The price of not changing is clear.  Products, services and companies fade into obscurity rapidly as obsolescence, global competitors, changing customer needs and advancing technology pass us by.  What we don't talk about enough is the price of change...the price that individuals pay in the course of change.

Cost reduction and profit improvement require changes to the status quo - not just to businesses but also with the people within them.

Change, ultimately, is all about people.  As you change your business, your products, your strategies, your tactics, as your customers change; your resources change, your people are asked to do things differently.  Even if these are good changes, the reaction will eventually lead to stress for most of your people.  For the most part, we do not like to change.  We are more comfortable with the status quo.  Studies have shown that 2/3 of us do not like change and about 1/2 really do not like change.

Change is a personal experience.  Individual perceptions and reactions determine the depth of its meaning and the nature of its impact on each person.  What may be fun for one person may be very, very difficult for another.

We all have a "change bank account" and sooner or later a high rate of change will overwhelm even the minority of people who like change.  They will follow the other 2/3 that has already experienced stress.  When change becomes excessive it may show up individually and collectively in some of the following ways:

• Tension 
• Anger 
• Depression 
• Disengagement from work or family 
• Mistakes 
• Less efficient communication 
• Inefficiencies in work 
• Increased turn-over 
• Disruption of the social structure (work, home, community) 
• Fear (job loss, inability to cope, the unknown) 
• Decision paralysis

Any of these can carry a significant individual, social and corporate cost.  If you want to reduce the price of change, use a deliberate change process such as the Profit Improvement Process.  A change process will include the deliberate means of giving people options for participating in change, recognizing the nature of change, communicating and managing change.  People want options and they want to regain a sense of control.  A good change process will provide these.

You can make a difference by just recognizing that no one is experiencing the change that you are undergoing in exactly the same way that you are.  That information alone may allow you to manage change more effectively and thus reduce its price.

Change is inevitable.  Growth is optional.

Steven Martin
Business Solutions - The Positive Way

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