Managing Change as a Critical Element in Achieving Organizational Success in the 21st Century - Essay Example

? Managing Change is a critical element in achieving organizational success in the 21st Century Contents Part A 3 Background 3 Objectives 4 Description of the research 4 Key Findings 4 Part B 6 Summary of research evidence traced 6 Future Research 11 Conclusion 13 Reference 15 Bibliography 16 Part A Background The literature review is undertaken in order to find evidence that managing change is critical in achieving organizational success in the 21st century. Scholarly literature has suggested that change management has been proved to be moderately successful in most of the organization. Serkin (2005) has reported that in organization, out of three initiatives, two initiatives fails to transfer. It has been said that as more things keep on changing, the more they tend to stay the same. To manage change is tough but the actual problem lies on the fact that there is no or little agreement regarding the factors which transforms the initiatives in organization (Metre, 2009, p. 1). There are authors who have stressed upon the fact that the main reason for failure of initiatives is due to resistance to change. Resistance to change often tends to include delays as well as cost into the change process. But resistance is also considered as useful source of information which helps in the development and learning process of the organization in a successful way. It has been proved that resistance to change is one of the key subjects in managing change in an organization (Val & Fuentes, n.d). Also with an increasing globalization, change in technology and deregulation along with a shift in the socio cultural trends, thus few would like to dispute that the most important task for the management is the leadership of managing organizational change (Todnem, 2005, p.2). Therefore in this context it becomes increasing necessary to reflect on the type, extent and change both for small and big organization in order to survive and thus sustain themselves in the changing business environment (Sengupta & Bhattacharya, 2006, p.1). Objectives The main objective in conducting the study is to find out whether change is important in the process of the development of the organization in the era of globalization. The following objectives will be discussed in order to confirm that the review of literature supports the given objectives. To determine why change is necessary The need for organizations to change and the forces of change To determine to what extent are the initiatives proposed are successful Description of the research The research on managing change in the organizations in the 21st century has been mainly taken from secondary sources especially books and other academic sources. Apart from books and academic sources some journals were also used. Mostly books were used because journals were not available at an ease like books. Some of the books and academic source includes, Metre, C. (2009). Deriving Value From Change Management. Griffin, R. W. (2011). Fundamentals of Management. Cengage Learning Zeffane, Rachid. (1996). Dynamics of strategic change: critical issues in fostering positive organizational change. Smith, Ian. (2005). Achieving readiness for organizational change. Key Findings The report mainly focuses on analyzing the fact that managing change is essential for organization in the 21st century in order to success and stay ahead of its competitors and achieve a competitive advantage. GE has managed to apply changes in its organization by following the process by Lewin’s notion (1947) which includes unfreezing, refreezing and movements were some of the essential components of change. The model primarily focused on the role of the leader in the process of creating change as well as communicating and crafting the vision, leading it and finally measuring progress of the change implemented across the dimensions of is organization. Figure 1: GE 7 step change model (Source: Metre, 2009) In addition to GE, the changes that has helped P&G reached at the top level is also been discussed (ICMR, 2004). Part B Summary of research evidence traced Change management is defined as a systematic approach as well as application of knowledge, resources, and tools in order to leverage the benefits of change. To achieve desirable result the change should be effective and sustainable at the same time. Change undertaken should be realistic, measurable and achievable. Thus change can happen in any part of the organization, and it is important for organization to see that change has an effective change in the organization and change is implemented effectively (Griffin, 2011, p.54). The change process includes change in the culture of the organization, people and process change. But the main attention primarily focuses on the responsibility of the executives of the organization and the management. According to Mullis (2002), change process can be effectively implemented with the help of the mangers and has evolved in the organization (Braul, 2006, p.2). With increase globalization, innovation in technology and increased competition are the complex conditions under which change is changing. Thus it can be said that change is becoming more and more omnipresent and hence requires organization to develop required capabilities for managing change in respective organization. With intense competition across the globe, organization needs to change its competiveness by implementing various leadership styles. Most of the organization in order to being about a change