Organizational Behavior High School - Essay Example

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE & DEVELOPMENT Organizational Change Change is a necessary way of life in most organizations. Infact, change is all around us-in the season, in social environment, and in biological processes. In the dynamic society surrounding today's organizations, the question of whether change will occur is no longer relevant. Instead, the issue is how do managers cope with the inevitable barrage of changes that confront them daily in attempting to keep their organizations viable and current. Organizations that do not adapt to change find it difficult or impossible to survive. Since organizations must cope with change to survive, so too, must Organizational Change Change is a part of life and provides opportunity for growth. It is conscious decision by the management of an organization. In any organization people engaged in production, research, development and, in managerial functions. The primary task of research and development is to optimize production. The task of managerial input is to give a dynamic leadership. The organizations in order to change should prepare a stock of the situation and should effect changes in their attitudes and style of functioning. There is a need for organization to change and adapt themselves to changing conditions corporate objectives and priorities. Without this the organization would not be able to grow and survive the process of continuous change and development. Change is quite complex and a difficult problem. Management of change involves four modules: Attitudes Individual Effective learning Cost achievement. Every member of an organization from top manager down to operator needs clearly spelled out-objectives. These objectives should be derived from the goals of the business enterprise. Thus there is a need for every manager to spell out his contribution to the attainment of organizational goals in all areas of the business. The managers must understand that business results depend on balanced efforts and results of a number of business areas. The objectives of all managers at all levels and in all areas should be a key to both short range and long-range considerations. ; Organizations like an organism must adopt themselves to their environment if they are to survive and grow. The pressure for such changes comes from within the organizational leadership or from some external force. A desirable form of change should be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Good managers, therefore, must conceive of an communicate explicitly to their employees the need for a necessary change. Change is virtually the characteristic of an industrial enterprise. The rate of change in industry has increased markedly as the consequences of the scientific and technological revolution that is going on at an increasing rate. Organizational change is the number one problem of modern managers. Change is inevitable. Management of change certainly does not imply random and unplanned responses to a changing environment. An organization consists of inter-related and interacting systems, to perform complicated tasks. Principal among these are: (i) Authority and power system or the system of work flow and process, (ii) Re-organization of the tools and techniques used in the system involving provision of better equipments. (iii) Change in the attitudes and behaviors and inter-personal relationships of people working in the organization through systematic manpower planning. Reasons for Organizational Change There are a number of factors both external and internal, which affect organizational functioning. Any change in these factors necessitates changes in an organization. The more important factors are as follows: Change in Environment. Every organization exists in some context. 'No organization is an island unto itself' Each must continually interact with other organizations and individuals - the consumers, suppliers, unions, shareholders, government - and many more. Each organization has goals and responsibility related to others in its environment. Thus, not only must an organization deal with its environment in conducting its affairs, but it must also give consideration to the goals of others as it establishes its goals and conducts its operations. The present-day environment is dynamic and will continue to be dynamic. Changes in social, political, economic, technological, and legal environment force organizations to change themselves. Such changes may result in organizational changes like major functions, production ' process, labor-management relations, nature of competition, economic constraints, organization rnethods, etc. In order to survive in the changing environment, organization must change. Change in Managerial Personnel. Besides environmental changes there is a change in managerial personnel. New managers replace old managers, which is necessitated because of retirement, promotion, transfer or dismissal. Each manager brings his own ideas and way of working in the organization. The relationships, more particularly informal ones, change because of changes in managerial personnel. Moreover, attitudes of the personnel change even though there is no change in them. The result is that an organization has to change accordingly. Deficiency in Existing Organizations Sometimes, changes are necessary because of deficiency in the present organizational arrangement and process. These deficiencies may be in the form of unmanageable span of management, large number of managerial levels, lack in coordination between various departments, obstacles in communication, multiplicity of committees, lack of uniformity in policy decisions, lack of co-operation between line and staff, and so on. To Avoid Developing Inertia In many cases, organizational changes take place just to avoid developing inertia of inflexibility. Conscious managers take into account this view that organization should be dynamic because any single method is not the best tool of management at every time. Thus, changes are incorporated so that the personnel develop liking for change and there is no unnecessary resistance when major change in the organization is, brought up. In order cope up with the various factors necessitating change, organizations adopt the strategy for planned change. Planned change in organization relates to change attempt making suitable adjustment in all the related factors simultaneously Role of Group Dynamics Although agreement to a change can be obtained individually, it is more meaningful if it is done through group. Usually more than one person is involved in