We all know that change can be hard. It can be disruptive. It can be expensive. But guess what? Lack of change will be DETRIMENTAL.
Of course, your company has been running fine and making money for the last 164 decades (or something like that), but I guarantee it could have run a little smoother and maybe made a little more money if someone had put effort into investigating and improving certain processes.
There are a million examples in our industry where we waste time, have inaccurate information, and take unnecessary risks. Is a process improvement important enough to overcome the disruption of change? If we think about safety, an improved process could save a life. With better risk management, we could save thousands or possibly millions of dollars. In pre-construction, we could win more work. In operations, we could save time and avoid liquidated damages. The list goes on.
There is one more outcome of change you may not have thought about…
Changing a process will probably be hard on people for a little while (you already knew that). The old dogs will eventually learn the new tricks. The younger generation will probably catch on quicker than you expected. Have you considered the NEXT generation in line? Maybe you can recruit them out of college, but how long will they stay when they find many of your processes to be clunky, cumbersome, and monotonous? Will they stick around if much of their day-to-day job feels unproductive? If you don’t start now with evaluating better solutions to some of your outdated processes, the future of employee satisfaction and retention does not look good.
So even if nobody else likes change, YOU should. Because what does the future look like for your organization if you don’t change?
© Kendall Pouland 2022