Skip to main content

Continuous ongoing change dominates the 21st century. Businesses need to embrace change if they wish to remain competitive in the market, drive innovation, and increase productivity. For all the benefits that it can have, people generally have a hard time when trying to embrace change.

The reason for this is somewhat apparent. Change usually brings with it uncertainty and unpredictability. These are not the type of conditions that people generally thrive. To successfully embrace change, however, people need to come to grips with the fact that change is affecting their business.

Why Don’t We Face the Facts?

Be it shifting industry trends, a changing customer base, new technological advancements, or even environmental factors; change is affecting how businesses operate. And even though it may seem hard at first, but facing these variations head-on will allow you to decide on the next course of action.

The reason why it’s so hard to face the facts when it comes to change is that we generally look at them through different lenses. All of these, unfortunately, skew our perspective and prevent us from clearly seeing things. Some of these lenses make as look at change as a failed endeavour. Others, on the other hand, make us feel mad, often contradicting with our beliefs.

Recommended: Change Leadership – How to Improve Your Adaptability

Others still, make it seem like the status quo is perfectly fine the way it is, diminishing the sense of urgency current trends indicate. Some of us may be looking at things from a financial perspective. And while there isn’t anything wrong with that, per se, it can push many to regard change as being too expensive and not worth the effort. Finally, there are some among us that don’t even let themselves be bothered by the issue. They go about their day, doing their job, as usual, paying no heed to new industry trends.

Do as a New CEO Would Do

The chances are that each of us is looking at the issue through one of these lenses. To counteract this issue, the best way to approach the problem of facing facts is to get a fresh perspective. Tradition, office politics, positive or negative finances, etc., all begin to add up over time. And all of them influence the way we regard to change. The same thing applies to your employees.

It is important to remember that you can only leverage meaningful change within your company if most of your staff is on board. It implies that they need to come to the same realizations as you have.

You can only leverage meaningful change within your company if most of your staff is on board.

One useful trick is to put yourself in the shoes of a new entrepreneur/CEO and look at things with a fresh pair of eyes. If you were to start a new business today, you would not have to deal with all the biases above. You would see the market as it is and you would design your business accordingly. Likewise, the team with which you would start with will also have the same perspective. When it comes to an already-established business, things are not as easy.

As a leader, the best thing that you can do is also to put your employees in the CEO’s place. It will help them face the same facts and reach the same conclusions as you have. Keep in mind that change is much easier to accept if the circumstances surrounding it are understood by everyone involved.

Many businesses fail to transition following the current trends precisely because managers keep this information only to themselves. If they allow their staff to come to the same realizations, they will engage with the facts, analyze the reality of the situation, and correct their behaviour.

Look at things through someone else’s shoes

Only when we begin to face the facts can we finally embrace change. But in some cases, even looking at the effects from an objective perspective can prove to be a challenge. It is at that time when you have to put yourself into a new entrepreneur’s shoes and look at things from their point of view. If you want to learn more about leveraging change, let’s connect on https://meetme.so/GregNichvalodoff or greg@inscapeconsulting.com

Leave a Reply

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

CONTACT ME

Inscape Consulting Group
Greg Nichvalodoff, BSc. BM (Honors), MBA, PCC, CMC
Office: 604.943.0800
Mobile: 604.831.4734
greg@inscapeconsulting.com