep momentum: communicate the vision, teach the simple, repeatable steps, celebrate successes … and ultimately educate your driving group to do the very same things. Each reinforcing that the change vision is legitimate and that the team’s approach is the right one.
Significantly, as leader, the code of conduct or ‘context’ you set up around your team and also its behaviour is critical to their capacity to unify and then achieve results. Your group will look to you to live by this code at all times and as you do it will certainly begin to have a life and power all of its own.
This is where keeping on track and also achieving positive and lasting change requires your individual commitment, nerve and discipline: following the message you preach as well as connecting with your group in an authentic way when delivering it is very important.
Your capability to develop and maintain a powerful context is directly commensurate to your capacity to do these things, and with a solid context your team will certainly self regulate; self align; move mountains; and produce the positive and lasting changes you desire.
Tip– Take a deep breath and then be prepared to be human, to concede mistakes and to be open to change yourself. You will certainly be valued and then followed as a leader in a far more compelling manner when you have the guts to do these things.