in the organization so to give a competitive edge to its competitors has adopted improvement programs for the management such as blue ocean strategy program, six sigma and other such programs. And other organization tends to choose the classical approaches of organizational development and maintaining relationship between employees and organization. Schaffer and Thomson (1992) have suggested that the result driven program often tends to bypass long term preparation and aims for measurable gains in some months of implementing change (Metre, n.d). It has been noted that a high percentage of change that gets introduced into the business tends to fail which means they do no reach the stage of implementation or in the process do not produce any positive or productive results. Changes which do not show positive result do not fail due to technical reasons but due to people. Changes which fails tends to create a large loss with respect to loss, morale and productivity. The tendency of human towards consistency, with respect to change can be termed as healthy as without consistency life would be out of control. But people do not want to deviate themselves from the behaviors which are suitable to them in the work place (Palmer, 2004, p.5). Resistance to change are of usually two types one affecting the individuals and the other organizations. Individual resists changing because of the fear of losing their jobs, change in social relationships, and also due to obsolescence of the required skills. Whereas the organization might resist to change due to factors such as crunch in the resources, the difficulty to bring in the required changes in the organization and sometimes simply maybe due to fear of uncertainty. This is also one of the reasons why change programs in organizational fails. It becomes necessary for mangers to overcome the resistance to change (Lussier, 2008, p.210). When there is an ongoing process in the organization it becomes hard for changes to occur and survive in such condition. Sometimes a single business organization tends to have a variety of business entities and changes in those entities are bound to reflect in another entity. Therefore in such types of organizations changes are not that easy. The change process is often regarded as the type of change that intends to stop the current ongoing process and run the new change process. In order to run a new process, current process should be stop which might result fatal for many organizations. Therefore the involvements of the employees are important for adopting the change process in an effective manner. Change process should be considered a problem solving situation for organizations (Schaefer, 2012). However critics have suggested different problems in the way changes are often carried out in the organization. The concern is mainly with the issue of how changes take place. Effective change takes place on careful diagnosing the function and working of the organization. The diagnosis identifies the cause of the problem such as poor performance, product quality, dissatisfaction of its employees and other such matters. The diagnosis requires money as well as time and most of the organization are not ready to make such huge investments. Instead such organization tends to relay on the preconception about the problem and in the process hire consultants to solve certain issues. These organizations have not recognized the effective and systematic nature to change. They believe that with intervention into aspect the organizations will be able to handle the problems and hence they never prepare themselves for certain change in the organization (Cummings & Worley, 2008, p.43). Organizational changes such as P&G have attempted to increase the efficiency of the organization. The main purpose for P&G to go about a change was to increase the productivity of the employees who had the skill of creativity, innovation and outstanding performance beyond the capability of each individual. In the process of creating change there are various strategies which refer to overall directions and plans of the program and hence termed as OD strategy. The major OD strategies include technological, behavioral and structural changes. P&G has adopted the structural, behavioral and technological strategies. The organizational structure is essential because it ends to provide a framework which relates the elements of the organization into another (Brown, 2006, p.245). It has been founded that GE change model has put the main focus on its leadership style, where the leader owns the entire process of change as he is accountable to the changes that has taken place in GE. He is also accountable for committing resources to the effort made in the change management. The second step adopted in the GE change process is communicating needs to change. It is important that the recipients and the agents mange to understand the process of change in the process of executing the process of change. The third talks about shaping the vision which is to be build upon the activity of communication in the above mentioned step. In the step GE ensures that the employees who are involved into the change process witness the outcomes of the change management. The fourth is of mobilizing commitment, the fifth stage is highly concerned with the process of making changes that would last. After that changes implemented are monitored and finally the last step in the GE change model refers to changing structures and systems (Metre, 2009). An essential factor in creating readiness in change is the support of the management. According