We hear a lot about the new buzzword; change management all throughout the trade journals in almost every industry and every industry sector in corporate America. Seldom do we realize that change management issues do also affect smaller businesses.

Having been in the auto services industry for over 27 years I can tell you that the car wash business is one business which is always concerned with change management and often they lack succession plans as well. In fact car wash industry consolidators who go around and buy up used carwashes often buy them from car wash owners who are retiring and either do not have kids to run them or wish to get out of the business completely rather than hiring a manager to run it for them.

This is because car wash businesses are generally a cash business and it is really hard to trust the labor or management from stealing the cash. Car wash owners need to worry about change management situations when they are ready to retire or go into semi retirement and need to make sure that the managers that they have and employees are able to do the job or very often they decide to sell the entire business.

It is interesting that we talk about change management at the major universities and MBA schools across the country and yet we hear so little about change management and how it affects all types of businesses including such businesses as carwashes. Please consider this in 2006.