Embrace Change

To position your company to thrive on change, you must build an organization where change is the norm. We do this by instilling the notion in our employees from their initial orientation that the only constant at VanDyke is change. We reinforce this message constantly, in company-wide quarterly meetings and in smaller gatherings in between. We continually solicit ideas from employees, from the receptionist to the director of sales and marketing, about how we can improve the company and make VanDyke a great place to work. We publish these ideas on the intranet for the entire company to see, and this in turns generates more ideas. Each quarter we review these ideas and determine which ones should and can be acted on. Generating more ideas is always a good step in trying to generate better ideas. In our meetings we regularly use a technique called affinity sessions to brainstorm. It is amazing how many ideas you can generate to answer just one question when you give people the right tools and environment.

A second way we prepare for change is by investing in our employees. I think training and reading play a key role in making sure individuals are prepared for the inevitable changes the future holds. Different groups in the company regularly have a book they are reading and discussing. This invites discussion of what we're doing, what we could be doing, and what changes we need to make. By involving employees at every level, you create an organization built for change. We don't necessarily know what changes the future will bring, but by reading, keeping abreast of what is happening in the industry, and identifying trends as they develop, we can be better prepared as a company.

Finally, I can't say enough about giving employees the training they need and want. By making sure employees get training in new areas and in foundational skills, such as project management and communications, we're better prepared to adapt to change when it happens.

One of the biggest challenges is to continually communicate with your staff throughout the company. You need forums to make sure effective communication occurs all the time. One of the things we have used with great success over the past 18 months is borrowed from the agile development methodology Extreme Programming - the concept of stand-up meetings. When our developers get together at 9 a.m. for 10 to 15 minutes, they stand in a circle. Each developer in turns reports on what they worked on yesterday and what they plan to accomplish today. It is a good mechanism to make sure the whole team is on the same page. Without this kind of effective, continuous communication, change is almost guaranteed to be more painful and slower than it needs to be.