In his thought-provoking book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas L. Friedman discusses the significant political, economic, demographic, technological, and social changes that have and are transpiring on a global basis, as well as their holistic impact. His premise (oversimplified here) is that these dynamic changes are causing our global landscape to become a bastion of local and regional neighborhoods, with former barriers of time, information, and distance all but removed.

How do these changes impact your business? How do they not?

Change is inevitable; it’s perpetual, here, and real. And since change is going on outside your organization, you had best determine how you want to introduce and inculcate change within your team—at a minimum—to keep up.

Your options are threefold: force, persuasion, or education. Which to chose will likely be determined by what has to be done and how soon, recognizing that each method has advantages and limitations.

When is force applicable? Perhaps you just found out that Bill Gates is entering your industry tomorrow.

While it sounds harsh, you’re in a situation where time isn’t an ally. You’ll find yourself in a dictatorial role, spending most of your time in your controller’s office and mandating an overhaul of all business practices and processes.

While force will get the fastest results, its “ready, fire, aim!” practices will also cause the most casualties. People will grow to resent their lack of voice and the one-way communications. Hearts and minds will be lost due to your knee-jerk reactions.

By example, a Fortune 500 company, at the unyielding insistence of its CEO, hastily rolled out a new technology platform at its largest manufacturing site. The results were absolutely devastating as the employees—absent sufficient training or communications—were uncertain of their new roles and accountabilities. In the confusion of the transition, they ran short of key raw materials, missed customer orders, and performed inventory control in a vacuum. The operation grinded to a halt, and time and money—well into seven figures—were wasted. Employee morale plummeted, deep scars resulted, and the facility took months to operationally recover.

Persuasion is a change management lever worth considering, but it’s precarious. With this cultlike approach, you’re relying upon your personal charisma, your expertise, your rebellion spirit (“us” versus “them”), or the exploitation of your personal relationships to sway opinion and drive organizational results. This can work when there are long-standing, trust-based associations and people look up to you. However, staying power may be limited unless it’s based upon the conviction of purpose. To the downside, this approach will also take an extraordinary amount of personal investment and high-maintenance hand-holding.

If time and money permit, education is the ideal lever of change management. Here, you share with your team members the critical operational and financial information impacting the business, encouraging them to know and understand the organization’s dollars and cents. You trust your employees and treat them as partners. You provide skills and personal effectiveness training. You assist them with anxiety and assist them with risk-taking. You empower your employees, share leadership, and create individual and collective learning opportunities as you progress through the change process. You attain a competitive edge through the growth and development of team members.

Education should also result in dividends such as a higher retention rate, as well as optimal employee engagement and productivity.