Difficulties in Attaining Organisation Change - Coursework Example

Name Class Unit Introduction Organisational change involves a planned effort aimed at enhancing the business capacity and serving the market better. Organisational change occurs when an organisation realises that new process or technology increases their productivity or makes them more efficient to meet their customer needs (Smith, 2005). An organisation can only attain change if the employees available are able to understand and have confidence in value for change. In the modern global environment, using the old methods cannot attain the required results in a fast changing environment. The success of an organisation depends on the management ability to react and adapt to change (Piderit, 2000). This has led to need for lean thinking to enhance organisation performance. Despite this, organisations face difficulties in implementing change. Meeting the milestones in change has proved to be a difficult task for a lot of organisation (Todnem By, 2005). This essay looks at the reasons why organisations face difficulty in implementing change. The essay will use examples of organisations that in past have tried to implement new approaches to performance improvement in business management and operations and the difficulties that they faced. It will involve change approaches that have had high failure rates and the reason it occurred. The essay also critically discuss how this may affect the organisation attempts to become lean. Discussion Organisations desire to carry out change with an aim of becoming more competitive. It involves adopting more effective and efficient means of operation and being in harmony with the business environment. Despite this, there is always resistance to change with an aim of being in a relative stability and predictability (Smith, 2005). An organisation that rejects change to maintain their status quo leads to staleness and atrophy despite maintaining stability and familiarity. Despite the importance of organisation change, efforts in implementing change fails in some cases (Hussey, 2000). For example, among 300 electronic companies in USA undergoing change to improve quality, only 10 % of them were successful. Research shows that almost 70% of change initiatives fail to yield the expected results (Jones, 2010). The high number of firms that fails in implementing change is astonishing. This makes it important to determine why change management strategies fail. There has been a lot of literature on why organisation reforms fail. For example, when the change is too fast, people may fail to deal with it (Smith, 2005). Also, when the change is being done too slow, there is risk that people will grow impatient and get bored which may act as a barrier. Change must have a purpose that is compelling enough. When the organisation members fail to see the purpose of change, there are high chances that it will fail (Todnem By, 2005). For example, if some of the members fail to see the purpose for change, they may sabotage it. Organisations that fail to see change as a journey rather than a single step fails in implementing it (Nelson, 2003). An organisation is supposed to look at change as a long journey with several stages which have to be accomplished before gaining the final results. When implementing change, Kurt Lewin model can lead to a successful change. This involves following the steps of unfreeze, change and freeze. During the unfreeze stage, people are taken from the state where they are not ready to being willing for change. This involves getting ready for change and understanding that the change is necessary (Burnes, 2004). Those involved are moved from the state of comfort to the new state. At this point, it becomes necessary to have change and people are motivated for it. The second state is transition. Once the people are unfrozen, they have to be kept going for the change to be successful. This is due to fact that change is not an event but a process. People are moved to the new way of doing things. This is the hardest stage since people are learning about the new way of doing things (Smith, 2005). At this stage, most of the implementation processes fail. This is especially if there is poor communication on the desired benefits of change so that people do not give up. The last stage is freezing. People are moved from stable state to the state where they are productive. It is about establishing stability as changes have been made. People have to be made comfortable in the new way of doing things. For the change to be successful, following the model may help a lot (Todnem By, 2005). Despite this, most of the organisations implementing change fail to use appropriate change model. Difficulties in attaining organisation change Poor transformational leadership One of the main causes of failures in organisation change has been poor transformational leadership. The assumption that there is “one best way” of leadership has been associated with recurring failures in organisational change (Smith, 2005). Research has shown that there is little association of leadership traits and their performance. The leadership style that focuses on a “certain best way” of leadership fails in implementing change. This is due to fact that leadership should vary based on the situation. When a leader fails to change the style of leadership based on situation, there are high chances of