Take Levi’s. The basic Levi’s jean has hardly altered in over 150 years (except for the removal of a metal rivet from the crotch, which caused unpleasant side effects for miners warming themselves next to camp fires. Ouch!). But Levi Strauss & Company changed dramatically during that time. Its market went from miners to minors in the 1950s, and expanded to the entire world by the 1970s. Levi’s went from being a purveyor of work clothes to the world’s largest fashion manufacturer, and when the business world adopted “Dress Down Friday,” they went back to providing work clothes through their Dockers division.
It’s even more important for a small company to be able to embrace change. After all, one of the key advantages a smaller business has over a huge corporation is its ability to quickly respond to new opportunities. But you have to prepare your company for a world of constant change.
The first challenge is to understand what kinds of change improve your company’s ability to survive, and what types of change threaten its very identity. In one of my favorite business books, Built to Last, authors James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras show how the best companies identify their “core ideologies,” which remain constant over the years. They differentiate those ideologies from “noncore practices” which can adapt, evolve, or disappear over time.
Collins and Porras cite the department store Nordstrom as an example. Nordstrom’s core ideology is “Service to the customer above all else.” If they lose sight of that ideology, Nordstrom would cease to be Nordstrom.
But the fact that they have a piano player in each store is a “noncore practice” which they could change if times demanded.
For change to be effective, you have to encourage a change-oriented attitude at every level of your company. People are generally more comfortable with old problems than with new solutions, and it’s natural for employees to be threatened by change. But you can help reduce those fears.
The best way to create a change-welcoming workplace is to start by hiring people who seem flexible. Look for attitude, not just skills, as part of your hiring process. Next, get everyone thinking about change all the time, and make it a normal part of business conversation. Informally, and in scheduled meetings, ask employees to discuss the kinds of changes they anticipate facing in their specific areas of responsibility. Remember, employees are often in a better position to foresee changes than you are.
To help get a focus on change, I recommend delineating the specific types of change your company may face and addressing each separately.
Just remember what someone once said, “Even if you’re on the right track, if you just sit there, you’ll get run over.”
Types of Changes Your Company May Face
Market changes. Nature and number of customers, customers’ buying habits and patterns, demographic and sociological shifts
Industry changes. Distribution channels, vendors, availability of capital, key economic concerns
Competitive changes. Nature and number of competitors, new entries, new types of competition for your category
Technological changes. Hardware and software products and services that could positively or negatively affect your product or service’s marketability, as well as technology you could adopt to improve operations
Sales and marketing changes. Marketing approaches and vehicles, sales channels, sales force, advertising and promotion
Management changes. Availability of adequate staff, management patterns, pay schemes and levels, benefits, recognition programs
Operations changes. Production/manufacturing or delivery/fulfillment methods
Is It Time to Throw in the Towel?
Every time one of my projects flops, I ask myself: “What did I learn? What should I do differently next time?” This helps me snatch a bit of victory from defeat. And, I hope, it keeps me from repeating the same blunder over and over.
When something is going badly—really badly—it’s a good idea to throw in the towel sooner rather than later. I’m not a card player, but I’ve heard that if you’re dealt a bad hand in poker, you should toss it in early. The more you put in the pot, the harder it will be for you to fold and the more you’ll likely lose.
Every undertaking needs a reasonable chance to develop, of course. New businesses, for instance, usually take from two to five years to become profitable. If we’re too quick to quit, we’ll never make a go of anything. But there’s a difference between prudent patience and being unwilling to face unpleasant facts. Next time you’re having one of those 3 a.m. heart-to-heart sessions with yourself, wondering whether it’s time to get out of something, ask yourself these questions:
What direction have things been going? If you’re in a downturn now, is it a momentary glitch in an otherwise positive picture or one more in a long series of defeats?
Are you learning, improving? Sometimes, a specific situation may not be a huge success but the increased knowledge or skills you’re developing are worth the effort.
What is your “opportunity cost?” What could you be doing with your life, your time, your money, instead? Are you passing up other chances to succeed by sticking with this?
What effect is this situation having on you, your family, and friends? You may be willing to forge ahead but at what price to your own and others’ well-being? Are you really doing others a favor by keeping them connected to a declining situation, or could they move on to other opportunities as well?
Finally, take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself whether there’s truly a reasonable chance, not just a last-ditch hope, that things are going to get better. Can you ever get things to work or are you just avoiding change? Sometimes it’s time to make the tough choice, hard as it is, to get out.
There’s an old Bulgarian proverb that says, “If you wish to drown, don’t torture yourself in shallow water.” I hope I’ve finally learned, when I’m in a doomed situation, to at least give it a quick death. And then I can face the future bravely and move on.
Change Takes Time
I once saw a handwritten note over a jar for tips: “If you fear change, leave it here.”
We all fear change. Yet we all want to change—our habits, our appearance, our income. Most of us want others to change—our spouses, our children, our employees. Sometimes, no matter how much we want change, no matter how hard we try, we just can’t seem to make it work.
One problem is that we want change to happen overnight. We go on extreme diets or change business direction suddenly. We want to be able to push a button—like a Star Trek transporter—and immediately get from one place in our life to another: “Beam me up, Scotty.”
Change is a process, not an immediate outcome, a journey rather than a destination. The most difficult stage of change is when you’ve come part way but haven’t left old ways entirely behind. Experts say it takes at least a year for a change to become a habit. So be patient with yourself and others. Change takes time.
When you plan on making a change—or want a change to happen in others—recognize that you’ll go through stages:
1. Contemplate. You start thinking about your goals, but they still seem unachievable.
2. Reframe. You start saying, “This is going to happen; I can make this work.”
3. Plan. You convert desires into specific, realistic actions you can take.
4. Commit. You make a real commitment to your goals and plans.
5. Try and fail. You begin to make changes but