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5 Step Process for Small Business Leaders in a Time of Transition

By HaBO Village Team

Transition in any small business is inevitable. It comes in many shapes and sizes – expanding to a larger facility, adopting new industry trends, hiring or losing employees, financial hardships, or a client that decides to go in a different direction. Transition in your organization and in the lives of the people who make up your organization, can affect your ability to communicate your message clearly - both internally and externally. 

 
:The quality of being easily understood
The quality of being expressed, remembered, understood, etc., in a very exact way

When a small business is in transition its vision gets cloudy and it’s easy to get lost in confusion. You have a hard time connecting 3 dots in a straight line. You start jumping to conclusions. In the midst of confusion there can be a sense of urgency that causes you to get tunnel vision.

This loss of clarity impacts your company because there is no definitive path about who you are, what you do, and why you do it, therefore it’s nearly impossible to craft your story, tell your story, and live your story through your small business marketing and implement it in your company culture.

So, how do you take advantage of a period of transition to gain more clarity and perspective in your small business? You have to take a step back and look at it from the outside using a 5 step process as outlined by Keith Webb in The Coach Model®.  

1.  Connect

The Coach Model is built around the shared discovery of new solutions. Terry Walling of Leader Breakthru says “You don’t get to clarity and breakthrough alone.” Your first step is engaging with a coach to walk you through the transition process. You must build rapport and trust with this person. They will walk alongside you to review previous action steps and help you gain insights.

2.  Outcome

Identify what your goals are, what you want your small business to achieve in this time of transition, and what you want your customers, potential customers, and employees to know.

3.  Awareness

In order to get a better feel of the context of your situation and gain perspective, you have to have reflective dialogue with your coach. This is intended to produce insights, discoveries, and help you shift perspective.

4.  Course

All of your insights and perspectives are worth nothing if you don’t take action. Capture the insights you’ve discovered by putting them into 2 to 3 actionable and attainable steps to help you move forward.

5.  Highlights

Find a way to review your conversation with your coach and document it in a way that allows you to remember the important points from the day’s conversation. Try making a list of the highlights with bullet points of your action items underneath each one, and place it in a place where you will see it and keep it top of mind.

You will have to walk through this 5-step process multiple times during your season of transition and that’s okay. In transition, a lot of movement and change can happen and it can be positive or negative. It gives you the opportunity to create passion and provision in your company by coaching your organization and developing a strategic process so you control where your business goes from here.

Tags: Leadership

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