While we are facing unprecedented changes today in our business environment, change—both personal and professional—is not something most people know how to do very well. Few of us are comfortable actually changing.
Most of our professional training is structured, and we are taught how to perform skills in close conformity to others.
So how do we drive change, particularly now that so much in our world is changing?
SAMC’s ChangeMap™ Process Will Help You and Your Company Change
New research is showing us that if we can muster the resources to do at least four or more things, and link them in a well-designed ChangeMap™, you, your team, and your business can really change.
Some of the award winning research comes out of VitalSmarts and MIT. Mapping the process adds the “story” part that the brain loves as it tries to figure out all the parts of a change process.
Often we help you implement the changes. Neuroscience research has proven how important a consultant or change manager can be to keep you focused, sustain the intensity, and help you achieve results. Too often good ideas fail because alignment within the organization is missing and the pressure to continue to move forward in new innovative ways is absent.
ChangeMap-ping: A Short Course
When we use our ChangeMap process with clients we help them go on a journey of change. The process is heavily grounded in research. Our approach is to:
- Change the story. Our process recognizes how the brain uses stories to sort reality. To change you are going to have to shift the story. We work with you and your organization to develop new stories that capture the essence of what you want to become.
- Map the journey. Like a “Google” map, we help you backward plan the journey. Once we have a clear picture or story of how we want to change and where we want to go, we backward plan the steps using a series of games, such as “Remember the Future.”
- Prioritizing the stops along the way. ChangeMapping the process helps us avoid the paradox of choices. Built into a sound innovation process we understand how to help you follow a path from “divergence” through “emergence” and “convergence” until you reach goals along the way.
- Prototyping and Testing. We believe strongly in the role of prototypes and testing concepts. At the right time along the path we ensure you have prototypes for clients or customers or prospective markets to work on with you. And the trial and testing period is critically important to see how change is going to work. Those internal changes or innovation processes become extremely important for showing employees how small wins can move you forward and engage them in the process.
- Moving into Production. Our map can end when you go into normal production or it can remain an integral part of evaluating and redirecting the business as it evolves.
Why A Map?
Clients often ask why we use the metaphor of a map to help them convert ideas into innovations. There is a great deal of research from a number of directions about the ubiquitous cross-cultural importance of mapping for humans. The question often asked is: Is the map indeed a universal metaphor?
People, even higher primates, have the same propensity to want to create a map with which to construct their view of space, territory, and routes. As Michiel de Lange writes “the map indeed is universal. There is even a biological basis for understanding the world through maps.” Google chief executive Eric Schmidt states: “Humans evolved with amazing navigational abilities in our brains from an evolutionary perspective.”
Ready to change to new and better ways of doing business?
Mapping change makes it become a story that the brain is much more comfortable addressing and embracing. Need some help? Contact us.
