Is Change Ever Easy?

Protecting the intellectual property (IP) of your young technology company may be one of the most important investments you make. My approach to protecting IP is to match the innovation with the market opportunity that it may create.

I have decided after a little break from writing my column, that I would start a series on change - its impact on us and our businesses.

I recently enjoyed a quote from Tom Peters, author of several books, including his latest "Re-imagine - Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age", "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."

I have been thinking about the subject of change a lot lately. My wife Angela has not been well for a while and recently spent a number of weeks in the hospital. To put it bluntly, this was not a change that I embraced very well at all. In fact, I would say that I was rather lost as to what to do - how to be there for her, how to be there for our three children, how to be a dad in a crisis, how to continue with the demands of running two businesses, etc. Whatever choices I made, I always felt like I had failed somehow to properly balance this delicate juggling act. Unfortunately, if I were honest with myself, I would give myself a failing grade on almost all facets of this experience. I simply didn't handle it very well. Hopefully I have learned some important life lessons.

In the midst of these "changes", I also realized that I had not handled another important change very well. This is the first year that I am not coaching my daughter Brianne's soccer team. Brianne was granted a gift this year to train as a goalie with the Kelowna United U-12 soccer team. Debra Stranaghan and Mark Krehel are awesome coaches and leaders.

I was happy for Brianne but soon realized how much I enjoyed being her soccer coach. I missed her team that I had coached since she started, which she also found difficult. At first, I would hang around for practices to see how she performed and stay behind the net and provide her with my coaching tips. I soon realized, with a little help from Mark waving me off the field, that I needed to let go. I seriously thought I had.

Then came the conversation recently with Jimmy Rimmer. Jimmy is a former Manchester United goalie and a highly trained goalie coach.

"What I am going to say isn't something that you will like to hear. I am asking that you no longer stay around during my practices with Brianne. I am her goalie coach and she needs to look to me for direction, not you. Trust me that I will train her well. It is simply time to let go."

I wasn't really sure what to do or how to react. I said that this was fine with me but I am not sure that is really was. Jimmy was thrusting me into a role that I am really do not know how to play. Perhaps I am nervous because I really don't have any idea how to play a different role than "coach". Perhaps having change thrust upon me is not something that I handle very well. Hopefully, I will figure out how to back off and change my perspective and my role and we will all be better off for it. Not easy for a control freak as I am realizing that this is unchartered territory for me. A new role will need new skills.

I really appreciated Jimmy's forthright conversation with me. Nothing like a little wake up call to let you know when you are totally off base and need to change your thought process completely.

But it also made me think further about how often in business we have similar difficulties with making transitions into new roles. We may think we are embracing change and transition but are we really? Are we simply more comfortable in our "comfort zone" of the known rather than the cliff of the unknown?

Here are some questions for us to think about:

1. Can you describe the different leadership roles that you have played in managing the growth of your business or have you basically played the same role since inception?
2. When is the last change that you had "imposed" on your business? How did you handle it? What were the results?
3. With respect to your leadership of your business:
   • How frequently does your team completely reevaluate your leadership?
   • When was the last time that one of your employees cared enough for you and your business to let you know that a radical change in your leadership was necessary? How did you react? Are you still ignoring their points?
   • How often do you continue to micro-manage when you clearly need to back off and allow others to lead key areas of your business?
   • How often do you trust others on our team to provide others with the necessary coaching and input?
   • How often do you think that you are providing good coaching, when all of time you are stifling the creativity of our team?

Perhaps you can benefit from my experience with Brianne if it stops you in your tracks and causes you to think through the areas in your business where you have failed to embrace change and what you will do about it. The very survival of your business may depend on your ability to recognize your need to transition to a different leadership role that requires very different leadership skills, than you have provided your business and your employees up to now.

Next week we will further explore the issue of change in our businesses and what as the business' leader you can do to effectively embrace change.

Steve Burns, CA, CMC, CFP, is the President and CEO of the Burns Innovation Group Inc. and Steve Burns Inc. Chartered Accountant, which provides consulting and accounting services to entrepreneurs. If you have any questions or comments, contact Steve at 763-4716 or e-mail at steve@steveburns.ca.

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