The Discipline of Change Management

By Dr. Peter Chee & Brian Tracy

This is the 10th chapter of ITD World's 12-part newsletter series: 12 Disciplines of Leadership Excellence.

Your success as a leader will be largely determined by how efficiently and effectively you respond to the challenges of change in your business. Change is inevitable, unstoppable, and mostly unpredictable. The better you are at dealing with the incredible speed of change in your business and personal life, the greater your contribution will be.

Nowadays, there are 3 major factors that drive change: information explosion, technology expansion, and determined competition.

Information Explosion

The amount of information available today is greater than any other time in human history - and it is multiplying faster than ever. In 1980, about 220,000 new books were published each year in the US. In 2013, more than 3 million would be published - plus millions of articles on every conceivable subject.

One new idea generated by someone, somewhere on the planet, can create a new business or industry, or render an existing industry obsolete. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2006, it was dismissed by the people at RIM (BlackBerry) - the world leader in business cell phones - as a toy. Today, BlackBerry's two presidents have left the company, sales are down 80%. In other words, the entire game has changed.

Fully 90% of the best thinkers, scientists, writers, creators, and entrepreneurs who have ever lived in human history are living and working today. The smartest, brightest, and most determined researchers are working right now to discover new ideas that can improve products/services of all kinds.

(Source: AppleInsider)

Technology Expansion

The rule of thumb is that any new high-tech product is probably obsolete before it reaches the market. By the time it is developed, manufactured, packaged, and distributed to customers, someone is already developing something better, faster, or cheaper, and racing it to the marketplace. The saying goes that "If it works, it's obsolete".

Changes in information technology can be devastating to old-line companies. Within a year of Apple's introduction of the iPad - in conjunction with Kindle and others - that enabled people to download books in seconds, the whole industry had changed. Within 12 months, one of the biggest brick-and-mortar book chains in the world - Borders - went bankrupt, closing 600 stores forever. E-book sales jumped to more than 50% of the market in 2012, and continue to grow. The entire world of book publishing had been shaken up dramatically, with nobody in the industry knowing exactly what is going to happen next with advances in technology.

The Growth of Competition

More businesses, individuals, and organizations are competing today to get the customer's dollar than ever before. Today, an entrepreneur with a laptop, sitting at home in his bedroom, can start an international business for a few dollars and are doing so - by the millions. By December 2012, more than 1 million engineers and entrepreneurs in the US alone were working to develop the next "killer app" for the smartphone. This number is greater than the entire farm population working in the country today.

If you have children today, chances are they will be working for a company that does not now exist. Fully 80% of the products/services that will be in common use 5 years from now on do not exist today either.

Overall, the formula is simple: IE x TE x CO = ROC

(IE: Information Explosion

TE: Technology Expansion

CO: Competition

ROC: Rate of Change)

Remain Flexible

It was predicted by Harvard University that 72% of people working today would be in completely different jobs within 2 years - unless they learn to adapt to change and turn it to their advantage.

A study in the 1990s by the Menninger Institute revealed that the most important quality for business success is "flexibility". With flexibility - like a willow in the storm - you would bend with the realities of change rather than breaking or becoming frustrated.

Zero-based thinking

The discipline of change management requires applying zero-based thinking to every part of your business on a regular basis. With zero-based thinking, you draw a line under all of your previous decision and put them on trial. You ask this question: "What am I doing that, knowing what I now know, I would not start up again if I had to do it over?".

Generally, people hate to lose anything and will go to almost any measure to prevent a loss. But remember, whatever time/money/emotion you have invested in something in the past, it is a sunk cost now. It is gone forever. Hence, cut it off and turn your attention to something with greater potential. Rather than getting stuck in the decisions that did not work out in the past, open your mind up to all future possibilities.

Walk Across the Street

If you were going to walk across the street and start your business anew, what would you do immediately? What products/ services would you begin producing/ abandoning? Who are the markets/ customers you would want to contact? Which staff would you bring with you to the new business, and which would you not?

This way of thinking is how you reinvent yourself and your business on a regular basis. Imagine that you have no limitations and that you can start again right where you are. What would you do differently?

Practice Crisis Anticipation

An important aspect of change management is to anticipate. What are the worst things possible that would change/ disrupt my business? What options could you develop to protect yourself if a major negative event were to happen?

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) is famous for its "scenario planning division". Its experts have developed more than 600 scenarios for disruptive events. For example, if a war erupts in the Middle East, RDS has a plan ready to implement within 24 hours. If a tsunami happens in Japan, they are also prepared to deal with it. For this reason, RDS is consistently one of the most successful companies in the world.

Identify the Skills/ Competencies You Will Need

Michael Kami, the strategic planner, said: "The best way to predict the future is to create it". Once you have settled on a long-term business goal, ask yourself the following questions regularly:

• What additional knowledge/ skills will we need to achieve this goal?
• What are the major obstacles we will have to overcome to achieve this goal?
• Whose support and cooperation will we need to achieve this goal?

Preparation is the mark of the professional. There is no such thing as the word overprepare in the vocabulary of top leaders. When you experience a change in your business, take some time to analyze it carefully before reacting to it.

Now it's time for some Action Exercises

1. Identify the 3 most important information changes that can affect your sales and profitability in the future. What can you do about them?
2. Identify the 3 most important changes taking place in technology that can affect your business. What can you do to adapt to them?
3. Identify the 3 most important competitive advantages that are taking place in your industry. How can you take advantage of them?
4. What are the worst things possible that may disrupt your business in the next year? What steps could you take to guard against them happening?
5. What are you doing in your business or personal life that, knowing what you know now, you wouldn't get into again today? How can you get out, and how fast?
6. Imagine walking across the street and starting your business/ career over again. What would you do differently?
7. Identify 3 competencies that you or your company will need to survive and thrive in the years ahead. What is your plan to acquire them?

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Stay tuned to our upcoming newsletter to delve deeper into the 11th discipline: Concentration.

Wish to scale up your Leadership skills for Sustainable Growth? Get for yourself a paperback handbook now - written by Dr. Peter Chee & Brian Tracy.

More opportunities for Leadership Excellence

At ITD World, we believe that leadership is a competency that can be learned and mastered. We also believe that leadership is influence and through the behaviors and habits developed in our training programs, you may have a better chance of increasing your influence and leadership effectiveness.

This September, we are hosting a special once-in-a-year event - Global Leadership e-Summit (GLS). At this conference, leaders from all over the world are gathered together to network and share insightful experiences in leadership during crises.

In collaboration with ITD World, 5 MEGA GURUs will be there to host the event and help attendees scale up their leadership skills.

Learn more about the Global Leadership e-Summit (GLS) 2020 here: https://itdworld.com/global-leadership-esummit-2020/

For more tips on leadership and management during crises, explore our in-house leadership & HR solutions - provided by the TOP GURUs in the world.

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