“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change
their minds cannot change anything”
George Bernard Shaw
The first semester of this 2022 was a very intensive but interesting one. By combining part-time study with full-time work, I ensured to fill every single slot of free time in my calendar in exchange for essays, assignments, endless meetings and long nights (master’s degrees don’t come easily). Don’t get me wrong, this is not a complaint letter about that powerful mix, but instead I want to share with you some of the knowledge I acquired during those weeks of extra work.
So, while helping my team at Fuzzy LogX design great warehouses for our customers, I was also doing the last two units of my master’s degree: Risk Management (my major) and working on the capstone project. Both subjects sounded super interesting, and I learned heaps, but elements of risk management are generally discussed throughout a Master of Project Management so I was a bit more familiar with the content (identification, assessment, probabilities and spreadsheets). However, I didn’t know what I was up for with the Capstone one.
Our capstone team was assigned the “Change Management Nuggets” project – there are also elements of change discussed throughout the degree, so I thought “piece of cake, we will bag this out in no time”. But little did I know about the nature of change and how different it is from project change (variations), which is my domain.
While change is ever present in all elements of life (moving to a new suburb, changing jobs or the company, etc.) there is a key element of change that one must always keep at the foremost of any changing exercise, people.
But why people? Shouldn’t it be the end (begin with the end in mind)? Well, the end is what drives the project forward, but without people, change can’t be implemented. One of the deliverables of my Capstone project was to interview 2-5 Change Management professionals (we did 6 with more than 20 interested, hehehe), all of them agreed that without people’s involvement and conviction on the desired change, and benefits from it, the project may come short of what the expectation was or in some instances, even cancelled because key stakeholders were never on board with the idea.
There are also methods and philosophies to implement change. Some are more suited than others for specific scenarios where change will be implemented. For example, some of the mainstream for organisational change are the Kotter’s 8 steps or ADKAR’s 5 steps. For a cultural change, for example, one must get closer to the behavioural change theory and other psychological theories such as Maslow’s Theory of Needs to better understand how people may react to change and provide them with elements that they can relate to and through this channel showcase the benefits the change will bringing to them.
I know this is the introduction to the introduction to Change Management, but there are still a few tips I can share with you from what I heard from the experts:
- Remember that without people change can’t happen, so focus your attention on bringing the right people to the table. Most people are change averse, so If everyone believes in the change you will succeed or even get there faster.
- Understand your organisation and the nature of the change to be implemented and follow a method or philosophy that suits that type of change.
- Finally, If unsure on how to implement the change, ask around. There is nothing wrong with that. You will learn new things and potentially save you time, headaches and money.
There is so much more to learn about change management and its application beyond this article. For me, this year so far has been full of change (travel, new role, crazy first semester) but the first thing I had to focus on, especially during times of stress, is myself and managing my emotions to prevent procrastination and panic. Also, learning how to eat an elephant has helped me lots too (check the link below).
How To Eat an Elephant – Goal Setting One Bite At A Time by Jeff Muir
So, if you have an issue with your warehouse’s operation give us a call. Although we are not experts in Change Management, we are experts in warehousing and can help you change your operations to best in class; no problem is too big for us. Also, if you are unsure about how to implement change in your organisation, DM me and I will put you in contact with someone in my network.
This article was brought to you by the #warehousewizards, the experts in warehousing and automation.