Change happens in a lot of areas of life: your environment, mindset, circle of friends, priorities, technology, etc.
And, as business owners, we know all too well that change is a normal and essential part of business.
What Is Change In Business?
According to www.business.gov.au, a resources website supporting business owners in Australia, there are 4 different types of change in business:
1. Internal change: Change like staff turnover, skilling requirements, employee duties or changes to management policies and styles.
2. External change: Changes in technology, improving the needs of your customers, new laws or government regulations, or new competitors in your industry.
3. Reactive change: Change that your business is forced to react to, such as a new law in your industry.
4. Proactive change: Change that you as a business owner makes that is voluntary and not forced.
But Why Don’t We Want To Change?
- Sunk cost fallacy, or "the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial."
- Because it’s the way you’ve always done it or are comfortable with.
- Doing something new or different might feel uncomfortable! Learning something new might bring up inadequacies or insecurities that you wouldn’t have to deal with if you just kept doing it the way you've always done it.
- Not knowing what’s going to happen if you change.
- If you change something, you don’t necessarily know the outcome.
- If you stay in your ways, you know what the outcome is. (I would argue this isn't true because life is bound to throw curveballs, but staying the same might make you feel like your outcome will be more predictable.)
Why It Is Necessary To Embrace Change As A Businessowner
I was listening to organizational psychologist Adam Grant’s podcast, “ReThinking”, and he had on Admiral Linda Fagan, the Commandant of the US Coast Guard. She is the first woman to ever lead a branch of the US military and who is spearheading a bold vision for change in the military and an incredible leader.
During their conversation he asked about cultural change within the military and she asserts in her words, “the status quo is the risk position, if we don’t move past the status quo we will become irrelevant as an organization…it becomes existential.”
And I think that applies to entrepreneurship because it might feel risky to change, but in reality it becomes more of a risk to stay the same than to change.
Which reminds me of the Blackberry versus Apple example where Blackberry at its peak had 50% market share for smartphones and today has 0% market share. Its failure was due to a lot of things of course, but to summarize it largely failed due to its inability to change and innovate.
Blackberry leadership held on too tightly to their keyboard and innovate to expand their product and their customer base. They largely focused on enterprise customers over mass consumers.
How Yesi Deals With Change
What helps Yesi when she is dealing with external change, is the serenity prayer. For those who haven’t heard it before, it goes “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I CANNOT change, the courage to change the things I can, and the WISDOM to know the difference".
Things happen for you, not to you. They will happen FOR YOU to grow your business. FOR YOU to step into your greatness! FOR YOU to leave comfort, step on the other side of fear and elevate.
As business owners, we have a JOURNEY ahead of us. We are growing with our business! We are evolving with our business! Therefore, we are changing with our business.
Financial Tip To Deal With Change
If you are considering changes within your business, whether internal or proactive change, or want to have a plan for external or reactive change, schedule a meeting with us to talk through the impacts of those potential changes on your business!
One general piece of advice we can give that is applicable to most business owners moving toward change is having a safety net in an emergency fund can allow you to take risk. If an idea doesn’t work, you have that safety net there as back up. Those looking to jump from W2 to their own business would benefit from having this, as well.
Having a plan with an advisor that can help you talk through potential changes! We'd love to help you plan. Schedule a meeting here!