the change. Though each person interprets the change individually often he expresses it through a group. Thus, instead of solving the problem at the individual level, it is desirable at the group 1gvel to get better acceptability of change. Group dynamics offers some basic helps in this regard. For using group as a means of overcoming resistance to change, its basic nature must be understood so that its effective use can be made. Nature of Group as a Means of Change The following characteristics of group are identified as a means of overcoming resistance to change: (a) If both change agent and the people target for change belong to the same group, the role of group is more effective. (b) If the people have more cohesiveness and strong belonging to the group, change is easier to achieve. (c) The more attractive the group is to the members, the greater is the influence of the group to accept or resist a change. (d) Group can exert more pressure on those factors of the members, which are responsible for the group being attractive to the members. Normally, attitudes, values, and behavior are more common factors determining the group attractiveness. (e) The degree of prestige of a group, as interpreted by the members, will determine the degree of influence the group has over its members. (f) If any attempt is made to change any individual or some individuals, which deviates the group norms, there is likelihood of the change attempt being resisted by the group. Based on these characteristics of group as a means of change, the Managers can form strategies for overcoming resistance in the following manner: 1. Group contact. Any effort to change is likely to succeed if the group accepts that change. For this purpose, the group itself should be the point of contact. The group contact offers some specific advantages: (i) Through groups, one can communicate with more people per unit of time. (ii) In-group there may be some person who may support the idea for change even if others resist it if the change agent belongs to the same group. (iii) Group can get at the basic problem very rapidly as compared to the single individual. The same is true for problem solving. Through the group contact, many things about change can be made clear ;such aspects as the reasons for change, benefits of change, and how the benefits of the change will be shared among organization and its members. For this purpose, meaningful and continuous dialogue is necessary. Free flow of information helps people to understand the real picture of the change and many misunderstandings may be avoided. Even if only some of the members are affected by the change, taking of whole of the group into confidence helps in maintaining a co-operative attitude. Research studies also support this aspect. 2. Participation. Participation helps to give people involved in the organizational change a feeling of importance. It makes people feel that the organization needs their opinions and ideas and is unwilling to go ahead without taking them into account. Those people who are directly affected by the change should be given opportunity to participate in that change before the final decisions are reached. However, mere participation may not help. The organization must regard the participation as meaningful and share the results of the change with its members. This is more important in the case of worker- who themselves treat a separate group and do not identify with the management. It would be prudent for management to take labor representatives into confidence before implementing any change. They must be made a party to the change rather than an agent for resistance to change 3. Group Dynamics Training for Change. Group dynamics also helps providing various training programmes for accepting and implementing change. It purports to train group members to recognize which processes are suitable to the task, what the results are, and how members contribute. Such training techniques provide understanding of behavior, thereby the people can build up the climate based on mutual trust and understanding so essential for bringing organizational changes successfully. Training for Changing Environment Due to continuing change and speed of change, a continuous re-education and re-training has become essential. Training has an important role to play in preparing for the changing environment. One of the important characteristics of the changing, environment is neglected in raising expectations of the people Culture and Planned Change Cultural patterns are the vital factors in resistance to technical changes and these are established ways for the technical experts to deal successfully with these patterns. "Culture" is a body of learned behavior, a collection of beliefs, habits, practices and traditions shared by a group of people and successively learned by new members who enter the society. Unlearning the old is a painful process and it is made easier by clothing the new learning in familiar and attractive dress. Encouraging people to learn new concepts requires consistent, prompt attachment of satisfaction, thorough praise, approval, increased status, sense of participation, material reward, etc. Learning a new skill Involves actual doing, experiencing and living through a long series of situations in which the new behavior is made highly satisfying by pointing out that old is not satisfying. The analysis of traditional behavior is very essential to estimate where the changes are going to fall, which habits need to be changed, which beliefs and attitudes have to be altered. The study should be long and wide enough in scope to embrace activities of the job as well as those on the job. It should disclose not only the activities of individuals in isolation but also the activities of individual's in-group. As the pattern of behavior becomes known each change under consideration can then be examined in the light of the behavior pattern Role of Mass Media to Change What can we learn from efforts to change people by mass media and mass persuasion In only rare instances educators, propagandists, advertisers and others who want to influence large numbers of people have thought of making an objective evaluation thereby introducing changes produced by their efforts. It has been found that a method of group decision in which the group as a whole made a decision to have its members change their behavior was two to three times as effective in producing actual change as was a lecture presenting exhortation to change. Individual now isolated and subjected to the demands of the organization through the commands of his boss finds that he must create with