Change your systems without losing your team

Your team isn’t resisting the change. They’re resisting being blindsided.

Bonjour à tous,

Our system-change miniseries rolls on. You’ve heard how I think about outgrowing the system that got you here, and next week Andrew shares the owner’s take. This week I’m handing the mic to Reiland Brown, who built our partnerships function from scratch, which means nothing about her job looks the same two months in a row. Here’s Reiland.

Mallory Mullen

Le remue-ménage

Bonjour à tous,

Building partnerships from nothing means the plan I write in January rarely survives to March. I’ve had to get comfortable with that, and if busy season rewrites your calendar every weekend, you know the feeling.

I get into all of it here:

Four things that make change easier from where I sit:

Start with the why. Change is always hard, and people are gonna resist it. Show the value up front, before you make the ask, and it gets a lot easier for people to get on board. And when your team asks a billion questions (I’m that person), that’s not pushback. Detailed answers turn “this is what we’re doing” into “here’s why we’re doing it.”

Reflect before you change. It’s hard to change something you haven’t reflected on. My natural instinct is go, go, go. A regular retro habit slows me down, and because the whole team weighs in, the fix that comes out of it helps all of us.

Get the plan out of your head. Moving the running list in my head into an actual system is what keeps me sane, and a sane mind makes change a lot easier. Just don’t let perfectionism stall you. Start with a simple SOP and let the first few real events teach you what to refine next.

Overcommunicate before, not after. Déploiement new tech in your warehouse? Tell your crew what’s coming while it’s still coming. Nobody gets bought in by being blindsided. Strong decisions are made on input, and your people on the floor (even if that’s one part-timer) already have ideas. Collect them, so the change isn’t your idea alone.

So, the next change you’re planning: who knows it’s coming before it lands?

Reiland Brown

Partner Development Representative, Goodshuffle