Business Management Skills

You are working for a consultancy office and your work is very dear to your heart. You joined this company when it was still at its beginning stages and you have more or less grown along with the company. Your hard work has been recognized at every stage and you have been able to augment your income on account of your hard work and commitment to your job. You are holding a very prominent post in the office now and have been vested with certain special responsibilities.

All these years your office was not in a busy commercial area but was in an isolated and quiet spot. With increases in clientele and good profits, your boss was thinking about moving the business to a busy commercial spot. Here the chances of finding new customers are even higher. Your boss is glad that with the move, people cannot miss noticing the office which shall be in a visable point. Your existing clients do not mind this move as it will not inconvenience them in any manner.

As you are a responsible person in the business, you have been asked to do all the arrangements with regards to the move. You have been told to keep your daily desk work on hold and focus on thejob of the moveon a priority basis. This kind of task is hard to do in the current times. There are a number of businesses ready to attend to the task of move of your office. Inquire your friends and known people concerning different companies in the area. Alternatively, you may go online and look for a number of office movers in your city, through the search engine. Make a list of companiesservices that are interesting to you and collect their moving quotes.

Select a good service on the basis of their track record and references. You may check about their performance from the local Better Business Bureau as well, who will be too happy to give you the information. The company, in addition to undertaking the task of packing, loading and unloading, needs to implement all moving safety procedures in a professional manner. Some companies offer to unpack and place the items in the new office, as a part of the contract.

Now that you have entrusted the task of moving the office to reliable company, you are a relieved man. You have to now attend to the task of informing all your current clients about the change of address, either on phone, through email or by mail. You have to turnover the keys of your office to the current landlord and remember to pay off the utility bills or any pending payments prior to vacating the office. Leaving a familiar place that was used by you for so many years is no easy task, but then you have to look forward to working in a new environment with a rekindled vigor and anticipation.

Corporations and the army share a number of features. Both incline to reasonably strictly organized with express procedures and qualifications needed for advancement. Both tend to employ large numbers of people, which requires major administration. Most significantly, corporations and the military both have abasic need for a preparedness to implement change. What is interesting is that, although companies exist freed from many of the restrictions of the military and employ less people, they exhibit less preparedness than the army when it is time to implement change.

In principle, both organizational structures should be in the practice of predicting changes. The military should be anticipating changes re potential attacks, responses to attacks, and protocols for dealing with new threats. Companies should be predicting potential changes in areas which affect them immediately,eg oil prices or new laws.

What is interesting is that the military, for all of the flack it takes for excessive bureaucracy, has a tendency to practice preparedness to a bigger degree. It is standard practice for the army to run exercises which mimic a spread of circumstances, starting from best to worst case scenarios. Corporations, on the other hand, tend to eschew the practicalities of the best way to implement change till such changes are thrust upon them. This could explain why examples where companies are compelled to implement change create so much internal culture shock.

History has shown that the unprepared frequently suffer for their absence of preparedness. The discussion can be made that this lack stems in part from the inclination to fixate on the present moment Problems of managing a company. However, such a fixation on running the business inevitably ends in a detriment of preparedness and a reduced ability to execute change. In a world where change is occurring ever faster and more frequently, the facility to implement change effectively is going to ascertain which corporations flourish and which of them will fail.

For more information, please see our website: Implement Change

Corporate management and software resellers alike tend to view implementing new manufacturing software as strictly an IT and technical process. That approach sometimes leads to failure, particularly with extensive systems involving accounting, equipment, inventory and project management. A significant number of IT projects fail, with failure ranging anywhere from not meeting initial goals to having to abandon a new system outright. Certainly many elements of such failure relate to technology issues, but a number have been traced to failure to provide change management.

The reason is really no surprise. Most people that work for companies are somewhat resistant to change and believe that change generates conflict. At the very least, they see the changes as a disruption that will interfere with their ability to do their job and may even put their job in jeopardy. Therefore, management must be prepared to deal with all parts of the change so that they can attain the positive results that they expect.

