Change happens – own it
by Miki SaxonBy Wes Ball. Wes is a strategic innovation consultant and author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success (Westlyn Publishing, 2008) and writes for Leadership turn every Tuesday. See all his posts here. Wes can be reached at www.theballgroup.com.
Psychologists will tell you that only about 15% of the population thrives with change. But they will also tell you that almost no one really likes it. Change causes pain – personally and organizationally. And pain causes uncertainty, which makes everyone uncomfortable. So we all try to avoid change, if at all possible.
Who wouldn’t like to think that what works today might work ten years from now? The trouble is: change is happening all the time. In fact, change is occurring so quickly today that, if you get some useful information, you better react to it right now, because it may no longer have value a week, a day, or an hour from now. The days of believing that waiting to make a decision is a viable option are long gone.
The key to success in today’s business environment is not to avoid change, but rather to be the master of it—that is, to own it.
But change for change’s sake doesn’t go very far. Fads die almost as quickly as they are birthed. Change that continually drives customer expectations, especially change that drives them higher in the areas that customers want their expectations to be fulfilled at higher levels (i.e., ego-satisfaction), will create following behavior among competitors. And following behavior puts the leader being followed in control.
How do successful change-leading companies make that happen? Here are the specific steps a company must go through to make it happen and become the change leader:
- Top management must be convinced that change is desirable. This is by far the hardest and most critical step. Few top managers would say they don’t want positive change, but few have the heart to really follow-through on what it takes to make change happen successfully. They all too often want to solve a short-term issue and then go right back to business as usual. Without this top-down desire to change, nothing useful happens. And any positive change driven from the bottom up is quickly undermined.
- Uncover customer desires and aspirations – that is expectations they wish they could have fulfilled but don’t really believe can be. The company that uncovers and addresses these wishes has the key to long-term loyalty and greater profitability than most companies ever dream of gaining. Just ask Apple, or Harley-Davidson, or John Deere, or any of the other Alpha companies out there.
- Use what you discovered to drive new and higher expectations. You won’t be able to fulfill every dream or aspiration a customer has (that’s why there are always new opportunities to raise the bar. But, when you drive new and higher expectations from dreams and aspirations, you not only make your company the one to beat, but also the one to follow. Customers, competitors, distributors, retailers, and referral agents will all look to you for insight as to what is important and what they should be doing. You begin to own change in your category.
- Define the future by defining the path of future changes in expectations. Intel has already defined the next five generations of processor performance. It’s for everyone else to follow their lead. As you define that future in broader terms than just product performance, you generate the path of a true leader. Once you have most people following your lead (even if they are not all buying from you), you have control over continually driving expectations for the entire category higher.
It starts with a desire to create change. It is sustained by defining the path change will take for the category that makes you the leader and makes your company, its products, its communications and its people the proof that customers can get what they have dreamed of getting.
Image credit: juliaf CC license
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
A huge power and benefit can be found in one’s ability to change within his surroundings, but the greatest power is when you caused that change and directed it in your favor.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Corporate Coaching:
You are exactly right. It’s a point of pride for many to be able to “survive” changes around them or to stay ahead of being a victim to change, but it’s quite another thing to be the driver of change.
It’s the stuff of conspiracy and spy novels, because its’ what we all dream could be possible. What I discovered was that it is possible and almost anyone can accomplish it by understanding how people make decisions. That’s because how marketers influence their future is through their understanding of how to influence customer decisions.
It really is all too easy, even though those persons steeped in the experience of having to react or of believing that they can only “influence” customer decisions with a limited range of functional or price options would say it is impossible. For them, it is.