Weekly Wisdom on Effectively Managing Change with
M.J. Ryan
Contributing Expert and Career Success! Partner
Great. Her desired outcome is to stay in business. She’s accepted the fact that change is needed, thought through her options, created a plan of action, and put her plan in place. What’s next? Paying close attention to whether her plan is getting her the results she wants. Other restaurateurs are lowering prices, closing on Sundays and Mondays, switching to lower end dining. Who’s to say which or which combination will be effective? There are so many factors involved—where the restaurant is, what kind of clientele, what happens with the economy, luck….You can only know by trying.
Whatever actions you’re taking, evaluation is important, because you don’t know what things are going to get you where you want to go. You’re taking your best guess, but if you don’t stop to evaluate, you won’t know if your guess paid off. This sounds so obvious but I can’t tell you how many individuals and organizations mess up here. They put something into action, assuming it will work, and never stop to analyze whether it actually is. Or they evaluate vaguely—sure, I’m delegating better—but don’t analyze exactly how much and whether it is making a significant enough difference. Or they evaluate months later, rather than checking in a short time frame because they put something in place and feel they’re finished.
Here’s an easy way to think about it. You know what you want—stay in business, lower costs, get a good mentor—but how you’re going to make that happen is in the nature of an experiment. You try something, get a result, evaluate progress, and then readjust if necessary. You don’t give up on the what unless you really have to, but your hows may change many times based on what you learn from your experiment.
Measurements can be things like dollars in and out. Or results such as maintaining customers or the number of ideas your team comes up with and puts into action. Or feedback from others—“yes, we see you making the changes you committed to.” Don’t get in the trap of analyzing time or effort spent—you can spend a lot of time on things that aren’t getting you productive results.Challenge yourself to measure concrete results that matter.
Don’t be tempted to skip this stage. When clients of mine take a new job, I always advise them to ask their boss what results they are going to be evaluated on. Of course you have your own ideas of what’s crucial, but you should at least know what the person who is going to evaluate you thinks. This is especially important when the job is amorphous or long range.
Make sure you are measuring progress and readjusting if necessary.
Original Post by M.J. Ryan: CLICK HERE
M.J. Ryan is a widely recognized Change Expert and author of the book, Adaptability - How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For. She is also one of the creators of the New York Times bestselling Random Acts of Kindness series and the author of The Happiness Makeover (nominated for the 2005 Books for Better Living award in the Motivational category), Attitudes of Gratitude, The Power of Patience, Trusting Yourself, The Giving Heart, and 365 Health and Happiness Boosters, among other titles. Altogether, there are 1.75 million copies of her titles in print. Learn more about M.J.
Another excellent article by friend and Career Success! Partner, M.J. Ryan -- a regular contributing expert to our blog site. I agree with M.J. -- if you're not consistently evaluating how you're doing, how will you know when to make adjustments and changes. M.J.'s insights, ideas and wisdom on the subject of Dealing Effectively with Change will hopefully resonate with you in your journey to achieving incredible career success.
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A leading authority on career success; 15-year executive coaching veteran
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Very informative. Steve - I really agree with your post. It is crucial to set smaller goals and achieve them, then to set higher goals and fail. That actually is one of the things they focused on in my business classes at Liberty University.
Liberty University really prepared me for the working world, there is little that I come across that I have not been prepared for. http://www.luonline.com
Posted by: Jan Levinson | September 28, 2010 at 01:25 PM