 When is the best time to implement that new change or initiative at work? Um, now? Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. We're continuing our theme of starting 2016 off right and it's time to ask ourselves, has there been some change I've been meaning to implement to make my team better at work? Change is hard to implement and even harder to get people to embrace. It gives me a little stress just thinking about it. But with our tips today, you can plan and execute your new initiative in a way that can make it successful for everyone. Before bringing about any change, especially a large one that can affect our team, we need to be clear with ourselves about why we want to make the change and what the positive benefits of that change will be. Most of us have bad experiences with new initiatives because they are made as a result of a knee-jerk reaction to a negative situation or brought about in response to somebody's personal pet peeve about something. We need to ask ourselves what the true benefits to our mission and our team will be as a result of this change. Will we get more sales? Will it increase our productivity? Will it streamline our processes? Starting out with the result we want to get before we select the solution is always a good place to start. In addition to considering the benefits, here are a few other questions you can ask yourself as you consider whether you should make your change or not. What are the impacts? How much work are you willing to add to your team's already busy schedule? Are you going to impact their flexibility to make decisions? Do they have to learn a new tool or system? In other words, do the benefits outweigh the impacts to your team? Consider the perspectives of others who aren't on your team as you think about your new change. If you're putting a lot of work on others and making life easy on your own team, you're probably going to experience some resistance to your initiative. Also, you've got to consider the timeline. Is it best to rip it off like a band-aid or spread the impacts out over time? Finally, it's important to think about how will you measure the success of your initiative. You need to know if you've been successful or not. After we've done our initial planning, one of the best things we can do is shop around our idea to others that we trust and respect to get their advice and buy in. This is a great way to find gaps in our critical thinking processes and see if there's anybody else who could be impacted by our initiative that we didn't consider. This is also a great opportunity for us to get some feedback from those who'll be affected by our plan, whether directly or indirectly. Addressing their concerns early on helps us remain flexible, but still lets us get the benefits we hope to achieve and minimizes those impacts on others. These are the things that most often derail new initiatives as they come along because others are blindsided to the change that has suddenly been forced upon them. There may be intended impacts in your plan to others, but understanding the perspectives of everyone involved or whether those impacts are intended or unintended can help us negotiate a favorable solution to everyone and bring about that positive change we're trying to achieve. It's not exactly fair to say that if we've planned well that execution is simple, but having clear, well-intentioned reasons for change, a well-thought-out plan, and buying from key stakeholders can make a tough situation easier. Here are a few tips you can use to execute your new initiative. First, you've got to communicate effectively. Set clear expectations, tell everyone what's coming, and be open to feedback. Next, it's really important that you hold people to those expectations. Hold them accountable to do their part. Change is hard for most people, so you're probably going to have to have a few conversations reminding people what their role is and the positive change they're bringing about. Assess and evaluate your progress as you go. The change you're trying to make might be harder than you think for any number of reasons. Adapt to unforeseen circumstances and outside influences and adjust your expectations and timelines accordingly. If the database your team needs to get the change done isn't ready yet, it's pretty hard to hold them accountable for using it. Finally, you've got to recognize your team for making a difficult change. I don't think we can emphasize enough that change is hard for human beings. Take the time to praise your team and give them credit where credit's due. Publicly recognize the people who went above and beyond to make the new initiative happen, and make sure that your team all shares in the benefits of the change that came along. If you found this helpful, don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and you can join us every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific time for an interactive leadership discussion on BLAD. You can also click on that globe off to the right, and that'll bring all of our content direct to your inbox by subscribing to our email list. Thanks for watching, I appreciate it as always, and remember, the future is out there. Lead the way.