As a business owner, you are probably aware of where your business could improve. Sometimes business owners want to improve their business, but are not sure how to begin. Show This is an overview of some key steps you can take to start improving your business. Assess your situationBefore you start making changes, it's a good idea to make sure you have a full understanding of the factors affecting your business success. These may include your current business practices, market trends or changes to the wider environment in which you operate. Tools which can help you assess your business's situation include:
Set clear goalsBusiness goals can be as broad or as specific as you want them to be. Writing down your goals clearly will make it easier for you to achieve them. Make sure your goals are:
Once you have written down your goals, you should prioritise them to decide which ones to focus on first. Some goals may need be more urgent than others. It's also important to recognise that some goals will need to be addressed with a long-term strategy as you won't be able to meet them immediately, because of resources, finances or time. Identify strategies for achieving your goalsReview your goals and list the factors you think are creating your current circumstances. Think about what strategy you could use to improve the situation. Depending on the goals you're trying to meet, you may want to think about using the services of a business professional, such as a professional trainer, a contractor or a business adviser. Think realistically about what you can do yourself and where you may benefit from some support. Develop a plan for implementing your strategiesTo achieve your goals, you need to work out how to implement your strategies. Strategies often include several specific actions or tasks. It's a good idea to develop a plan for how you will do this. Write your plan in a format that suits you. It should include:
When you've developed your plan, you might want to also update your overall business plan. Measure the resultsEstablishing how you will measure the results that you want to achieve may be as simple as checking you've completed an activity. With larger goals, you may have to establish a more complex measurement process, like increasing profit by a set percentage, or gaining a particular number of new clients. With these types of goals, it can also be useful to set points to measure their success as you're working on them. This will help you keep your plan on track. Consider how often you want to measure your business achievements. This can also help you set new goals regularly. Learn more about measuring the success of your innovation. Also consider...
Note: This article has been updated on FMLink, along with examples related to changes caused by the 2020 novel coronavirus pandemic. See this updated article about dealing with change in the business environment. Supervisors’ job responsibilities are changing. As both individuals and members of an organization’s managerial team, supervisors need to prepare themselves to adapt successfully to a rapidly changing business environment. This article presents a number of tips supervisors can use to deal with change, to the betterment of their organization and their own careers. As a supervisor, the primary measures you can take to adapt to change include:
Become Aware of Your Current SituationWhat is going on now in your job? If you don’t know, you must take steps to find out! Relevant questions to ask include:
If you are unable to answer questions like these, you should begin immediately to “do your homework,” for you are in a prime position to be overwhelmed by unexpected forces of change. People often miss important information when they employ selective perception, habit, and specialization to keep themselves from being exposed to ideas they might not want to hear. While this is human nature, it is not a good strategy for handling change. Instead, supervisors should face their fears and broaden their sources of information to explore new ideas. By increasing their awareness of change through a willingness to take in new information, they will have a distinct advantage over those who tend to isolate themselves. While you are gathering information, try to spot the trends which may be signaling change on the horizon. Look for seemingly isolated facts that may “fit together” like the pieces of a puzzle. When you think you have spotted a trend, you should investigate it in further detail. Don’t just react to change; anticipate and prepare for it. Understanding ChangeCompare your reaction and a small child’s reaction to thunder. You ignore it, but a child may be anxious and seeks assurances from the nearest adult. It’s only human to fear the unknown—confidence comes with understanding. From long experience, you know that thunder is a natural phenomenon that cannot harm you. The child does not yet understand it. That is why an important step toward coping with change is understanding it: what is happening, why, and how. Is your department being reorganized? Are you worried about the impact on you? That’s natural. But don’t fall victim to rumors, speculation, or the inclination to assume the worst. Wait for your boss to explain why the reorganization is being done, how the new department will work, and what specific changes will result. It is likely that the changes represent an improvement of some sort. If your manager does not explain the change to you, ask about it. Flexibility and a willingness to embrace change will make you a more valuable member of your organization—one who can reliably deal with many different opportunities and circumstances. You may not like all the changes that are occurring, but you can be sure that if you resist them, you will not prosper. It is fine to voice your opinion and make suggestions, but it is also important to appreciate that competition and technology are constantly combining to force top management to reevaluate company operations. It is helpful to look on changed circumstances and the challenges they present with the attitude of a new employee and, as a new employee would, take on these challenges enthusiastically and with a desire to learn all you can to perform well. When you recognize the possibilities created by change, you’re more prepared to exploit them. You will find change as not something to fear, but as something to welcome and turn to your own advantage. Build Your Skills and Keep LearningAdapting to change frequently requires the effective use of all your acquired skills. In some cases, adapting to change will call for the use of other skills as well—skills which you might not yet have mastered, or even begun to acquire! In a fast-changing work environment, skills also become obsolete. To be prepared to deal with change successfully, it is important to build as many skills as you can before their use becomes essential for organizational survival. You don’t want to be caught short in a crunch. You can never stop learning if you want to maintain your value in the job marketplace. Nor can you wait for your employer to send you to seminars or pay for additional education. You need to take responsibility to educate yourself. Doing so will help you keep your skills current, and it will demonstrate an initiative for self-improvement that makes you a more visible and viable candidate for a promotion or new assignment. You may also want to consider making lateral moves to learn new skills and become a well-rounded employee. Read trade magazines and attend conferences, when possible. Take refresher training in your area of competence. Enroll in a college course that interests you, even one not given for credit. See if your professional association offers training sessions and workshops. Look into correspondence or distance education. If circumstances allow, pursue an advanced degree. If college is not an option, broaden your reading and personal study. Join others with similar interests to form a discussion group or study team. Read a technical manual or recent review of research in an area of interest to you. This is the one of the most important tips for adapting to change, because it places you ahead of the curve: anticipating change and implementing it before many people think to adapt. It is important to keep your learning skills fresh; learning how to learn is also too valuable a lesson to allow it to atrophy over time. The bottom line is, the more you know how to do and the more current your skills and your ability to apply them effectively, the more valuable you are to an organization. Other TipsAside from these major efforts, you can also take smaller measures to ensure that you are compatible with change and adapt easily to it:
To become a fixer, you should identify the source of the problem and suggest direct actions to deal with it. The person who blames doesn’t solve problems; the person who fixes does, and becomes a valued member of an organization as a result. ConclusionOrganizational change is not optional to keep pace with business. All organizations, at one time or another, face substantive modifications to some aspect of their business. Supervisors can prepare themselves to adapt successfully to a more rapidly changing business environment by following a variety of tips, as outlined above. This article is excerpted from BOMI International’s Administration. The guide can be purchased by calling 1—800—235—2664, or by visiting www.bomi.org. |