Cracking the Code of Change - Essay Example

?Cracking the of Change We are living in the time of radical change and turbulence. The labor market, consumers, financial pressure, globalization, new market trends, etc are few reasons for change in the organizations. According to Beer and Nohria (2000), the societal conditions in the modern days are exceptional in terms of change. The traditional industries have already accepted the fact that they either need to change or perish. Managing and understanding change has become a virtual industry nowadays. The consultancy firms, mass media, corporate executives and other eminent personalities are actively taking interest in this virtual industry and developing different theories stating different dimensions of change management. In most of the cases we see that change management is considered necessary and good (Ogbonna, and Wilkinson, 2003, p. 1151). The contemporary ideas for change reflect that the managers must be capable enough to plan out organizational changes and also be responsive enough to the changing environment. Organizational changes require large efforts and time of the managers as well as other employees. According to a British Survey, about 94 percent of the organizations experienced planned change in 1997 (Study, and Grey, 2003, p. 2). This study aims at discussing the change management theories and every other dimensions of change in the organizations. It would begin with a basic overview on change and the traditional approaches on change management in organization. Then the essay would lead the readers to the different theories presented by different authors on change and its strategic impact on the organization. The essay would also include the impact of change on the competitive advantage of the company by citing examples from the article “Cracking the Code of Change". All these discussions on change in organization would give the reader a complete idea about the importance of change management in the business, organization, human resource and the overall business environment. Culture or the organization is a major issue that needs to be altered and taken very seriously while making changes in the organization. Many authors who have written on change management, suggests that the reason behind the failure of most of the organizational change efforts, is the negligence of organizational culture. Other authors have different perspectives. They believe that organizational change includes behavioral patterns of blocking higher performances of the organization and analyzing the consequences to understand the underlying values and assumptions. The secondary reason could be the culture, which should also be considered. There are numerous approaches to change or change management and many ways to categorize them. The two major ones are the Planned and Emergent approach. Since 1950s to 1980, the theories of organizational change were dominated by the planned approach. This was developed by Kurt Lewin and further revised by the Organization Development movement (Simms, 2005, p. 121). The planned approach focused on improving the effectiveness and the operation of the human resource of the organization. This could be done with the help of team based programmes for change management (Collins, 1998, p. 60-62). However, in 1980s the world received the oil shocks and this led to the severe economic downturn in the western countries. In this scenario, it was absolutely clear that organization had to transform them to face the situations. In this situation the Planned changed started receiving criticism and questions were raised with regards to its effectiveness and efficacy. Against the backdrop of the economic downturns in the west, the Emergent approach began taking the position of the traditional change approach. This approach was based on the new economic situation of the market and organization found the touch of reality in this approach. The emergent approach viewed change as a process where individuals are the parts of the organization who deal separately with individual goals, one at a time (Paul, Lehaney, and Warwick, 1998, p. 8-9). Before analyzing the implications of different change approaches, it is important to understand the point of view of different authors and their perspective towards organizational change and its approaches. In the article "cracking the code of change", it has been stated that since the Industrial revolution, companies are dealing with change management. Despite the individual success or the success of the team, change becomes really a hard nut to crack. The most brutal fact is that in spite of injecting several approaches, about 70 percent of the change initiatives of the companies fail due to hasty implementation. According to Beer (2000), the reasons for most of the failure are the attitude of the organization and its human resource to rush in bringing about drastic changes. In this situation they lose focus and become totally depended on the available advice that they get through print or web. The leaders of the companies need to crack the change. The literature available in change management depicts that there are three major areas in change of any organization; they are the managers, the organizational change theory, and the context in which the change is being planned. Caldwell (2003), states that the successful implementation of the change theory in any organization depends on the complex communication that takes place between the change agents in the organization. The scenario is no longer the same when the supervisor was the sole responsible person for implementing a linear change process. The contemporary reality is that there are four types of change agents who are involved in any change process. They are the senior leaders, middle-level managers, external consultants, and the teams of human resource. All of these four categories’ of change agents have different experiences and different perspective. The other