CEOs initiating change – that’s much harder than identifying the problem

Editor’s note: “The Angel Connection” is a regular feature in WRAL Local Tech Wire. LTW asked consultant Bill Warner to share advice for entrepreneurs seeking angel investors and/or venture capital investment. He is chairman of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, an angel investor network with over 100 members throughout the Southeast.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - Believe it or not determining the real business problem is the easy part of the CEO’s job. The hard part is putting a solution in place.

The work starts when you have to initiate the change(s) that are required. To this point you may have had only two or three people involved in the decision. Now you must overcome fear of the unknown and initiate the change. Solving the business problem may involve the entire company and a lot of resistance to the change.

Most employees become comfortable in their surroundings and the natural tendency is to resist changing that comfort zone. The interesting challenge is that all of us react differently to change.

Among the reasons we resist change are:

• Fear of the unknown - This evokes many emotions and reactions, most commonly anxiety. It is okay to be anxious, but when your employees worry about things they can't do anything about - that's called stress.

• Fear of failure - No one wants to be a failure. No one wants to get fired for making a mistake. Most employees just want to do their job and be safe.

• Difference of opinion - Employees often have different points of view. They mostly just want to do their job and go home. Employees are not normally thinking about company survival and changes required to beat the competition.

• Loss of power - All change creates loss for someone or of something. In this sense, some employees may be losing power and influence and therefore resist any change.

• Lack of Trust - If the employees don't trust the CEO or company management, then there will be tremendous resistance to change.

Knowing human nature, the effective CEO initiates change by addressing the employee resistance to change by using several possible strategies:

• Help the employees perceive the change as an improvement. Guide them to see the value by facilitating the identification, organization and interpretation of facts, opinions and or raw data surrounding the change. Show the employees how their role fits into the new organization and way of doing business.

• Help the employees understand in what ways the change is consistent with the company vision, past experiences, and company values.

• Help the employees grasp how they can make the change easy to implement for themselves and for each other.

• Let them understand how the change will simplify work and make it easier for your clients to do business with your company.

• The more visible the change, the more likely the adoption will be, so discover ways for how employees can provide opportunities for others to see how well the change is working.

People need time to understand new ideas, change attitudes and make a decision to accept the change. CEOs must accept that radical change does not happen over night. However, we must also make sure that we don't put off until tomorrow what we can and must change today.

About the author: Bill Warner is the managing partner of Paladin and Associates, a business consulting firm in the Research Triangle Park area of central North Carolina, and is the chairman of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, an angel investor network with over one hundred members throughout the southeast.