Why is change so hard ?

A lot of Business leaders shares the same story of finding it very hard to convince their star performing people when they are planning for a business transformation in their operations to either improve productivity , quality or even making changes in the policies to improve customer services ! Why does this keeps happening ? The most simple and obvious answer would be to assume that your people don't want to change because they are all working at their comfort zones , but is that really true ? How many times have you attempted to start something new and implemented it 100% successfully on time with complete support from all of your team members ? I bet it would be very rare ! Change is naturally hard , it makes people anxious about their future , it would be very difficult for a business owner to make meaningful changes without completely understanding the culture and the capability of his people . Over the years of my consulting practices , I have found something that might work in a better way to initiate and implement changes in your organization

1. Commitment from the Top Management : No change would sustain unless there is unparalleled support and dedication from the top management. So if you are not 100% committed to make the change , there is only one thing that you can do , Drop it ! there is no other way. In other words , you should only start thinking about making changes , only after you are one hundred percent sure that you need to change !
2. Understanding your people inside and outside work : Most business leaders boast about having good relationships with their team leaders but do you actually know them outside work? it wouldn't be practical to understand each and every employee inside and outside work but it is very critical to know about the people who are responsible to initiate any kind of change that you would bring in. Without knowing how these people would respond or how any new changes would effect the current culture of the organization or how it would effect each people outside work , most probably you would end up blaming your people for not supporting you . No one would win here !
3. Evaluate the organisational capability : Before going for any change , it is very important to look at your current capabilities. it could be your performance matrixes , the knowledge level of your key team members or digital infrastructure that is needed for the transformation. In many cases , business leaders act fast on building infrastructures like great showrooms or investing on latest technology or machinary , but almost all the time , they forget that their people needs to undergo a lot of training so that they can accept , initiate and continue making changes in your organization . This would only make an organization more resistive to new changes because your people will never admit that they don't have the capability to execute it . They will continue doing it in their own ways and you would finally let them do it because you will be exhausted ! In fact , every change needs change agents at every level of your organization . These are the people who would drive the changes from top to bottom . They need to lead and influence people below them and these are not easy tasks to do . Some of them may never have done this before in their career !
4. Plan : A good change always starts with a good plan. Now that you have understood your organisational culture and the capabilities , you need to make a master plan which suits you the best . This plan should contain 4 key parts and everything should be written in a document . The first part is the "why". This part should have already been answered in your mind before starting to act on making changes, you just have to put it on paper in a simple explanation so that every team members understands it . The second part is the "what" . This part should explain the things that needed to be changed. Always try to be very specific and brief . These are the things that you need to change immediately and also this is where you explain what you want to become at the end of the change project . The third part is the "how" . This is going to be the hardest part of all. You need to consider all factors including your infrastructures , people , current processes etc and come up with a basic plan how to implement these changes . The last part is the "time line" . This is where you set your milestone dates, it may seem simple but it should be really planned based on the real time situation of your organisation .
5. Start out small : Many change projects fail because of large scale rolling out and huge kick start initiatives , Its always better to start out small in a very limited scope of area to improve . This gives you room to act on many challenging problems that may occur during the project roll out . Be very careful in selecting a small group of people who would successfully implement the project because it is very critical for all future rolling out of the project .
6. Recruitment and Leadership development : Finally , you should look at your key HR policies like recruitment , training and developing the people . Many companies fire people shortly after hiring , complaining that they are not performing well . The truth is that many of these companies are hiring people who are either not fit to their organization or they have failed to provide the required training to the employees. If you are not convinced yet , you can go and take a look at your organisations history of developing people to top management right from recruiting them. For any organization who wants to excel in their operations, its very critical to have great people on board, and how will you get these people ? You need to have strong recruitment and training policies and procedures. Only by developing these people , you can create strong leaders who would develop strong cultures and thereby bring great changes to your organisation

There are many more things to discuss on this topic , I wish to continue on specific subjects in more detail in the future