authors have expressed different views on this. According to them experiences between the middle and senior level managers can also be a cause of increasing complexity and act as a problematic factor in change implementation in the organization. If we see in the broader context, the managers are the ones responsible for implementing the change. The public sector managers are much dissatisfied with the changes and the process of change, than the private sector manager as mentioned by Doyle, Claydon, and Buchanen (2000). In the article, cracking the code of change, the consultants and academicians have focused on two basic theories of change: Theory E and Theory O. Theory E and Theory o has been very clearly explained in the article, cracking the code of change. The transformation that is related to the modification of the economic value is considered as Theory E and the transformation that is related to capability of the organization is regarded as Theory O. According to Beer and Nohria (2000), both these models are valid and focus on specific segment of the organization. Utilizing a blend of both the theories would also help in achieving the organizational goals. Theory E is basically the hard approach which is mostly followed in major organizations. It is related to shareholders value, downsizing, economic incentives, etc. Theory O is utilized to change strategies among the organization. The continuous process of renewing the structure, capabilities to offer to the needs of the external and internal customers of the organization is considered to be a significant feature of change management (Moran, and Brightman, 2001, p. 111). According to Burnes (2004), change is important for organizations. This is because through change organizations can project the future occurrences regarding the market trends and the customer preferences. In commercial terms, change always brings freshness whether it is the product or the image of the company (Senior, 2002; Graetz, 2000, p. 550). This can be better explained through the example of ASDA's success story. ASDA is one of the most famous supermarkets. In ASDA the focus of Norman was on offering products at lower prices to the customers, while Leighton was more focused on the employees. He was people oriented and this was also the theme of change for ASDA. This does not mean that Norman's point of view was not given importance. The focus was simultaneously on Theory E and Theory O. The E strategies helped in focusing on the economic value and O strategies helped in transforming the culture of the organization. This also signifies that change does help companies to get an edge over the competitors. Change management helps in transformation of the internal processes of the organization to compete with the major players in the global market. In the scenario of global competiveness when all the organizations are putting their best foot forward to grab the highest market share, change is the only ingredient to hold stable competitive advantage. Change is denoted as the capability of the leaders and managers of the organization. So it is said that change first occurs in the minds of the organizational managers and leaders. Change is also utilized as means of survival and competitive advantage. It can be said that the only thing that is common in all the organizations around the world is change itself. Transformation, modification or re-engineering is all different facets of change. Transformation and modification take place in the organization because of various issues. It’s not only always due to grabbing market share. Companies also involve change management strategies to present their new image, develop new internal policies or position themselves in different sectors. References Beer, M., 2000. Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behaviour. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Beer, M., and Nohria, N., 2000. Cracking the Code of Change. Harvard Business Review [e-journal] 10(4) Available through: Harvard Business Review [Accessed 20 August 2012]. Burnes, B., 2004. Managing Change: A Strategic Approach to Organizational Dynamics. 4th ed. London: Prentice Hall. Caldwell, R.., 2003. Models of Change Agency: A Fourfold Classification. British Journal of Management [e-journal] 14(2) Available through: Blackwell Publishing Ltd [Accessed 20 August 2012]. Collins, D., 1998. Organizational Change: Sociological Perspectives. Oxon: Routledge. Doyle, M., Claydon, T. and Buchanen, D., 2000. Mixed Results, Lousy Process: The Management Experience of Organizational Change [e-journal] 11 Available through: British Journal of Management [Accessed 22 August 2012]. Graetz, F., 2000. Strategic Change Leadership. Management Decision [e-journal] 38(8) Available through: Routledge. [Accessed 22 August 2012]. Moran, J. W. and Brightman, B. K., 2001. Leading Organizational Change. Career Development International [e-journal] 6(2) Available through: Emerald Library. [Accessed 22 August 2012]. Ogbonna, E., and Wilkinson, B., 2003. The False Promise of Organizational Culture Change. Journal of Management Studies Review [e-journal] 40(5) Available through: Blackwell Publishing Ltd [Accessed 22 August 2012]. Paul, M., Lehaney, A., and Warwick, S., 1998. Modelling for Added Value. London: Springer-Verlag. Senior, B., 2002. Organizational Change. 2nd ed. London: Prentice Hall. Simms, H., 2005. Organisational Behaviour and Change Management. Cambridge: Select Knowledge Limited. Study, A., and Grey, C., 2003. Beneath and Beyond Organisational Change Management: Exploring Alternatives. Organisation [e-journal] 10(4) Available through: Sage Publication [Accessed 20 August 2012]. Bibliography Kanter, R. M., 1983. The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs at Work. London: International Thomson Business Press. Paton, R. A. and McCalman, J., 2000. Change Management: A Guide to Effective Implementation. 2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications. Read More