Plan for Change or Plan to Fail

Here’s a conversation I have all the time with trainers.

They’ll say, “We’re going to build this elaborate video training for our new procedures.” And these aren’t simple procedures—we’re talking complex software systems, nuanced customer service workflows, back-office processes with a hundred little steps.

They have it all mapped out. A full video library. Recorded webinars. Interactive scenarios. Sometimes they’re building it in Articulate. Sometimes it’s in their LMS. It’s a major investment—time, money, effort.

And then I ask one question:

“What are you going to do when things change?”

And they say:

“Well, if things change, we’ll update it.”

The problem? That little word—“if.”

There’s no if.

Things are going to change. Change is a guarantee. It’s not a possibility. It’s not a maybe. It’s coming. And when it does, all that beautiful training content becomes outdated.

So if your entire training strategy is built around the assumption that the content will stay the same, then your plan isn’t built to succeed. It’s built to fail.

Start With Change in Mind

Too many training plans start with:

“What content do we want to create?”

But they should start with:

“What kind of environment are we working in?”

And here’s the answer to that question: You’re working in an environment where change is constant. Where procedures evolve. Where software gets updated. Where compliance regulations shift. Where customer expectations move.

So you need a training strategy—and an operational system—that accounts for that. You need a system that doesn’t just tolerate change but is built for it.

Train People to Adapt, Not Memorize

Here’s the reality:

Traditional training approaches—classroom instruction, coaching sessions, shadowing—don’t prepare people for change. They prepare people for what exists right now.

But if you’re building a workforce that operates in a changing environment, memorization won’t cut it. Because when something changes, your employees have to unlearn before they can relearn. And that’s where things break down.

That’s why we built the Find & Follow Framework.

Find & Follow assumes from the beginning that:

• Things are too complicated to memorize

• Things are going to change

So instead of cramming everything into your employees’ heads and hoping it sticks, you give them a new way to work. You train them to find and follow digital guides—aka recipes—for how to handle any situation.

And when a recipe changes? They don’t have to relearn it. They just follow the new steps.

A System Designed for Change

If you build your training program on memorization, it will always lag behind reality. But when you design a system around find and follow, change becomes easy.

When the process changes, you update the guide. That’s it. No retraining sessions. No confusion. No stress. Employees adapt instantly because the workflow hasn’t changed—just the instructions they follow.

And this isn’t hypothetical. Organizations using the Find & Follow Framework have:

• Reduced Time to Proficiency by weeks and months

• Reduced Cross-training time to less than a day

• Reduced the time it takes for change to ripple through their organization from weeks to just a single day

That’s not because they taught employees everything. It’s because they taught employees how to work in a world that keeps changing.

So What’s Your Plan?

If your current training strategy doesn’t have a built-in way to handle change, then you don’t really have a plan. You have a gamble.

Change is coming.

So you can plan for it now.

Or you can scramble to catch up later.

If you’re ready to stop relying on memorization and start building a resilient, adaptable team, take the free Find & Follow course or pick up the book. One of the four core systems of Find & Follow is adapting to change—and it’s baked right into the process.

Your future procedures are going to be different from today’s. The question is:

Will your team be ready?