Effectively managing the change involves analyzing, communicating, and leading by example. Here are a few key issues that must be kept in mind if you realize that adopting new software will include some necessary and significant changes.

1) Hire a Change Management Consultant: Probably the most important issue is bringing an experienced consultant on board, as few mid-sized firms have the requisite skills internally. And software resellers are likewise not equipped to handle this aspect of new systems implementation. More importantly, they will almost never mention it. Why? They believe that it is:
• Not relevant to them, and outside the scope of their thinking
• A diversion of funds from their project
• A wild card third party is introduced, whom they may have to deal with

Consultants with years of experience in similar situations will help identify major problems and guide the company through the process of proactively dealing with them. They will have experience working with companies just like yours and will be an invaluable asset…although they will cost a decent amount of money.

2) It is also important to ensure that employees are involved in the new software implementation. Communication is key here. Employees should know what will happen, when it will happen, why the change is being made, how it will impact their daily tasks, and so on. This communication should be done early and often, not as an afterthought or after employees begin ask questions.

If adequate communication is not provided, management should expect everything from people not understanding priorities to outright opposition (frequently covert). In addition to telling employees about the changing environment, they need to solicit specifications and suggestions about the system, alternatives and other issues. In other words, the employees must “buy in” to the new software.

That being said, getting input from all employees is much easier said than done. One good way to open the communication channels is to conduct interdepartmental workshops that discuss, in detail, the ways that each business area will be impacted by the change, the reason for the change, and the other factors mentioned above.

3) Several organizations make the mistake of confusing “management” with “leadership” and wrongly assume that their common “mangement” systems (i.e. issuing a memo to get a certain task done) will work to meet the “leadership” needs required when new software is implemented. This simply will not work when a complex system change is made.

Companies often have the idea that complex new systems are plug-and-play, not realizing that leadership may be required to make them fully work, organizationally. Although large enterprises often, but not always, have both the understanding and resources required, that is often not the case with mid-sized organizations.

4) The new manufacturing ERP software Must be ‘Sold’ to Employees: This means that all steps must be taken to ensure that all employees are “bought in” to the new system. They must understand that they have a stake in the ultimate success of the system that will impact the overall organization, and potentially their jobs. If they do not feel like they have a stake in the new software, they will not be committed to the change, and it may ultimately fail.

5) Be prepared to deal with fear. Anytime a big change is made in a business, employees become scared of the change if they don’t understand the motivation, and sometimes even if they do understand the motivations.

The problem with fear is that it leads to behavior that in some way is oppositional to the new system. Or it may lead to departures, from employees who can’t deal with the uncertainties.

6) Conflict Resolution: There will be some conflict with the new system. This is almost guaranteed. Turf battles may erupt. New communication between previously unconnected departments may lead to conflict. In most cases, these conflicts can be avoided if the fears mentioned above are addressed early and often.

Many companies choose to ignore conflict, feeling that it will go away over time. However, we all know that this is never the case. Unless management takes the necessary steps to deal with the conflicts, the problems will only fester and grow, potentially in to bigger issues than they needed to be. Therefore, it is important that conflict resolution steps are taken at the instant that a conflict stirs up.

Keep in mind that this article was largely written with mid sized and larger organizations in mind. Remember that these manufacturing software issues will impact organizations of all sizes. Leadership and motivation carry the day even in small offices. All it takes is one or two uncooperative employees with key operational jobs to sabotage new software!

In a change implementation, organizations will infrequently employ high level tracking methods. This generally implies the use of a database system. Precise action items for individuals are programmed into the database and email is used to inform individuals when these actions items need to be started. As the action items are worked on or completed, reports are entered into the database to recommend the change team of progress. The establishment and use of such database systems can be handled as a matter of creating compliance or enabling adoption of the change.

