Business Tips: Adapting...

[admin]

To Change

Every business goes through periods of change; from major reviews of production processes and business practices, to the rearranging of office furniture in order to promote greater productivity.

Businesses run from home are no exception. A good strategy for coping with changes – both business and personal, as the latter can also affect the self-employed person – can serve you well in ensuring the changes are made as smoothly as possible, especially if you have a natural aversion to them.

There are essentially two types of change; the ones you initiate yourself, and the ones which come from external circumstances over which you have no control. Looking at each of these types in turn, let us see how we can better adapt to these changes as and when they occur.

Changes you make yourself are generally easier to cope with, given that you will usually know about them some time before they actually come into practice. Personal changes, such as moving house or getting married, give you time to construct a schedule which will allow minimal upheaval to your business. Your change of address, together with a firm date for the change to take place, can be given to your clients and other contacts well in advance of the actual move, thus easing the stresses and strains of the change itself.

Any changes you decide to make to your actual business can also be planned in advance. If you intend to buy a new computer, for example, you may find it to your advantage to single out a day or two solely for the purpose of switching over to the new system. In this way you will be able to familiarise yourself with the changes in one go, rather than muddling along and trying to work as usual, even though you are stopping every five minutes to find out what that funny green button does.

Being able to plan for changes in advance is a distinct advantage, as we can see, but when the changes are outside of your control, you need a somewhat different approach to them in order to make the change as smooth as possible.

The additional problem with a sudden, unknown change is that you have to confront your reactions as well as coping with the change on a general level. So how can we take steps to ensure the ‘Why does this have to happen to me now?’ syndrome does not happen to us?

It is certainly a common reaction to look on any sudden change as a major disaster to begin with. But consider this – how many times have you reacted exactly like this in the past, only to wonder what all the panic was about later on, when you have had time to adjust? Herein lays the key to coping more efficiently with change. However bad things may seem initially, allow them to sink in a little before reacting to them. In this way you will be able to look at the subject of change more objectively, and from all angles. Accordingly, you may find your reaction will be a little more palatable than panic.

Positive thinking may not make you sail through every tough situation, but it will certainly calm the waters, and enable you to extract the best out of any situation.

It is a fact that most changes are for the better. Indeed, it would not be too outlandish to say all changes have some advantages. Therefore, you may find it helpful to identify and isolate those advantages when tackling a change in circumstances.

If we can give ourselves at least two possible avenues of advancement when faced with change, we can tackle the resulting situation with more determination, because we already have a plan of action to take.

Approached in this way, any form of change can be considerably easier to face.


by Allison Whitehead