his fellow employees informal groups in order to protect himself from arbitrary control of his life from boredom produced by the endless repetition of mechanical and routine operation and from the impoverishment of his emotional and social life brought about by the frustration of his basic needs for social interaction, participation and acceptance in a stable group. Experienced efforts to train people in workshop, institutes and special training courses are common in various areas of social welfare, intergroup relations, political affairs, industry and adult education. Training workshop frequently develops keen interest among the participants with high morale and enthusiasm and participants or trainers resolve to apply all the wonders to their job. Managing Environmental Changes Managing" is the key word. It means taking control of and shaping the direction, then influencing in some way the outcome of changes. Environmental Changes exists in three distinct but interrelated aspects of our environment-the social, the economic, and the technological. Social Aspects. In the word in the social sphere, we have widespread starvation with northern hemisphere bureaucracy seemingly unable to help and yet massive aid being mobilized. At the national level we have increasing disputes between employed and unemployed, rich and poor, whilst at the same we continue to fuel the differences by fiscal and legislative actions. Economic Aspects. In the economic area we see unprecedented instability in world currencies, massive defaults and rescheduling of major national debts of Third World countries. Technological Aspects. Linked to all this is the enormous pace of technological innovation. This is creating major opportunities which were previously inconceivable, but at the same time it is creating massive unemployment and forcing major realignment of job skills and availability of talent. The key factor in both situations has become the way in which the people involved feel they have been treated. It is how the influencing has been carried out that is driving the pattern of events now, not the principles at stake or the substance of rational argument. This is mirrored at many levels in society in large-scale acquisitions and mergers, company reorganizations, departmental restructuring and so on. Working with Change Changes are no longer slow but there was time when the pace of life was slow stretching over generations. The individuals were able to adopt slowly but in the present day technology is transferring personal and working lives almost overnight. The conflict between human reaction to change and an increased need for change is affecting the managerial functions. The change agents should be equipped to diagnose, understand and resolve change. Following are the six basic elements fit bringing about an effective change: Association Involvement Leadership Commitment Action Feed-back (a) Association. Interaction of the member in the work group must get an agent to deal with, be with and work with each other. (b) Involvement. A procedure through which people being affected by the change are brought to understand the change. (c) Relationship. This is the feeling part of it and it develops if conditions are right. This is the emotional attachment among those involved in the change. (d) Commitment. It is an agreement to take an active part in the actual mechanism of change. (e) Action. It is implementation of the change itself. (f) Feed-back. It is the signals or measurement data, originating in the work. The data is presented to those who are directly involved with the change. Feedback must be direct and honest. Too frequent feedback is harmful and used for more than one purpose. In a group sitting, where the level of trust is low, feedback to one person is really meant for another target. At times Feedback acts as a bond. Feed-back at an another time may function as a stock record in a person's giving feed-back and may or may not really apply to individual or group on the receiving end. Feedback of this type nullifies the relationship, which have been building among the members of the group. Feedback is a vital part of the action link. Change and Business Reforms With a change-taking place in the economic and fiscal policies in the country, organizations are faced with the inevitable reality of accepting and introducing changes at the work place. In the past, there was an option in the hands of the organizations to introduce changes or not. One of the main obstacles to the smooth implementation of the change management process is the lack of awareness of the context of change by the workmen and unions. While the top management team is aware of the context in which these changes are being talked about, the workmen and unions are not well informed in this respect. Conclusion A change seeking management has to overcome the stresses to which the system and the people have to undergo. Leadership is, therefore, required to create necessary confidence to overcome the stresses and challenges in the change process. A successful leadership has to keep open the channels of communications within the organization and with the outside world. Leader must recognize authority and power system changes in the attitudes, behaviors, and interpersonal relationship of people. As such organization problems can be overcome by four factors, namely, structural, technical, task and people. However, the capacity of individuals and groups in some organizations are under estimated. This is due to variety of causes emerging from the organization structure, procedures and the traditions of group of people working within the organization. Organizational Development Introduction The organizations of today are producing products and services which were unknown in the past and-thus giving a new life to every individual with much higher material comforts than ever before. Organizational Development efforts are data gathering, data feedback and joint diagnosis. Organizational Development is not only the change of an individual but mainly the teams and their relationship with other interdependent teams. It can be defined as "The application of planning, development and problem solving process to the overall functioning of the organization in such a way that it strengthens the physical, financial, human resources factors and improves the process of interpersonal relationship of the organization." . An individual can establish a bond with other individuals, which multiply and generate power to create, to build and to produce. Organizational development represents the way of leading men at work and managing their