failure to change (Todnem By, 2005). An example is Hewlett Packard (HP) who were able to pay attention to transformative leadership and attain good results through change management. In 2002, HP was reorganising, completing merger with Compaq and carrying out large scale layoff due to the weakening economy. The firm noticed that they were facing slow decision making and poor cooperation making change slow. The organisation took action and carried out leadership training and development. This was aimed at making sure there was transformative leadership. The outcome was measurable benefits where time and money was saved during decision making and attaining alignment. HP made a realisation early that the management leadership had to be transformed based on the changing situation (Xiongwei, 2009). This is a proof that transformation of leadership based on the situation is important in carrying out change. Lack of cultural appreciation Another cause of failure in change implementation is lack of appreciation of the significance of cultural issues. Organisation culture has an influence in organisation performance and life. It is important to note that organisation culture is not something that an organisation has but it is what an organisation is (Smith, 2005). Despite this, organisation culture is in most cases considered as among the various variables in an organisation based on the mainstream theories. It is important to note that organisation culture in an organisation manifests itself in values, artefacts and the underlying assumptions. Research shows that organisation culture has the ability to alter the intended outcomes even in well planned changes (Todnem By, 2005). Different types of organisation culture could be supportive or against the intended organisational change. When the organisation is incompatible with change management, there is likelihood of resistance. The change management strategies should be compatible with the culture (Oxtoby, McGuiness and Morgan, 2002). A good example of culture clash during organisation change is merger between Scroders and Salomon Smith Barney City group Investment Bank (SSB). The organisation culture between Scroders and SSB were very different. SSB culture was more product driven while Schroder culture was client driven and traditional based culture norm. Schroder used the Japanese style while SSB used the American style. While Schroder was family style, SSB was more aggressive based on their culture. The culture crash was almost leading to a failure in change management. Bankers at Schroder were feeling insecure and fears of culture clash were leading to loss of corporate clients (Xiongwei, 2009). The culture clash was a major pitfall in the merging of the two banks. Poor people management Another issue that leads to failure of organisation change is management of people. In the process of implementing change, failure to attend to the people concerns has been a major mistake (Vakola, Eric Soderquist and Prastacos, 2007). People in the formal organisation may resist change if they feel that it will break their routines and threaten their self-interests. For an example, a technological change in an organisation may be viewed negatively by workers who think it will devalue their skills (Smith, 2005). Also, some of the employees fears that organisation change will lead to redistribution of resources and power leading to resistance. For example, an organisation that is moving from being hierarchical to flat may be forced to make some of the top managers middle managers based on the new structure. This may lead to resistance for organisation change (Oxtoby, McGuiness and Morgan, 2002). Lack of employees’ involvement in the change process may lead to failure. This is due to fact that people have a fear to change. In most organisation changes, employees can be given different responsibilities based on their knowledge and skills. The higher the level of involvement, the more the level of fear is reduced. There is always fear if failing in the new role (Todnem By, 2005). When the employees are not involved in the change effort, they may fail to understand the need for change. According to Oxtoby, McGuiness and Morgan (2002), when the employees are able to get the importance of change, they are able to become actively involved in the change process. An example of a firm that failed to implement change due to lack of people involvement is Kodak. Kodak was built in innovation and change which had helped them to stay ahead of their competitors for a long time. When the firm was faced with a challenge of fast changing technology, they were slow to come up with change. This was made worse by lack of involvement of employees and other stakeholders who had helped the company to become innovative. The new CEO made the organisation more hierarchical and people with good ideas were ignored. The innovators were not given a chance to be heard during the change process. As the firm became highly successful, complacency grew (Lucas and Goh, 2009). Lack of involvement of innovators made the change process slow and unsuccessful. The organisation was left behind by the competitors (Xiongwei, 2009). Kodak approach to change was the main cause of failure in this case. Carrying out organisation change is never easy (Lewis and Cooper, 2005). An organisation which fails to implement change cannot benefit from the lean processes. This is