Articles

Have you ever wondered why some staff struggle to adapt to organisational change?
In managing change, I have always engaged those that I identified as slow adapters from a very early stage in the change process.
I experienced that early engagement and understanding of their reason for slow acceptance of change were key in driving a successful change project.
More recently I have developed an understanding of why this approach worked.

Knowledge over product as a source of competitiveness has been in play for some time now.  With this there has been a change from providing an off the shelf solution, to understanding the client need and developing an informed solution.  The base of this is knowledge.  Knowledge of the client, their industry and a cross set of information and skills outside the typical skill set of the service provider.

You might be thinking ‘we are hitting our income and profit targets now so why would I need to do anything differently’. Whilst you may be hitting these targets now, the market around you is evolving and this impacts your clients’ needs and the competition in which they can obtain your services from.

In my experience, strategic planning typically comes undone by at least one of three commonly missed steps in the process. These steps are developing a base level of relevant knowledge, effective people utilisation and turning plans into actions.