Most of us have experienced significant changes throughout our careers, and life. Some of those changes have certainly gone smoother, and had significantly better outcomes than others - the single constant about life in our world today is change itself. Which makes it crucial to understand all the pieces that are part of any change to have well aligned to make any change a great experience that provides positive outcomes and enable you, and your organization to thrive.
It's important to embrace change and welcome it - don't get your feet 'stuck in the mud' and fight change with every ounce of your being because (just trust me on this one) you won't win. You'll simply end up on the losing side of the change battle and I can promise you it will negatively impact your health, happiness, relationships, and most certainly your career that you've worked so hard for through the years.
Or maybe you're early in your career - resisting change at any level of your career can quickly kick you down the ladder rungs faster than you ever thought possible. Either way, all that hard work can slip away in moments if when faced with change you don't step up to the challenge and thoughtfully approach it with an open heart, and mind and are ready to embrace it.
But, I get it - change itself can be head spinning, and learning to embrace any change may just be one of the most difficult career, or life lessons you ever learn. So, how do you get it right?
What can initially feel like a mountain is usually just a small mole hill (in hind sight), but that said - it is also very manageable if you set yourself, and your staff up well to succeed. I'm going to focus on technology changes, but you can easily apply these tips to almost any change in any other part of your career, or life - it's based on the promise of understanding your goal line, how to communicate change and how to effectively thrive and be better off, and happier in the long-run.
Sounds easier said (or written) than done - just remember it's a process, and you should figure out what works best for you, these are just some guidelines to help you get started and determine your plan of action to set you up for wild success with any change you may face.
First action - Define the goal(s)
Several outcomes instantly race through your head - and can even paralyze you with inaction if you let it. Start by writing it all down.
Because we're all human our minds immediately jump to all the 'what if's' and dangers of any change when it initially enters our mind - But, before you go down the rabbit-hole of potential pitfalls and worries; identify all of your goals you would like to reach for with this technology change. Identify each one with as much detail as you can stand to outline.
- Why do you want to accomplish these goals? How are they important to the organization, your staff, your return?
- Who, and what will these goals impact - your production? Your people? Your profits? Your business sustainability? Safety risk?
- Are some shorter term, more immediate goals, and others are geared to longer term goals? Separate them to help you identify each group.
Write down everything you would like achieve with this change; examples could be something like; Data trends to achieve ability to operate by exception, analytics and trends to identify better asset maintenance scheduling, and maybe you have a gap of skilled people on board - so you're trying to do more work with less people, which of course leads to you would like to gain minimum of 15% return each month with an easier pathway to growth (maybe you have your eye on doing an acquisition in the coming months) - whatever your goals of wanting to implement the technology change; make them really clear and answer all your own goals with the 'why' behind each of them.
Second action - Identify your concerns
Let's say you've been looking to upgrade your facility’s monitoring, and data reporting abilities, but concerned about the complexity and expense, and that you’ll have to extensively revamp or even replace your existing system to improve or expand it. You're also very concerned what this type of technology change will do to your people, safety risk, day-to-day business operations, speed to market, and of course your bottom line.
Organize your concerns into three main buckets; What part of the change or outcome are each of these concerns most likely to impact? People, process or outcome should be your three main buckets to put each concern under and how it relates to the function of your concern.
Let's say you're worried that your people may not accept the change with open arms and you won't be able to get them to fully utilize this new feature, addition or process - tag that as 'People'. Or maybe it's that you're concerned you don't have the internal resources available to take on a project this big and it will add extra stress and fatigue onto your already overworked staff.
Next up, for the second bucket - name it as 'Process'. This is where you add concerns like this project could potentially eat up more of your resource time than available - or desirable. Or how are you supposed to know what hardware you will need at each location and who is going to put it there and make it work. What about the connectivity issues - you already know most cell phones can't get service at your locations; so how will all that work and who will figure it out?
The third, and final bucket should be titled as 'Outcome' - Another concern you may have is that you're worried that after going through all the hoops it won't make a strong enough positive impact on your return or bottom line; this is an outcome based concern. Another outcome concern would be something like; after all the time and money into this technology change you don't see a difference in your data that you look at most days, and you don't think it was worth all the hassle.
Once you have all your concerns written out and correctly tagged with People, Process or Outcome, start a list of action items that you think will help alleviate these potential pain-points. Some key points to keep in mind as highlights to include are in the examples below.
Communication is always key
Walk all key stakeholders, and every employee what the change is and how it will impact each person (or not), what it may mean to their daily work and goals, and make sure everyone's questions get answered. It will also be important in this initial meeting to explain the 'why' behind this project - and discuss the positive outcomes you are expecting it to deliver.
It's important to also set up a cadence of time with the key stakeholders as the project begins, and through the process to keep the lines of communication open and everyone on the same page - all working toward the success of the technology and the positive outcomes it will provide. It will be paramount to work through your lists of People, Process and Outcomes in great detail with this person, or people so they understand this isn't something you've taken lightly - and what the expectation of them helping you successfully implement it.
Define success
Setting clear expectations of each person on your staff that will be part of the change will help for clarity internally on who is doing what, and will also help you discover any potential gaps of things that haven't been assigned just yet.
The great thing is that when it comes to technology changes; like adopting cloud-native SaaS SCADA that will replace or supplement your in-house SCADA, or gaining a ton of more detailed data from your remotely located production assets or even just adding a layer of back-up to your on-premise systems Emerson's Zedi experts can help you every step of the way!
Every single potential concern you may have outlined by doing the exercise above about People, Process and Outcomes are nothing new to us and we can help you get everything taken care of quickly and easily.
We've done this many, many thousands of times before, and have knowledgeable experts ready to help - from Project Management that can help keep your staff on time and on budget, to complete training for every user and full 24/7 support, and trusted partners to get things in the field set up; we're with you to help you thrive with your technology change and demonstrate to you how the outcome is worth every moment of concern you may have had at the beginning.
No one ever said change was easy - but, it doesn't have to be painful, stressful or a failed lesson learned either. When you start with a reputable, trusted partner like Emerson you know you're well on your way to positive outcomes and using technology like you've always dreamed about to it's fullest abilities.
