When you make any type of plan for change, you need to know a few things:
- what you have now
- what you want to have after the plan has been implemented
- how long the plan needs to take to implement
- the resources you will need to make it happen in that timeline
By resources, I mean the money, inventory, tools, time, and people, etc. The list of resources to implement any type of change will vary depending on the plan. One thing is sure, if there are people involved, one key resource you will need will be excellent management skills to ensure everyone is able to do what must get done to reach the goal of the plan.
You’ve implemented plans before. Getting clarity up front is great, but once you start moving the ‘change wagon’, sometimes it is hard to keep track of these roles. Having clarity on what people will be doing is key to making change happen smoothly.
Clarity in Roles
Here are some key steps to ensure the roles you assign for your plan will be effective.
1. Describe the Change Desired
This is the ‘something’ that you want to change. You need to clearly define what that is and why it is important.
For instance, let’s say you are going to have your key manager take over your role of overseeing all employee issues, so you can free yourself up to manage the growth planned for the future.
- You will need to start by defining what an ’employee issue’ is. In this example, you might only want to offload issues that employees have, not issues that you have with employees.
- Describe the challenges of managing these issues, for you, the business, and the employees. This will help you describe the problems you experience when employees bring their issues to you, in a way that the key manager will understand and be able to predict future cases.
- Define what you usually do and the resources you need to manage the challenge for the employee (e.g. time, Zoom, office space, permission to make certain decisions, etc.).
Before you bring in your key manager, you need to know exactly what you are wanting them to do.
2. Envision the Future of the Change
This is a picture of what the company will look like after the change has occurred.
In our example above, you may have envisioned not needing to deal with employee issues ever again – but is that totally realistic? Definitely not at first, as the key manager learns the boundaries of their decision making, and you learn how to let go of what you have always had control over.
There is more than one perspective in this ‘future’ vision: Your perspective, the key manager’s perspective, and that of the employee. You can start defining what that looks like, but then you will need to ask the other perspective holders what challenges they see with this change.
In our example, your key manager may see the vision as you do and is eager to take on the role. But maybe your employees are not comfortable bringing issues to your key manager. This feedback will only be known if they feel comfortable telling you that they are not comfortable telling them their issues. How will you know if this is a problem? You must have an open line of communications in your company, or at least to you directly, at this point, to learn of the roadblocks your plan may face. Troubleshooting potential problems up front, before you start the process of implementation, will help reduce the costs later. And, the cost of poor change implementation can be time, loss of good people, loss of clients, reduced quality of service, etc. You definitely want to do this work early, with open communications, and support from the people that will be affected by the change.
3. A Clear Path
In this stage you are creating the path that needs to be followed.
In our example, this will mean that everyone in the company will need to know what the planned change will look like, so they know if they have a part in that change implementation. Maybe you will roll it out in stages. The key here is that everyone affected by the change knows what the stages and timelines will be and what their role in the implementation will involve for them.
Possible stages in our change example:
- Initially you oversee the issue while the key manager follows along with the written procedure. NOTE: if there is no written procedure (e.g. SOP) have the key manager write it out as they learn the process.
- Then let the key manager oversees the issues while you attend the interaction. Give good feedback on how they handled the response and check in with the employee to ensure they got what they needed. Quality at this point will ensure less conflict and misunderstandings later.
- Then let the key manager do the work and you check in regularly on results.
Ensure the timeline for the stages is known (in weeks, or maybe # of issues) before moving on to the next stage.
Implementation
Now you are ready to make the change and you can move into the implementation stage. Everyone affected by this change knows what to expect and when. They know their part in this change process and you know your part.
We’ll save the implementation stage process for another article.
This article is 100% original content – The articles you read in this blog are 100% created by Barb Stuhlemmer, not by AI. © 2026 Barb Stuhlemmer
Are you approaching 60, been in business for over 10 years, and starting to wonder what the next 10 years will mean for yourself and your business? Come and get your questions answered.
March 18 at 3pm Eastern Time (ET)
Stop thinking about what you might do later – Know what you can do now
Leave a Reply