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What kinds of things drive change?

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Behind Change Management, the process, the profession, and the idea, lies the root of it all: change. Change is inevitable, and change can often be beneficial to a company, in order to keep it current, viable, and fresh. A stagnant service, product, or environment doesn�t motivate people to improve. But change, stirring things up, does.

Change occurs because of:

Outside catalyst; competition changes, political structures, environmental factors, etc.

Inside catalyst; company restructuring, transforming an image, new products, employee resistance, etc.

Aging; the natural aging process of people, companies, and products and services require change.

The problems themselves often have to do with:

� How to get from here to there, how to introduce a new system, how to integrate technology, how to increase the bottom line, how to become more competitive, how to work more efficiently, how to build better customer and vendor relations, how to bond customers to the company, and so on. This type of change gives you a solution, a goal, but you have to figure out how to meet that goal.

� What the company wants to accomplish, what the company wants to look like, what the company�s standards, goals, and vision are, what indicates success, etc. This type of change means working to identify where you want to go, or what you want, before you can even get to the how�s of the problem.

� Why is the question behind everything else: why do you need to pay better salaries, why do operations take so long, why are competitors doing better than you, why should you develop a new product or service? Understanding the why�s of any situation will lead to change in most circumstances.

In simple terms, Change Management is about taking something (a system, product, belief, etc.) apart, reworking it (changing it), then putting it back together. Of course, some companies or problems start in the already torn apart stage and have to be completely overhauled, and others are stuck in the process of putting it back together for longer than is comfortable.

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