mutual relations in such as way as to make them happy, productive and strong. Elements of Organizational Development Organizational Development helps us to analyze the optimum level of performance of an organization and to know where the organization is where it wants to be and how can it go there. The techniques of Organizational Development consist of methods drawn from behavioral science, which aim at developing resources, a skill within the organization to face the problems, anticipate issues and to plan and to deal with them. The various elements of Organizational Development can be classified into the following two groups: I. (a) Inter-personnel competence. (b) Self-awareness. (c) Communication ability. (d) Ability to manage conflict and tolerance. (e) Managerial grid. II. (a) Problem solving ability. (b) Goal setting ability. (c) Planning ability. (d) Understanding the process of change. Need of Organizational Development For an individual to make personal changes on the job, an organizational climate should exist to support these changes. Otherwise, training the individual will have little or on impact on the organization. Developing the system to support the desired individual change is a basic part of the organizational development. Developing- the system involves building more effective interpersonal relationship among members of the working group. For example, the team may become more efficient, responsive, flexible and creative from the point of view of the organization. The concept of team building lies in the art of organizational development but organization effectiveness requires more than effective teams. Organizational Development is not a programme or a project rather it is a continuing process. This process may involve certain projects, planning and implementation of a changed specific programme such as seminars, conferences, appraisal, interviews with an object to develop better procedures and supporting climate for dealing with organization problems. Technological change in industries are well planned and implemented with considerable care but organization change that is modifying some part of organization structure or implementing a new process of work is often not deliberately planned but haphazard activity. Planning, implementing and evaluating these organization changes are part of Organizational Development. Concept of Organizational Development Organizational Development believes that organizational members can learn to describe its culture and can be helped to plan what it should be like and in assisting the organization to change from what it is to-what it should be. The essential characteristic of Organizational Development is the involvement of the people in the organization to carry out various activities. These activities are designed to meet the organizational objective with and around the inter-action of groups within the organization. Organizational development feels that it pays to confront, it lays emphasis on trust and openness, it aims to develop, increase understanding between and within groups in order to reduce tensions and introduce team management. Organizational development objectives are to improve organizational effectiveness and organizational health. Objectives of Organizational development can be outlined as follows: (a) Sensing the problem. (b) Choosing Consultant. (c) Joint Diagnosis. (d) Strategic Planning. (e) Developing change agents Organizational Development Manager is required to have the following objectives: (a) To help the organization to adapt to internal and external changes. (b) To organize and conduct the team building programme. (c) To prevent unplanned organizational changes to take place. (d) To undertake organization diagnosis and to bring the diagnosis to the top management's notice. (e) To work as internal change agents. Organizational Development and Management Development Organizational development is the addition of organizational planning and management development. Organizational development deals with structural aspects, levels of hierarchy, span of control, and job description. Management development deals with human aspects of career planning. Development deals with deliberate changing of the instrumentation through the utilization and application of valid knowledge, succession planning, appraisal systems and training. The need for starting Organizational Development goes beyond the need for Management Development. The need of Organizational Development obviously goes beyond the development of the individual manager. It requires a total system involvement and commitment to a long-term renewal of the organization. The commitment needed in Organizational Development is far greater than for Management Development. In Management Development, it is far more difficult to arrive at conditions similar to those faced on the job. Quite often, the manager trained for a management technique learns new concepts but when he returns to job and starts implementing them, he is frequently faced with the problems of lack of support from his superiors and his subordinates. Normally management development is given a lip service with little and or no support from top management. Management development and organization development are not only compatible but are complimentary to each other. Management development is an arm of organizational development. Organizational development process perceives various problems which management development can handle. Management development and organizational development efforts are concerned with issues such as communication, planning, motivation and coordination of goals. Team Development There are many interventions for team development. The basic objective of using team development interventions is to increase effectiveness of various teams within the organization. The teamwork requires a supportive climate. In applying this principle, the relationship between the superior and subordinate is crucial. This relationship should be one, which is supportive and ego building. The more often the superior's behavior is ego-building rather than the ego deflating, the better will be the effect of his behavior on organizational performance. This relationship may work equally in the case of peer relationships in-group building. The underlying aim of team development is to increase trust among team members because people work better together when there is open and honest sharing about the problems and difficulties that they have with one another. As such, at the initial level, the attempt should be to develop such an environment where such trust can be developed among the