That is critical for a lot of reasons. For one, it's no fun working for a company where everybody is stale. Where they do things because that's the way they've always been done, not because anyone any one thought about it and decided that for this market it's the best way to do it. On the other hand, it's a lot of fun to work for a company where creative ideas are embraced and change can be implemented, even at a task level. Where, if someone makes a recommendation or suggestion to their supervisor, that supervisor will actually listen to them, they won't just pat them on the head and say, "Thanks, but we've always done it that way."

One of the real benefits of a culture of change in an organization is that people don't get so comfortable that they get stale. There are new initiatives that they need to think about. They need to be involved in determining how the company is going to meet those new initiatives, whether its new lines of business or new customer accounts to win or new lanes to service, it doesn't really matter. What matters is there are always new things coming online that will help the company meet its overall objectives, and you're engaging people that engages their creativity and gets them excited.So there are a lot of advantages to having a culture of change, not only in terms of keeping the organization competitive, but also keeping your employees involved and growing, which, in a lot of ways, is even more important than compensation in terms of job satisfaction.

One of the things that happens to all of us is we get into a rut. Things get stale, we come to work every day, we sit at the same desk, we open up the same computer programs and we do the same functions over and over again. This makes it all too easy to turn off the brain and let the fingers run through those activities, not really thinking about what you're doing.

One of one of the real challenges in changing an organization, from a top management perspective, is bringing people on board with what the vision is. It's one thing to ask people to change, it's another thing entirely to share the vision with them so they see the reason why, and they see the path from where the company is to where you want to take it. That probably is the most critical involvement of top management in the change process; they've got to be involved, they've got to get their hands dirty, but the real critical factor from their perspective is answering the question, "What is their vision? What kind of company are we going to be? What's our mission statement? How do we change the way we operate to grow into that mission statement as we evolve it and change it over time?" So really articulating the vision is critical because when people see that they're part of a larger plan that makes sense, then they're going to be more inclined to commit themselves to making the necessary changes to meet those objectives.

It really is a culture change. It's not something where someone at top management can just wave their hand and say, "Okay, we're now going to be CSA compliant." It really is necessary to change the way the company thinks about itself and the services they perform for their customers. It's not until the company, as a whole, comes to the understanding that it needs to evolve, and people, individually, begin to see the benefit of becoming engaged in that process, that a culture of change will begin to take root.

The first thing you need to do is make sure everyone is involved. This is especially true of top management. If they aren't committed and clearly invested in the process, it just won't happen. You also need to find ways to get people to recognize what the benefit will be to them after going through this "change".Generally speaking, people want to do a good job. Nobody comes to work and says, "I'm really hoping to do a crappy job today." Everyone wants to perform well, so if you can show them how the "change", whatever it may be, can help them do their job better and feel better about the contribution that they're making, they'll get involved and they will embrace that change. But if the change looks like its being imposed from above and it is just going to make their life more miserable, then that kind of environment just won't support change.

Empowering a culture of change within an organization is one of the toughest things to do at a company. It's natural for people to resist change because people are uncomfortable with it. So what you need to be successful implementing change at a company is a group of people that are comfortable with something that is inherently uncomfortable. That's not always easy to find.