Change Management – 3 Things New Business Owners Should Know

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Change management is frequently difficult for new as well as experienced businesses. Still, changes are a key part of keeping up with your industry and meeting the needs of clients.

Whether you have recently started a new business or purchased an existing company, you should know these three things about change management.

1. Welcome Feedback From Employees

People at all levels of a business may feel wary of changes to culture and policy. Some of them may question whether the organization needs to change at all. Others may automatically worry that the company is changing in the wrong ways.

You can expect people to feel scared by change, but you don’t know exactly what aspects of change management will scare them.

Open the doors of communication so everyone has a chance to share concerns. This not only helps people feel that they have been heard, but it may also reveal problems that managers have not considered.

Engaging your employees can make them more content at work and help you avoid unseen pitfalls.

2. Write Change Into Your Policies

Companies with strong leaders know that corporate culture starts at the top. No matter how much influence a few people have, though, leaders cannot expect everyone in the organization to understand those cultural norms.

Writing good policy is the best way to put cultural changes into practice at all levels.

These policies must make expectations as clear as possible. This can take several weeks or even months of work. As difficult as it is, your HR department needs written policies that it can give employees. When those policies are not written out, someone will misunderstand them.

This is potentially even more important during change management. If workers have gotten used to one set of expectations, then they may need retraining to understand a new set.

3. You May Need Outside Help

Managers don’t always see what’s right in front of them. When they want change management to work in a certain way, sometimes their brains trick them into seeing those expectations instead of reality.

The closer you are to the change being implemented, the more likely you are to see a skewed version of the truth.

Since anyone can fall victim to this way of thinking, companies often choose to bring in consultants who can remain objective.

Ruota Consulting provides several services that can help you make sure the required changes are actually taking place. Some of the most popular services include:

• Measuring change and comparing it to the desired changes
• Training senior leadership on how to communicate changes and lead by example
• Looking for the consistency needed to make changes last

It’s easy for your vision to get clouded. Hiring a third-party is often the easiest way to avoid costly mistakes.

The difficulties of change management may make some new owners wish that they hadn’t bought their businesses. Setbacks, however, rarely last long when you and your managers take the appropriate steps to change the company’s culture and policies. These three suggestions will help you start on the path to success.