due to fact that an organisation cannot add lean process to the existing practices expecting to improve their results. Lean system can only be utilised where there is change in various organisation functions. For example, firms which have hierarchical structures are expected to change to more decentralised structure. This may have also contributed to failure at Kodak in implementing change (Lucas and Goh, 2009). This is due to fact that an organisation cannot become lean without implementing change. Failure of organisations to become lean Research shows that failure of organisation to gain full benefits of becoming lean can be associated with failure of organisation change (Cao, Clarke and Lehaney, 2000). A firm that has been able to gain full benefits of lean system is Du Pont and Toyota. Most of the organisations face challenges in improving productivity and supply chains. They face a lot of resistance to change and have a lot of difficulty in finding the best way of carrying out change (Lewis and Cooper, 2005). The lean approach requires organisational change as well as changing of management philosophy. These barriers can be overcome through proper organisation change management and avoiding approaches which can lead to failure. The approaches to change such as those by Kodak can make an organisation fail to become lean (Lucas and Goh, 2009). The approach used for change determines the ability for an organisation to adopt lean system. This is due to fact that lean system adoption is based on change (Lucas and Goh, 2009). For successful adoption of the lean systems, there are three main factors that are of great importance. These are ability to communicate vision, making necessary change in the organisation culture and lastly following new practices and principles. To carry out change required for the adoption of the lean system a firm has to look at the firm competitive position, state of technology and the financial performance (Cao, Clarke and Lehaney, 2000). When an organisation is unable to carry out change, they cannot become lean. For organisations to become lean and reduce failure rates in implementing organisational change they have to address the challenges (Jaffee, 2001). The barriers to organisation change must be addressed to attain the strategic goals. There is need to have adequate culture shifting and planning. When an organisation overlooks the employees in managing change, they are bound to fail in implementing change. There is need for having the communication strategies in place. This makes it easy to share information among the various units in the organisation (Grol and Wensing, 2004).By planning and dealing with these barriers, it becomes easy for the organisation to implement change and become lean. Conclusion To sum up, a lot of organisations face difficulty in implementing change. This is due to the approach that has been used to deliver change. This is evidenced in the discussed organisations such as HP, Kodak, Scroders and SSB. The difficulties experienced by these organisations can be associated with; poor transformational leadership, lack of appreciation to cultural issues, poor management of people, lack of employee involvement, change being implemented fast and failure to follow right steps. An organisation may fail to become lean due to these difficulties. This is due to fact that becoming lean involves organisation change which is difficult for most organisations. References Burnes, B., 2004. Managing change: A strategic approach to organisational dynamics. Pearson Education. Cao, G., Clarke, S. and Lehaney, B., 2000. A systemic view of organisational change and TQM. The TQM magazine, 12(3), pp.186-193. Grol, R. and Wensing, M., 2004. What drives change? Barriers to and incentives for achieving evidence-based practice. Medical Journal of Australia, 180(6 Suppl), p.S57. Hussey, D.E., 2000. How to manage organisational change (Vol. 28). Kogan Page Publishers. Jaffee, D., 2001. Organization theory: Tension and change. McGraw-Hill Humanities Social. Jones, G.R., 2010. Organizational theory, design, and change. Upper Saddle River: Pearson. Lewis, S. and Cooper, C.L., 2005. Work-life integration: Case studies of organisational change. John Wiley & Sons. Lucas, H.C. and Goh, J.M., 2009. Disruptive technology: How Kodak missed the digital photography revolution. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 18(1), pp.46-55. Nelson, L., 2003. A case study in organisational change: implications for theory. The Learning Organization, 10(1), pp.18-30. Oxtoby, B., McGuiness, T. and Morgan, R., 2002. Developing organisational change capability. European Management Journal, 20(3), pp.310-320. Piderit, S.K., 2000. Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: A multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change. Academy of management review, 25(4), pp.783-794. Smith, I., 2005. Achieving readiness for organisational change. Library Management, 26(6/7), pp.408-412. Todnem By, R., 2005. Organisational change management: A critical review. Journal of Change Management, 5(4), pp.369-380. Vakola, M., Eric Soderquist, K. and Prastacos, G.P., 2007. Competency management in support of organisational change. International Journal of Manpower, 28(3/4), pp.260-275. Xiongwei, S., 2009. Why Do Change Management Strategies Fail? Illustrations with case studies. Journal of Cambridge Studies, 4(1), pp. 7-14. Read More