Making small changes in your organisation

It’s an old and slightly trite saying now, but I’m a firm believer in the principle that making small changes can have a big impact.

Every go-back-in-time-to-save-the-world story or film relies on it! Make one little change back in 1800, maybe stop someone from falling off a horse, and the future world is saved.

If we believe it in films, why not in our day-to-day lives?

Buy a better CRM to run a more streamlined business in the future. Get your sales people to smile before they answer the phone and see customer service approval rates go through the roof.

The problem isn’t WHETHER making these small changes has a lasting impact, it’s identifying which small changes need to be made.

(And yes, I know, that isn’t the break-through idea of the century.)

So how do you identify which small changes need to be made?

If I knew the answer, I’d be a world-famous business consultant (what another one?). Sadly it isn’t a one-size fits all solution.

But I can tell you what has worked for me in the past.

Step 1: Identify the areas you want to improve

Bit of a no-sh*t answer, but you’d be surprised how many people ask what needs changing before answering the question of “what is going wrong?”

Step 2: Once you know which areas need to be improved, work out where the process is falling down.

Again, a bit obvious, but this can be a boring and tedious step. In my example of the smiling salesperson, the way to find this out might be to read every single poor rating and listen to every call.

Ok, probably not all of them, but enough to get a feel for the tone.

You’ll need to make notes and then review your findings. It takes time, but do you think those time-traveling heroes knew exactly what the problem was without doing their research? Of course not.

Step 3: Discuss with the people who are involved

Now that you have an idea where the problems are, sit down and chat with the people who are most involved with it. What are their opinions on it? What do they think would help?

Step 4: Make a decision and implement it

No explanation really needed: listen to your team’s opinion, listen to your own opinion, and make a decision. Then implement the changes.

Step 5: Stick with it

This is always the worst part for me. I want to see result right away. But these small changes take time to really show the benefit. So stick with it and wait it out.

Step 6: Review

Did it work? Great. Did it not work? Damn—what could you have done differently?

And then it’s time to start the whole process over again.