to Armenakis, et al. (1993) stated that the extent which the organization supports the changes policies and practices in support of change management is also important in understand the perception of employees readiness towards change in the organization. Thus support for change should reflect in the leadership style of the organization undergoing change. An impressive leader would also engage monitoring changes, and a well knowledge indicating when to initiate a new change. This allows openness and mutual trust in the environment which allow people to experiment change and embrace it (Zeffane, 1996). Changes should be accepted and improve the overall performance of the organization. But it has been said that for many employees and people associated with the organization, change are feelings of tension and uneasiness and with the changes actually taking place, the members of the organization may feel uncertainty as well as confusion. The employees are willing to accept change only when they are totally convinced that change which is introduced is beneficial for the organization. But most of the employees do not realize the advantages of change that has been bought in the organization and this is because the employees are always concern for immediate results. It must be noted that the benefits of change can be enjoyed in the long run and thus can provide a sound and strong base in taking and measuring risk and expanding the organizations boundaries (Smith, 2005). There are risk always associated with the change process and thus to reduce the impact of risk, readiness of change is necessary. The organizations in the current era, the era of globalization tends to be different from the previous organization and research made will prove to be irrelevant. This situation provides a huge challenge because it makes the world rethink on the concept of organization, why it exits for whom and for what, the purpose behind the organization. Today’s organization is not tangible, visible which they tend to be in the past. For instance, in today’s organization, employees do not have to be in one place in order to complete the work or get things done in proper order. Thus it can be said that places and time are not dependent on each other anymore. Global organizations hire a group of individuals in order to keep pace with the time ones all over the globe. Hence people across the globe can work together connected through email, video conference, telephone and also through fax. An important fact about the organization is that they do not need to hire or own people in order to complete the work. It can be done through partnership, flexible labor, outsourcing and with the help of the interim mangers organizations are able to manage risk. Another important characteristic of the new organization are they are virtual and it is no possible to see it but can be described properly. However the most important question arises is that what is the modern organization be called and how does organization mange to run its business without seeing the person and even meeting the people associated with the organization. According to Hesselbein et al. neither the new order nor the theory of quantum can be ignored. One needs to understand the working of the new organization so that one can live to it and use it properly (Fox, 2007, p.197). The main reason changes takes in organization is that they have become an open system while constantly interacting with its environments. The change may rise due to the internal as well as the external force and other factors in association to the changing demands of the organization. Some of the interventions are applied to individuals as well as groups whereas other are mainly designed to improve the effectiveness of the organization. In diversity, the management is expected to adapt to the situation related to international interventions as internal focus within a specific country has shifted, which means the employees can be longer be regarded and managed as homogeneous groups. The management has shifted from personal treatment, motivation compensation and has adopted the diverse approach of management. Therefore change is continuous and can happen due to internal as well as external factors affecting the organization. However, perception towards changes often tends to affect its acceptance and leads to resistance towards change (Adrian, 2000, p.15). Future Research A huge opportunity lies with the organizations to further research in topic ‘managing change in the organization.’ Change has been dramatic and just as the employees began to think that the environment has settled down and so the professional lives would return back to the normal phase, organizations thus initiated response to improve its operational efficiency in order to become competitive in the marketplace. Therefore in order to understand the effect of change on individual behavior during the transformation of the organization can further help in the research for the organization. Research can be undertaken with respect to the employees their satisfaction, involvement and their retention. Researching on the employees before and after change is announced and finally developing as well as executing the change that is about to take place in the organization. With an intention to support the organizational transformation it tends to provide an opportunity to monitor the employees during the change process in order to appropriately record the effect of change in organizations (Woodman, et al. 2009, p. 380). Employees are the most desirable topic to be carried on