Deciding to Become a Culture of Change

By Steve Bloom, Owner/CEO, Pragmatek

Steve specializes in strategic planning and sales development for growth. To learn more about how he manages change as a business owner, read the follow article – Transforming Your Business Model – from the April 2015 issue of Minnesota Business.

 

Does your organization make change decisions on a timely basis?

More often than not, I find that C-level executives generally know what issues to tackle, yet they prolong the decision-making process. This inability to take action quickly prohibits each organization from becoming a Culture of Change. The excuses are all masks for the real reasons. They don’t want to take risks, and they fear change.

Change management expert, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, authored an article in the September issue of the Harvard Business Review, called “Ten Reasons People Resist Change.” Do you see your organization falling into more than one or two of these categories?

Why invest in change?

The best-run companies encourage change and risk taking, and embrace new ideas and directions. These companies are rare, unfortunately.

Improvement takes leadership and support at all levels of the organization in order to move forward and gain ROI. These companies also have an efficient planning process in place – not driven solely by a standard budget process where the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

The best-run companies continually examine how to:

  • better serve their customers;
  • improve their operations, and
  • use technology to gain competitive advantages, rather than treating IT as a cost center.

They are constantly looking for ways to improve, and make decisions on a timely basis to do so. They do their research, put a great “tiger team” in place that is empowered to make changes. They don’t drag their feet and hold off on investing in their business.

What’s your company change story?