If the approach to the tracking of the change implementation is compliance, it usually involves the change team working thru the planning stage principally independent of those that will be predicted to enact the plan. The stages of the plan are examined and action steps are created to move the project forward. These are put into the database and individuals are informed of their role. The position behind this approach is one of here is the job and you’re expected to complete it.

When the approach is intended to enable adoption, it often involves more interplay with the individuals who will perform the action steps. Members of the change team will generally go to the individuals and discuss the change with them. The individuals will then offer the steps they’d need to complete for the change implementation to be successful in their department or division. These steps are then integrated into the database with the email reminders. The object here isnot to force compliance, but to remind individuals that they need to complete the steps they designed.

There is no set rule governing which approach is more effective during a change implementation. It is defined on a situational basis. The resolution might be a choice based on the predicted resistance to the change, the dimensions of the change or the organizational culture. If there’s the expectancy of high resistance, compliance may be the acceptable approach. Adoption is usually better to accomplish in smaller organizations or when the change only has an effect on a little area of an organization. The change professional will have to read the situation and advise the client as to what they believe will be the best approach for the change implementation.

For more information, please see our website: Change Implementation

In his book, The Drunkard’s Walk : How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Leonard Mlodinow spends some time debating about the attack on Pearl bay. One of the points that he makes referring to the attack is that there were indicators in the behaviour of theJapanese army which, in hindsight, might have served as predictors of the assault. Naturally, hindsight is always much more acute than foresight, but it is acute foresight that project managers involved in change implementation need to have at their disposal.

A frequently seen problem that plagues change implementation projects is alack of risk orientated planning. The irony is that, in many cases, lists have been assembled and discussions have taken place re the potential risks and problems. What never materializes from these lists and discussions are tangible contingency plans to deal with those risks and problems. So, if one is leading a change implementation project or has responsibility for Pearl bay during WWII, what can one do to boost foresight?

One method of improving foresight is to put sensors in place to get the required info before atiny problem becomes a killer problem. For the army chief of Pearl bay who is forecasting an attack, this could mean assigning somebody to observe changes in radio communication or to look at an embassy for suggestions that the embassy is getting ready to close. For the change implementation executive, this suggests monitoring info which has a history of showing impending risks, inspiring team members to bring even little issues to your attention, and anticipating the worst eventualities that would happen so that a plan will be in place to address it.

While no one has perfect foresight, it is possible to boost the percentages of a successful change implementation by being open to the chance of disaster. As Louis Pasteur once asserted, Chance favors the prepared mind.

For more information, please see our website: Change Implementation

In industries that are comprised of really intelligent folks, change implementation can be particularly challenging. This stems in part from a perception that ideas about change management or organizational change are only relevant for groups of folks with lower intelligence. The actuality is that humans generally, without reference to intelligence, benefit from the employment of change management during change implementation. Actually, the smartest folks stand to benefit most, rather than least, from change management.

Anice example of this can be found in the petrol industry. During well drilling operations, if the hole being drilled is more than some degrees offof vertical it can become a significant problem. These non-vertical holes are referred to as inclined bore holes.

Asolution to the physical issues of inclined bore holes was created and published a while back. Yet, at a meeting of the Society for petrol Engineers, a paper was presented that discussed the way in which the industry has largely didn’t adopt the solution and was still depending on jury-rigged solutions in the field. In principle, a bunch of highly educated, intelligent engineers would have jumped onto the solution and sought to implement industry wide change implementation referring to inclined bore holes.

In practice, highly intelligent folks tend to have very robust views relating to how things ought to be done. They can rely all alone judgments and experiences to outline their approach to issues, at least lacking the presence of a widely acknowledged authority in the field. These robust opinions tend to undercut attempts at change implementation. This is particularly true if the change does not comply with given person’s opinion on the topic.

If the change involves a grouping of such folk, it can become a very slow process as each person makes an attempt to claim their opinion or perception. The employment of change management best practices can help to beat a number of these issues by making the method asystematic effort rather than aplan to convince people one at a time.

For more information, please see our website: Change Implementation