It didn’t work! Why are you so Surprised?

I was 26 years old, and my boss chose me to go on a costly business course when I was living in Australia. It cost over £2000.

He was excited about what I would learn and how we could make changes in running the marketing for my product.

The course was excellent, and I came back with a ton of brilliant ideas that we could implement. I thoroughly debriefed him, and we made a plan.

As we started to execute the plan, we came up against roadblock after roadblock.  The most common phrase we got was, ‘that’s not how we do things around here’. We pushed on and had a few wins, but after three months, nothing had changed.

It didn’t work.

Now years later, and having learned a bit about making changes in business, I know why. It is all to do with the working environment.

You see, Burroughs and Sperry, two computer giants of the day, had merged to become Unisys. We were trying to create a new way of running our part of the new company’s marketing department. But there were entrenched ways of working in both the Burroughs and Sperry camps. Our latest idea did not stand a chance. We were trying to fix how we were currently working, and people were not interested.

We were trying to change how things worked in the existing business environment. What we needed to do was create a new working environment where our new ideas could flourish.

And that is why so many brilliant initiatives fail to get off the ground.  They are trying to fix a problem rather than create a new future.

In business, the three elements that make up your working environment are the vision, everyone’s behaviour, and the experience you deliver to your customers and your team.

So if you want to make lasting changes to the results you get in your business, there are three things you MUST do if you want any chance of success.

1. Clearly define a vision that will become a reality when your initiative is implemented successfully.
2. Identify the team of people that includes everyone that the initiative impacts and be clear about their experience.
3. Define a clear set of rules, ways of operating that will support the initiative being a success.

Then you get to work on making your vision a reality.

But where do you start?

In conversation with my good friend Mike McMaster, he pointed out that the only place to start is to remove the obstacles. It makes sense, once you have identified your clear vision, or for a team, defined your vital goal.

The obstacles will be known and they will be the reasons that your team don’t take action.  Once you have identified and removed the obstacles then, and only then, you can start to work on bringing your vision into reality.

To get clear about the direction you desire to travel in and to understand how to generate the momentum to achieve your vision, book a 30 minute strategy call today – click here to find out more.