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In many established organizations, accomplishing growth requires some form of change. It may require a new sales process, implementing new technology, developing innovative revenue streams, or an adjustment in your business’s competitive strategy.

Change is tough, especially in established small and mid-sized Consumer Service Provider companies such as personal injury law firms, independent lenders and financial services companies. Standard operational processes continue to be performed even when teams know these processes are not optimal. It is simply easier to continue operate with business as usual. Implementing change can be exciting but is also overwhelming and emotionally draining. Handling change in your personal life can certainly be a challenge, but managing organizational change is even more complex.

During change initiatives, there are many moving pieces, downstream unknowns, personalities, and emotions to juggle. I’ve led initiatives where organizational change has failed miserably. I’ve also led initiatives where change seems to happen organically and leading the change feels almost effortless. What was the difference between these outcomes? For me, it all came down to understanding and supporting the “human” side of the change, and breaking down the initiative into smaller, more manageable tasks and time frames.

Over the past 15 years of managing large and small entrepreneurial initiatives, I’ve learned that there are a handful of characteristics that contribute to successfully leading organizational change. There are hundreds of opinions and success factors in managing change, but there are two components that I found to be most critical implementing change:

1. Creating a sense of urgency and motivation within the culture of the company.
2. Breaking the change into task related initiatives using a 3-month planning period framework.

This is where the “human” side comes in. Understanding the importance of motivation, morale and company culture is key. Creating a sense of urgency means developing a rallying call within your ranks. Helping employees at all levels feel motivated and a part of the task is important to creating engagement and therefore reaching goals successfully.

I like to look at it as having 3-month plans, 6-month targets, and one year goals.

First, there needs to be an overall vision for your organizational change. Big-picture thinking will drive this as many big goals of small businesses are long term (looking a year or more in the future). Keeping your overall vision in mind, the next step is to break down your plan into 6 month targets and then shorter 3-month initiatives, or a series of 3-month sprints. Your 3-month initiatives contain your actionable tasks for achieving the 6 month targets and getting you closer to your vision.

Here are my thoughts on the reasons and benefits for using 3-month initiatives to drive change.

Keep your eyes on the finish line: Teams lose focus on initiatives that will take longer than 3 months. A 3-month window to reach your goal means that the outcomes can be very clear and focused, and you can create a culture of reaching an attainable common goal. Additionally, business environments are constantly shifting. This is even more present in smaller entrepreneurial companies. By concentrating on a 3-month plan, you can complete it and then make minor shifts for the next 3-months if needed. This helps keep the business moving forward toward growth.

Accomplish more by concentrating on less: Frequently Consumer Service Providers, such as law firms, begin an initiative with a goal in mind, but they never finish it. They start strong but other “shinier objects” seem to be better, or the team is too busy “putting out fires”, or there are too many projects and the team is “spread too thin”. Due to any of these reasons (and many more I’m sure) a lot of initiatives get 60-75% done but never completed. By using the 3-month planning processes, the team concentrates on a smaller number of initiatives, but completes them.

Curb burnout, celebrate team accomplishments, and increase employee loyalty: Employee burnout has a detrimental effect on a team. The 3-month initiative cycles provide a short-term framework for completing an initiative, celebrating the accomplishment, and recognizing team members for their contribution.  This fuels the fire for the next sprint. Emma Seppala writes in the Harvard Business Review article, To Motivate Employees, Do 3 Things Well, that companionship and recognition are highly important for establishing loyal employees.

Completing initiatives and celebrating team accomplishments boosts team satisfaction, creates team companionship, and motivates team members. There is nothing quite as exciting and productive than having a motivated team.

Rally and motivate the team: A 3-month plan allows you to more easily rally your team. Additionally, you should create a catchy theme for each 3-month plan so that it is easier to focus on the goal. This may sound cheesy but should not be overlooked. I’ve received pushback on this where leaders feel that creating a catchy theme is not business-like, but man, do they work.

Your initiative theme helps tell the story of what you are accomplishing and rallies your team around a common goal.  An example of a theme that worked for a large initiative I managed was “The Countdown to 25 Accounts”. This is where our Affiliate Marketing venture needed to generate 25 new accounts. A ton of work and significant organizational change was needed to sign up 25 new accounts – but the theme kept us focused on achieving our goal. All other new initiatives were sidelined until we completed our 3-month sprint and achieved our goal.

The theme gave us a sense of team ownership, gave us a rally call, turned into a conversation starter for other departments, and team members felt connected to the initiative and to the company. The result was in an increase in overall team production and overall business output.

Reaching the Finish line: Once you’ve completed a 3-month initiative cycle, you repeat the process by first re-evaluating your vision of organizational change. Then you check to see if your previous 6-month targets are still viable. If needed, you adjust the targets. And finally, you put together the plans for teams to complete another 3-month initiative. By adapting this framework, you move your business forward 3-months at a time.