How to create a culture where small changes lead to big impact

If there’s one thing we know for certain in business, it’s this: change is constant. Whether it’s the death of old technologies (anyone remembers the fax machine?) or the relegation of things you might have used every day to the disgraced pile (here’s looking at you, single-use plastics), businesses must continually adapt to meet customer expectations and remain competitive.

It’s how a business handles change that determines whether it will last the distance. A great measure of this is the ability to identify and make small yet powerful changes that lead to big impact.

eSignatures are a great case in point

In the scheme of things, making the switch from pen-and-paper signing of agreements to eSignatures is no major feat. It is very easy to integrate eSignature technologies into existing systems and, given the widespread legality of eSignatures in Australia, there are generally no legal hoops to jump through, either.

Yet this small change can lead to significant time and cost savings across the business. As this eBook demonstrates, eSignatures save admin and executive staff an average of 81 minutes and $14.21 per agreement. Multiply these savings by the number of agreements that you typically manage within your business (and, believe us, there are probably more than you think) and it quickly becomes clear how that one small change can have a really positive impact.

So, how do you make the change?

Even though something like making the switch to eSignatures may seem like a small change to the way you do business, it can take some careful planning to make it a success. Otherwise, you may find that some teams or departments simply continue doing things the same old way – which means you miss out on that net benefit of time and cost savings.

To ensure that changes are successfully rolled out across the business, you need to create a culture of change. And to do this, you need to appoint change champions throughout your business. These people should be:

• Great networkers – a change champion can interact with people from all levels and corners of your organisation

• Clear communicators – they can effectively communicate the reasons for the change to get more people on board

• Super-users – ideally, your change champions are ‘super-users’ of whatever you’re introducing, so they can answer any and all questions about how it works

• Shrewd negotiators – a job of the change champion is to manage the detractors and overcome resistance to change

With skills like these, anyone can be a change champion. Find a few people across your business – ideally, within the departments or teams where the change is going to be most impactful – who fit the description and get them on board with your change effort.

Cultivating a culture of change

Alongside appointing change champions, you should also be thinking about how to cultivate a culture of positive change – where employees learn to let go of entrenched beliefs and practices; to ditch inertia and embrace the new.

It’s all about instilling a culture of continuous improvement. Reward those that seek out new and innovative ways of doing things. Celebrate the achievements of those who find ways to do something better. Add ‘showing initiative’ to personal KPIs.

By implementing simple strategies like these, more and more of your employees will be unified in the quest for positive change – leading to a culture of continuous improvement. And this, in turn, leads to business growth.

Want more ideas?

To get more specific tips on how to get more people within your business using eSignatures, read this blog article: How to get all your stakeholders signing on the electronic line.