for further research and this is because employees in organizations do not tend to view change in a positive manner, they view it in a completely different manner. Change is termed as disruptive. Thus a successful program with respect to managing change in organizations a proper understanding on behalf of the employees as to why change is required and why is it necessary in the organization. It is necessary that the employees tend to buy the program initiated due to change in the management or the organization. Therefore employee’s commitments should be further linked with the outcomes of the change in the organization. Change is managed continually in order to yield desirable sustained results. Thus in the further research based on employees, an effective system of measurement which would be simple for the employees and employers to understand, specific and at the same time creative and must involve both the employees and the mangers of the organization. A consistent way to measure the result in association with change initiatives can be further combined with reward programs which help to reinforce the backbone of the effective change initiative in an organization (Durant, n.d). Conclusion Organizational change often tends to focus on the current problems, the future goals of the organization and also aspirations. In the process there lies a danger in separating the past from the future and the present scenario. Concentrating on the newness can lead managers to deny the past and concentrate mainly on the present and current situation of the organization. But as said before the members of the organization do not tend to forget the past and as humans there exists a huge connection with resects to the past, present and future. In most of the organization, initiative towards change management has been taken for granted and managing a change therefore does not require any leadership or substantial courage. However in the process of managing continuity that is the process of liking the past with the future and the present to help the members of the organization thus requires insightful, enlightened and patient leaders. Therefore when organizations are faced with uncertainty and risk, there is no longer requirement for the angers and leaders to proclaim the desire, requirement and above all the need for change. To support this organization can rather develop and foster continuity in the ever changing and uncertain world. Thus to mange change it is necessary to manage the past and link it with the current and future conditions as it is rightly said by Sheldon Kaupf, “If we can’t plough the fields of our past, we can’t sow the seeds of our future” Reference Adrian, T. (2000). Managing Change. Pearson Education India. Braul, C. (2006). Managing Change- The TQM Challenge. GRIN Verlag. Brown, D. R. (2006). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development. Pearson Education India. Durant, M. W. (No Date). Managing Organizational Change. Retrieved from http://www.crfonline.org/orc/pdf/ref4.pdf. Fox, W. (2007). Managing Organizational Behavior. Juta and Company Ltd. Griffin, R. W. (2011). Fundamentals of Management. Cengage Learning. ICMR. (2004). Managing Cultural Change at P & G. Retrieved from http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and%20Organization%20Behavior/HROB042.htm. Lussier, R. N. (2008). Management Fundamentals: Concepts, Applications, Skill Development. Cengage Learning. Metre, C. (2009). Deriving Value From Change Management. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=od_theses_msod. Palmer, B. (2004). Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change. ASQ Quality Press. Sengupta, N. & Bhattacharya, M. S. (2006). Managing Change in Organizations. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Smith, Ian. (2005). Achieving readiness for organizational change. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1510076&show=html. Schaefer, S. (2011). Importance of change management in an organization. Retrieved from http://learnskills.org/wordpress/importance-of-change-management-in-an-organisation/10/2008. TODNEM, R. (2005). Organizational Change Management: A Critical Review. Retrieved from http://staffs.academia.edu/RuneBy/Papers/105643/Organisational_Change_Management_A_Critical_review. Val, P. D. & Fuentes, C. M. No Date. RESISTANCE TO CHANGE: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND EMPIRICAL STUDY. Retrieved from http://www.uv.es/~pardoman/resistencias.PDF. Woodman, R. W. et al. (2009). Research in Organizational Change and Development. Emerald Group Publishing. Zeffane, Rachid. (1996). Dynamics of strategic change: critical issues in fostering positive organizational change. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1410448. Bibliography Carnall, C. A. (2007). Managing Change in Organizations. Financial Times Prentice Hall. Cummings, T. G. & Worley, C. G. (2008). Organization Development & Change. Cengage Learning. Graetz, F. et al. (2010). Managing Organizational Change. John Wiley & Sons Australia. Harsh, P. (2011). Organizational Change. Pearson Education India. Hellriegel, D. & Slocum, J. W. (2007). Organizational Behavior. Cengage Learning. Hussey, D. E. (2000). How to Manage Organizational Change. Kogan Page Publishers. Palmer, I. Dunford, R. & Akin, G. (2008). Managing Organizational Change: A Multiple Perspectives Approach. McGraw-Hill Irwin. Senior, B. (2002). Organizational Change. Financial Times Prentice Hall. Yaeger, T. F. & Sorensen, P. F. (2009). Strategic Organization Development: Managing Change for Success. IAP. Read More