Change Should Serve a Purpose

The reason organizations and people make a change is because they want to achieve a different result. They take new action in order to achieve a new outcome because what they are currently doing is not working the way they want. The key to successful change is that it serves a purpose. Don’t just change for the sake of changing; change for a reason.

I have heard speech after speech about the importance of being open to change, and while I wholeheartedly agree with that, I think it’s also important to distinguish between when change is necessary and when change is counterproductive. Too much change, especially all at once, can lead to fatigue. It can disrupt team dynamics, department routines, and even employee morale. Additionally, if the change is not purposeful, it is likely a waste of time. Change itself is not what is beneficial; change with a purpose is what creates improvement.

If you are going to introduce a change within your organization, there are two things you need to do if you want it to be successful. The first is that you need to keep people in the loop. Employees want to know about what is going on as it is happening, not just after it is done. By communicating the change, people feel like they are a part of the process, even if they don’t have any decision-making power. This goes a long way in keeping employees content. The second thing you need to do is explain why the change is important and what it aims to accomplish. If employees understand the reason behind the change, they are more likely to buy into it, and it becomes easier to implement and increases the chances of the change sticking.

Change should serve a purpose, and it should be an improvement upon the current state of things. As Henry Ford once said, “We do not make changes for the sake of making them, but we never fail to make a change when once it is demonstrated that the new way is better than the old way.”

-Meghan Slaughter