Finding Value in New Business Perspectives

When you've been working in management for a while, you realize that businesses tend to have set ways of doing things, and these processes are often used to ensure that all departments are working at maximum efficiency. When new employees come in, however, they can have different business perspectives, and these can sometimes be seen as disruptive.

As a manager, however, you need to embrace change, as businesses seem to spend most of their time changing. New perspectives often mean new directions and new opportunities to improve your business. Even changing processes so that they become more ecofriendly can have good long-term benefits for your business.

Effectively, finding value in new business perspectives normally involves several steps:

• Assess: You need to assess honestly whether the proposal could improve the business. It's common, particularly in retail and in highly regulated businesses, that proposals are ignored simply because they're not the way the company thinks they should be done. As a manager, you normally have a bit more leeway, and your management strategy should reflect this.
  
   
• Challenge: See how the proposal fits in with the current structure. It might be a tweak to an established process. In this case, it's often easy to test it for a few weeks. If it's an entirely new process, you need to see where the strengths and weaknesses are. Challenge the proposer to write up a new strategy for the process and identify strengths and potential issues.
  
   
• Implement: Although it's not strictly a step to finding value in a new business perspective, implementation is the next logical step. As said before, small changes are easier to test drive and implement on a small scale. If it's a major update, you need to assign training time and a step-by-step process through which the change can be implemented. Planning out the new process can make life easier.
  
   
• Tweak: Most processes are not perfect the first time you implement them. Address issues as they arise and don't be afraid to adjust the process as necessary.
  
   
• Share: If your process works well, you will want to share it with other departments that can make use of it. This may mean consulting with your area manager or even, in larger organizations, the head office. Don't forget to write up and detail exactly what went right, how the implementation could be improved, and the hard figures involved in your new process. Your employee's new business perspective can become your new business perspective.

Taking advantage of new business perspectives is often a good management strategy, as it encourages your business to be more flexible and demonstrates your commitment to improving your business. Assessing new strategies is an important part of management, and a new business perspective on your processes is always valuable.

(Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti / freedigitalphotos.net)