How to make the changes you need to succeed
How to make the changes you need to succeed
If change is inevitable and leads to success, why is it so difficult to manage and accept? Simon Merrell, our latest Founding Partner, explains how he helps businesses and organisations overcome.
Dear Readers,
On Monday we went Cotswolds way, and began some build-up coverage for the Cirencester Chamber of Commerce Business Awards 2024 - and as media partners for the event we wanted to let everyone know that the closing date for entries is nigh!
You can find out more - and find a link to the chamber’s website with even more information - right here.
Yesterday we revealed an ingenious partnership between one of our Founding Partners that makes this website possible - Gloucestershire College. Together with the South West Apprenticeship Company (SWAC) and those clever people at CyNam the trio has not only won funding for cyber-related apprenticeships for county firms - but created a way of removing almost all the HR burden and training responsibilities from businesses so they can simply hire an apprentice of thier choice. Read that right here.
But today we dispense with all else and with great pride introduce you to the latest business to join our growing stable of Founding Partners, Merrell People. It goes without saying we cannot thank its founder, Simon Merrell, enough - or any of our Founding Partners, our paid-for members and Founding Members for that matter.
Without them this community interest company dedidated to bringing you journalism about the county in which you live, championing its businesses, charities and education and training providers, would simply not exist.
Send your story ideas to andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk. Or telephone 07956 926061.
* Everything you read on Raikes is made possible by the generous support of our partners (we’ve already let you know about QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College and now Merrell People, and more will be revealed over the coming weeks) our founding members and our paid-up subscribers. A massive ‘thank you’ to all our other subscribers too. The support from all of you is invaluable! For commercial opportunities visit our About us page or email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
How to make the changes you need to succeed
It is with great pride that today we introduce you to another of our Founding Partners, Simon Merrell of Merrell People, learn how he helps businesses and organisations change - and why he’s backing The Raikes Journal.
Author, journalist, and lecturer, Gail Sheey once said: “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow we aren’t really living.”
Which begs the question, if change is so inevitable, necessary and ever-present, why do we often find it so difficult to manage on our own?
“Change is painful. The end result can be really satisfying, but there is always a loss and the process of changing is uncomfortable,” said Simon Merrell, the founder of Merrell People and a chartered fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD).
“If I give you the website answer for what I do; I help individuals, groups, team and organisations change. I use the word ‘change’ rather than develop. It is a much broader term. It’s more holistic.”
Merrell moved to Gloucestershire two decades ago, fell in love with the county and stayed - his work continuing to take him across the UK and beyond.
“Any individual can change, but no person stands alone. If we are to be successful in our change we have to consider our wider system.”
If any if these scenarios sound familiar, then you will understand why you would call him in to help - a businesses might merge and it is important a new shared culture prevails; a company is growing so fast it needs to achieve continual organisational change; talented managers and directors need to develop their strategic leadership skills; mergers mean a business needs a new operating model with strong leadership; a vital in-house department needs to reestablish a sense of ‘team’; after a period of successful personal development an experienced individual wants to explore career options, or a previously high-performing individual reaches a crisis moment in their career and needs to reestablish purpose.
Just how is it he or his team can parachute in and help resolve any of the above?
“It varies. You have to be really paying attention to what is actually happening and reflect back what you see carefully.
“A good start point is getting to a place where the organisation or individual or group is clear what the end point needs to be.
“Even better if there is a clear answer to the question ‘why do you want to make the change?’
“They might have had a lot of discussion already. But a lot of the time they are still not clear, and that’s fine.
“So much of it is about working out what you are going to change and how you are going to get there.”
For Merrell it begins also with choosing the right ‘agent’ for change.
“I quite like to imagine it as being in the old Mission Impossible,” he said, tongue in cheek, referring to the hit 1960s cult TV series that spawned the successful film franchise we know today.
“We are the people who get the brief to put the team together and then decide on how they right approach.
“The initial plan will be the right one, but all change will involve adapting the plan and sometimes the team.
“Whoever it is, it has to work for the client because it is the client who has to change.”