team members. Though organizational climate, in general, provides such a trusting condition, management may take specific measures in this direction. Such measures, in order to be more effective, should proceed in the following procedure: 1. Problem Sensing. There are a number of ways in which problems of a team can be identified. Often the team itself defines which aspects of teambuilding it wishes to work on. This problem can better be identified in terms of what is hindering group effectiveness. At this stage, generally most of the members come forward with their arguments as to what the real problems are. The views may be quite different ranging from the organizational problem, groups problems to even personal problems. In problem identification, the emphasis should be on consensus. The consensus seeking part of the process necessitates that each person becomes thoroughly aware and understand clearly the basic concepts of team-development. Much of the problems may be solved through effective communication and training sessions. 2. Examining Effects of Differences in Perception. The perception of people on an issue differs because of their differing backgrounds, such as, their value systems, personality, and attitudes. The perception maybe brought to conformity through the process of exercise on perception, which involves a number of psychological exercises particularly on perceptual differences. The role of communication is important in this context because it will help in clarifying the actual problems to the members. 3. Giving and Receiving Feedback The step of perceiving things and listening to each other may be relayed back to the members as there is a possibility that such processes may create tense situation in the group. Other members report about the painful feelings that they have at the time of evaluation of their feelings. The discussion should continue until all members of the team have commented. The feedback should be given to the members about their feelings, about the issue, the way people talk about the issue, the staying with the topic or going off on tangents, who was talking more or who was talking less, who was trying to resolve the differences, etc. Such feedback generally provides members to evaluate the values but at the same time also provides opportunity to understand them. 4. Developing Interacting Skills. The basic objective of this process is to increase the ability among the people as to how they should interact with others and engage in constructive behavior. Following are the examples of constructive and negative behaviors: Constructive Behavior: (i) Building: developing and expanding the ideas of others. (ii) Bringing in: harmonizing, encouraging others to participate. (iii) Clarifying: resting, ensuring, understanding, and seeking relevant information. (iv) Innovating: bringing in new relevant ideas, information, feelings etc. Negative Behavior: (i) Over talk: interrupting, talking together with speaker. (ii) Attacking: deriding, belittling, and criticizing person. (iii) Negating: cooling, cynicism, undermining morale. At the time of discussion of feedback, people take themselves assignments to increase specific constructive behaviors and decrease specific negative behaviors. If this process is adopted several times, there is a strong possibility that members may learn constructive behaviors and leave negative behavior. This is quite helpful in developing teamwork. Self-Development Process Self Development is the most effective means of training because of the unsolicited commitment involved. Self Development is the core of development process. All the development is self-development. Training is a process of increasing the skills and knowledge of employees to enable them to perform their job well while development is more akin to education. The initiative for development has to be taken by the individual himself. Development is a process of becoming potentialities. At each stage of development there are specific tasks such as: skills, attitudes, understandings which are appropriate to that level of maturity and which society expects the individual to master. Self development has emerged as major concept in management development.Total Quality is an expression of the need for continuous improvement in four areas. Interpersonal effectiveness, Personal and Professional Development, Managerial effectiveness, Organizational Productivity. Interpersonal Relations Total Quality on an interpersonal level means making constant deposits into the emotional bank accounts of others. It is continuously building goodwill and negotiating in good faith and not under fear. Emotional bank account can evaporate fast particularly when expectations of continuous communication and improvement are violated. If communication does not take place, people begin to tap into their memories and into their fears and spin off negative scenario and start planning based on the negative feelings. Personal and Professional Development Personality and skill development is a process of ongoing improvement or profession-a constant upward spiral. It is a process of total integrity around your value system and part of the value system means you are always getting better, personally and professionally. The common denominator of success is a strong empowering, guiding, inspiring, uplifting purpose. The purpose is to unleash one's creative capacities. Managerial Effectiveness It means nurturing "Win-Win" performance and making sure that they are aligned with what is happening inside creates inter functional teamwork. Organizational Productivity Productivity is the essence of real leadership. A leader is a product of principles, values, attitude beliefs and behavior and transforms the situation and people in line with organization mission and objectives. It is important that top management gives full leadership and active support to Organizational Development efforts in order to make it successful and operative in the organization. If the top management is giving a lip service then it is quite critical to succeed on Organizational Development programme. It is vital that all levels of management are involved in any change of process. Organizational development concentrates on the development of people in such a way that the development of the organization is ensured. References Ahuja K. (2005) Human Resource Management. Kalyani Publishers. Calcutta. Pp 880-883 Darwin Cartwright, Achieving Change in People: Some Implications of Group Dynamics Theory; Human Relations, 1991, pp. 388-391. Sharma MC. (2004). Business Studies. S Chand & Company. New Delhi. Pp 10-20 Read More