by Maria Reynolds, President and Owner of Delta Coaching and Consulting, LLC
Picture this. You are working with an architect to build a new home. As you are planning the number of rooms, the layout, and the size of the rooms, what are you thinking about? You are not only thinking about the structure itself, right? You are imagining yourself living in this new home. You reminisce about your family’s routines, while together or apart. You plan for future social gatherings, such as holidays and celebrations. And just possibly, with the new world that we live in, you will want to create spaces to work-from-home. Clearly understanding this bigger picture is extremely important before breaking ground. This level of thinking is ‘starting with the end in mind’.
As a leader involved in delivering innovation for Procter & Gamble, I understood that the ‘Consumer is Boss’. While formulating, designing, and delivering new products, a significant amount of time is spent up front to understand the needs of our consumers; the people buying and using our products. Innovation starts with the end in mind.
Similarly, designing a new supply chain starts with understanding the capability and needs of your retail customers. Not only for the brick and mortar stores (e.g. Walmart) but also for ecommerce (e.g. Amazon). If you design a supply chain that only supports the manufacturer of the products, then you are destined to miss your mark! The product that you are selling needs to be in the right place at the right time to maximize retail sales.
Starting with the end in mind while planning for change involves understanding, up front, what it will take to sustain the change. While developing your Change Management Plan, you should first, take time to clearly define the desired level of adoption of the future state, and then work backward! Make sense?