And how does that happen?
“This is where the discomfort starts. The trick is to tell your client the truth.
“If you are not convinced the people you are working with are up for changing they need to hear that. The business needs to hear that before they spend too much money and time.
“Once I get a brief, I start to break that down and explore with others what that brief is and start work out what the truths are in relation to it.
“Once you have played that back to the client you can start on your proposed approach - the design stage where you decide which parts do you take out and which parts do you look to change.
“Part of that change might involve a new role or a new system or strategies which are going to determine resource allocation and more questions – such as ‘how is that going to look?’ or ‘who is best for that role?’.”
Every situation is different then?
“Some things are constant. Organisations are almost always looking to increase profit and reduce costs. They are two factors that rarely ever go away.
“Even well-run public and charity organisations will have those two things front and centre, asking themselves ‘how can we increase our service quality and keep a handle on costs?’.
“Keeping up is also a theme, but the hidden one that makes ‘keeping up’ possible is actually ‘stopping’. Organisations tend to ‘add’. Staff will often say ‘I have more to do than I ever have’.
“A good organisation can work out what it can stop - what it does not need to do any more. That creates all sorts of wins.
“Getting very clear instructions about what you are trying to achieve and what you don’t want to do is a healthy habit to get into.”
And then there is the other significant question of the day ‘why get involved in supporting the community-focused digital magazine The Raikes Journal?’.
Some readers may already have recognised the identical surnames of the subject of this article and its author and make their own assumptions. But we were as curious as anyone to hear why Merrell People is backing Raikes.
“I think there is an obligation to support you, as you’re family. But that support might just as easily have been me saying ‘don’t do it!’,” he said.
“But there is a lot of interest in what you are doing.”
Raikes approached a number of contacts in Gloucestershire to ask what they thought about relaunching the digital magazine as a community interest company dedicated to supporting businesses, charities, education and training providers. Too many backed it for us to walk away.
“The people that gave you the good advice and support at the start of this journey gave you a good challenge as well. Then there is the financial support they have given too. I believe it was good advice and I believe in it and in what you are doing.”
“There is a massive need for good journalism. If you look at the default point, there is a giant hole there. If I look at it from an opportunity point of view there is also a huge opportunity there.
“The ‘hole’ that I see is that in the absence of real news you get a vacuum that gets filled with guff, with a sanitised version of that very dependent on press releases from a number of organisations you would expect releases from.
“And then there are the stories that seem to get run and you tend to think the more real, human part of that story is missing. That is the opportunity.
“The county has so much going for it. It has an amazing set of skills. Unique even. It is a rural county with real centres of excellence and it has also got some really thriving communities.
“Some of those communities might say ‘leave us alone, we just want to talk to ourselves’, but the opportunity to connect the others together to share what is really going on is enormous.”
“There is journalism, and then there is journalism. There is potential for a new, neutral, observant set of eyes, ears and set of words.
“I am really hopeful Raikes can replace the echo chamber. It gives out a slightly different purpose.
“You can make that happen. You are really well connected. This is an opportunity to join the dots.”
No pressure then!
* Everything you read on Raikes is made possible by the generous support of our Founding Partners (we’ve already let you know about QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College and now Merrell People and more will be revealed over the coming weeks) our founding members and our paid-up subscribers. A massive ‘thank you’ to all our other subscribers too. The support of all of you is invaluable!
🔓 You’ve been reading a free edition of The Raikes Journal, for which we are grateful. Please do spread the word about what we are trying to do - create a real, journalistically-led, community-orientated, Gloucestershire-focused digital magazine. If you upgrade to paid, you will get on average eight extra members-only editions every month and will be able to see beyond any paywalls, as well as read Raikes’ rolling Top 100-plus Businesses in Gloucestershire series. You will also be allowed to comment on stories, make suggestions for what we should be writing about, vote in our awards, and might even be invited to our roundtable events. And you’ll be supporting the rebirth of high-quality journalism in Gloucestershire on a website championing the county you love — all for just £2.30 per week (Ask us about 20 per cent off for groups of two or more subscribers).