How to Make Continuous Progress In Business and Life

Are you seeking innovation, improvement or creativity within your organization? Sure you are. Any business that hopes to grow should be and these are all related to change. Nevertheless, not all change is created equal.

When you want to drive change, look to The Seven Levels of Change and particularly how it can be used to orchestrate the change you are interested in.

Seven Levels of Change: Creative Process

“Just Do It” or “Do Anything” may be rallying statements, but they are not necessarily the best way to move forward. In most cases you are better off leaving the tag lines in the dust while you consider what is going on and what you should be implementing, and then go for broke!

Let’s face it, organizations often move at a snail’s pace when it comes to change, and that just will not do if you want to be successful. Getting new methods, viewpoints or ideas accepted can be a very frustrating process in the majority of organizations. However, you should keep in mind that change is not uniform and can vary from something quite simple to a total overhaul. Those in power who can appreciated these levels of change and use their knowledge will have a huge advantage, especially in this rapidly changing world we live and work in today.

According to Rolf Smith, author of “The 7 Levels of Change”, said change comes in varied levels of difficulty. Level one is very simple, while level seven is perched on the edge of impossible. From 1-7 the levels will increase in challenge, complexity and radicalization.

Below, you will find a simple yet profound exercise to enable you to open your mind to the various levels of change. Take the time to review the steps carefully, and answer the questions along the way. This is the type of process that can radically change your life and organization.

Utilize this exercise for independent analysis or to generate new ideas in a group setting.

Seven Levels of Change

Level 1: Are current processes effective? When you know the right thing to do, you then have to ensure it is the top focus. Of course, you should constantly be asking if there is another way to do what you are doing now.

Have you heard of the 20/80 principle? Otherwise known as the Pareto Principle, it is the idea that 20 percent of what you are doing is yielding 80 percent of the payoff. This means if you want to be efficient and effective, that 20% has to have the most energy. Basically, apply level one to level two, perform the right things in the right way.

Level 2: Are you efficient? Are necessary tasks being performed correctly? At level one, you are focusing on personal adjustments or simple procedural adjustments. These will require minimal effort and are relatively low risk.

Level 3: Trimming the Fat- Have you measured your productivity lately? Are there steps or procedures that could be eliminated without hurting effectiveness? At this stage of the game, you are looking to get rid of waste. Since you are getting rid of things instead of adding, you can generally get it approved easily. Plus, this is all low risk/ effort and the results are often immediately visible.

Level 4: Better- How can you improve upon current processes or products? Start by asking the question, what would I do if I were calling all the shots? Now you are taking a closer look at the central activities (still that 20%) and determining if there is anyway to improve. Can you move up deadlines, speed up any part of the process or cut unnecessary steps. At this level, you are in essence redesigning your organization’s efforts, which will directly affect all the preceding levels.

Level 5: Imitation- It is the sincerest form of flattery and one of the best ways to improve your organization’s processes. What is the competition doing? Observe, read and pay attention to how others are doing it better and then figure out how to work it into your organization.

This is the point where you go from incremental changes to fundamental. You are learning from others and many times, using reverse engineering, which is much quicker and cheaper than a complete DIY approach. Learning from how another organization operates (even if its a different industry than yours) and then shaping that knowledge into something that works in your field is the essence of innovation.

You should be prepared for opposition because this is the level where many individuals become uncomfortable. Usually, this is merely because they are self (organization) focused and have no idea there is anything out “there” worth imitating.

Another common mentality you will encounter is “this is how WE do it”. Unless broken, you will spin your wheels trying to push forward to the next level. Here is where everyone will have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Level 6: Novel Ideas: Now it’s time to get different by discovering the new ways to attack a problem.

How do you discover a new way of doing things? By looking at processes that seem unlikely and asking why? As you can see, you have now moved to the difficult levels, which will include taking risks and blazing new trails. The end result is often fantastic and accomplished by connecting concepts, components and technologies that seem to have no connection. Here you will be combining levels 3, 4 and 5, but taking it to the extreme, which results in a re-engineered process that is completely unrecognizable from the original.

Level 7: Impossibilities- Here we are at the final level, the level of doing the impossible. Can you look at what all others deem impossible and ask why is it impossible?

Level 7 can be intimidating but also exciting and invigorating as you begin contemplating amazing, magical ideas. This is definitely where you break out and break through restrictive ideas. When you can make changes at this level, they will be seen as a shocking departure from the status quo.

Do you want to know more about working your way through the 7 levels of change? If you would like to obtain the tools, strategy and field guide, refer to The Seven Models of Change by Rolf Smith.

At the end of the day:

There is no way to avoid change. The only question is how do you navigate its channels? Success in this area will allow you to not only adapt to change but actually initiate it in the first place.

Gregg Swanson is a sales performance consultant and business coach and has authored several books and numerous articles on peak performance and creator of “Sales Strong.” Gregg specializes helping sales professionals develop mental strength for optimum sales performance. You can pick-up your complementary report, “The Most Critical Step in Sales” by going HERE.