The SMEs and the theory of the future: change management

As Heraclitus said more than 2,500 years ago: "everything changes, nothing remains". Although we are sure that not imagined, for a moment, that his sentence was going to be the key to so many managers, managers and senior managers of the twenty-first century. But what the question arises now is; If we already knew that the change was permanent are why we are concerned about both today?.

And the answer can be found in: Physics! Yes, gentlemen, speed is the guilt that we are now overwhelmed by change. We have gone from clear, and evolutionary change that seen it coming and could be expected; to accelerated, inaccurate and totally unpredictable change. To this must be added that before the change was intermittent: remained you calm at the Tempest. But now, now live in the change.

Today change is supersonic for several reasons. Firstly, the political and economic fluctuations are now international. On the other hand, clients are not what they were. The so-called 'customer pitch' has disappeared and the friend client nor is. Today we have to deal with customers better informed and more demanding customers who know what they want and know how and where to find it even if it means abandoning your usual provider. And finally, the impact of new technologies. Internet and its exorbitant possibilities have completely revolutionized the way we communicate and access information. Almost everything is now just a click away. Therefore, the old barriers of time and space posed competitive advantages for our companies have disappeared.

And you say because we all already know this. And so it is, but it is that we now have to assume it. And assume it means to be aware that the strategy of a decade ago today is useless. Today we have to deal with national competitors but also to Germans, Italians, Chinese, Japanese and all the world map. Today it is not worth being a workshop, you must be a company. Today it is not worth knowing machining, we must communicate and negotiate. Today we must not only be good is that we must also appear to be so. The image, whether we like it or not, is important. And finally, today is worthless with the telephone and the fax, must use the email and must be present in the network (it is not on Google does not exist).

Conclusion: that the factors that ensured the success of the past today does not guarantee us victory, which is a problem. But it is that the thing is even worse, because although today a strategy that takes us to the success that we achieve will not represent a competitive advantage in the future. So the only solution is to get camaleónicas enterprises; because the key to long-term survival focuses on adaptability and transformation capacity.

The first law of Newton (principle of inertia) States that every object that does not receive a boost will remain in a State of rest or of uniform motion. Which moved to the business world implies that our company will remain making it always unless a force acts on it. Need a leader, a person who promotes change and lead it to where we want to. Without leadership there is no change because people continue to do so one day after another.

We can make changes in five areas:

1. The physical environment: optimize distribution of the factory, for example.
2. Strategy: we need a more proactive, more innovative strategic plan.
3. Structure: pyramid chart is too rigid and does not allow us to adapt ourselves to new situations quickly enough. It is necessary to redefine the jobs and above all create new streams of communication between them.
4. Technological change: invest in equipment and information systems (remember it's Google).
5. Changes in people: need multiskilled employees who feel involved in the company and do not see change as a threat.

The second law of Newton, of the amount of movement, tells us that while our company later to complete the change will depend on the momentum that apply you and the magnitude of what you want to change. In other words, it depends on how many resources allow to change and also the depth of the change that we want to perform.

Depending on how radical that is the change that we are going to undertake we will be faced with a simple development (grow within our activity); before a transformation, which would mean having to modify the structure of our company; either before a break, which leads to changes in the organizational culture and a complete separation of the past.

The third law of Newton (principle of action) argues that our staff will oppose the change with the same intensity with which we try to implement it.

Sure you can identify some of these profiles in your company.

• Stunning: low-skilled and less desire to change;
• The Remolón: high education but low propensity to change;
• The haughty: eager to conquer the world but without qualification;
• And finally that we would all like to have: the implicated, highly trained and always predisposed to change.

Not to be afraid of failure, but you have to respect the change. And we can not push us to the pool and get losses that we are not able to take. We have to be protagonists of change and not victims of it. Ultimately we have to control it and not allow him to control us.

But well, I didn't want to publish this article to discuss management of change; that was just an excuse. I have written with the firm intention of enticing them to change. And if I've got, I confess them one thing; which I totally agree with Oscar Wilde in that "the only way to overcome the temptation is to succumb to it". So you know, succumb to the change...