Change Plans and Projects with an Organization - Case Study Example

Change Plans and Projects with an Organization The human aspect of any company is perhaps the most important element that the organization possesses. Human capital - in terms of the personnel, their knowledge, potential and experience - is essential to the success (or otherwise) of any organization. Thus human issues need to be considered at the earliest opportunity before a change plan is developed. Some of the questions that need to be considered are, how will the changes effect the staff Who will institute the changes Is resistance likely among the employees Should new employees be brought in to institute change. The human element of the company will be implementing the change and also be influenced by it: this is why it is so important to consider it before formulating plans. The first element that should be considered is whether the plan being explored will bring more benefit than problems to the company (Wands, 2001). This might seem a self-evident factor, but at times change plans take on an inertia of their own. Time should be taken to see whether the change is really worth it. The second element will be the influence that the changes will have on the employees of the company, from the lowest entry-level employee to the CEO. As already outlined, such influence is essential to consider. The third element will be to brainstorm possible problems that may occur on implementation and to have contingency plans in place to deal with them. Internal human elements that may force an organization to change are many and varied in nature. First, the retirement or other departure of leading personnel, such as the CEO, a long-term manager or other key personnel, may bring about the need for change. This "forcing" of change should in fact be seen as an opportunity for new ideas, systems and outlooks to be instituted within the company. Another internal element may be dissatisfaction expressed, either individually or as a group, by a large proportion of the employees. External elements, like the internal, are many and varied. External elements may include the appearance of a new company in competition to your company that will offer perhaps better opportunities to your personnel (Gardner, 2001). Changes in the salary structure may be needed to stop employees being lost to the competitor company. Other external factors may be the availability of workers, maybe locally, but perhaps on the other side of the world, that can offer outsourcing possibilities in order to reduce costs. Thus many IT operations can be handled by offshore, outsourcing options such as the numerous software companies in India. General changes in worker habits outside of the company, including Union activities, may also influence a company to change. As with the internal factors, the changes need should be seen as an opportunity rather than a weakness or necessity. Positive things may come out of apparently negative circumstances. The first task of the leader will be to explain the change in as coherent and sympathetic a manner as possible. It is likely that many employees are largely technically illiterate and so a good degree of coaxing will need to be done. This explanation should not be conducted in a condescending or paternalistic manner, but rather as if the employees were equals within a team. Indeed, this is the way the leader should regard them anyway. Workers who are treated as drones have the natural tendency to act that way. Second, an excellent training program will need to be implemented that will enable all employees to become as efficient as possible on the new technology. One idea would be to have departmental leaders who are trained to train others on the technology. These should not be at the managerial level, but rather be experienced store-level employees who are trusted by the others. This way the employees can 'fail' while learning and not feel the need to hide their failures or not explore the reasons why they have failed. The training program will be developed at the corporate level, but implemented at the store level. A good deal of communication between the higher and lower levels needs to occur so that feedback on the training can occur efficiently and changes made accordingly. In the initial stages of technology implementation, constant encouragement and support for employees needs to be given. Many failures and problems are bound to occur, but these should be regarded as opportunities for learning rather than as personal failures on the part of the employees. The leaders should understand the technology better than any of the employees. Thus trouble-shooting at the individual level will be enabled. Leaders should act as conduits for information to flow from the actual experience of the technology to the upper levels of management at the store level and then through the corporate structure. Similar to the training program, the corporate leadership needs to listen to the low level middle managers and departmental managers who are actually experiencing the program in practice. Theory and practice often disagree on such matters (Kusmierek, 2001). Two models seem highly appropriate for the changes within a company. These are the infomatics model pioneered by Reed Gardner (1998). He suggests that "the success of a project is perhaps 80% dependent on the development of the social and interaction skills of the developer and 20% or less on the implementation of the hardware an software technology." This model stresses the importance of the human-technology interaction within any change based upon technical innovation. This is very important when considering change within a company. The second appropriate model is the resistance theory, which, as Kusmierek (2001) suggests, is the attempt to understand and addresses resistance from employees within a company to organizational change. This is particularly important within successful companies that have had long-established and highly successful business practices. Change may not be seen as needed by employees, and thus may be resisted. Change management is one of the most important aspects of any business strategy. The human element of change is often underplayed or frankly ignored within businesses seeking to use the latest models and systems to improve their performance. As Baloqun et al. (2003) suggest, strategic change can move beyond merely the formulation of strategy by a consideration of the whole process from planning through to implementation. Change management does involve "managing" and thus control, but also the realization that change is often an organic process that develops in unexpected manners. Baloqun's most important idea, one that moves beyond traditional change management, is that it should move beyond the "formulaic" and "linear" process that has previously dominated the models. Context-specific analysis is an interesting variation on the normal modeling process, as it seeks to enable the manager to see that which is specific to her company rather than that which fits into the models. The change kaleidoscope involves dissecting the possible ramifications of change, while always keeping in mind the overall strategy that is in place. The manager must develop what Baloqun refers to as "change judgment": that is, the ability to understand the critical features of a specific change context. The important element here is to recognize what is and what is not possible within change implementation. A manager involved in change management first needs to be aware of what exactly is happening at the given moment within the business, and then needs to be able to extrapolate possible outcomes based upon that awareness. The first premise of planning is having as much knowledge as possible. The type of planning which is now occurring has changed radically from that envisioned in the traditional business model. As John Byrne puts it, "gone are the abstraction, sterility, and top-down arrogance of the old model." (Byrne, 1) Now managers in the most successful corporations are part of a system in which "today's gurus of strategy urge companies to democratize the process", and they do this "by handing strategic planning over to teams of line and staff managers from different disciplines." (Byrne, 1) Often young, junior managers who are noted for their creative thinking are teamed with near-retirement, senior managers who essentially have nothing to lose and so can tell it like it is. So from the most junior to the most senior manager there is a role, both for planning within their own specific area of the business, but also for constant consideration of how that may effect longer-term and more far-reaching plans. This is the democratic and enrolling type of leadership that is increasingly seen as the most successful in the modern business environment in which change is constant. Planning is perhaps the central role of all managers, because all the other functions flow from it and must always consider their relationship to it. A business without a plan has no future, and so all the other functions will be redundant. Organization within a business is essential to planning: in one sense it is one of the tools that may be used to realize a plan. Organization is divided into two basic areas: control/co-ordination of tasks, and the management of information flow within the company. Management of tasks and deciding what information needs to be collated and to whom it should go is essential for business growth, particularly for the vital task of leadership development. Organization involves investing in "human capital, the most important asset inside of organizations today." (Carter, xi) Managers, especially at the highest level, must organize the tasks of their employees so they meet with current expectations of productivity and contribute to the goals of the overall planning that is constantly occurring. Tasks must be clearly defined, and yet managers must also allow for individual talent and creativity (which be necessity may create new "tasks" previously not considered) to come to the fore. This is particularly the case with the implementation of a new technology, when the employees of a company may be trained on specific new processes and duties, but must be allowed to bring their own unique perspective to the table. A number of change theories are useful when considering change within a company. The first theory to be discussed here will be one of the first modern attempts to explain change form a theoretical viewpoint. Watzlawick et.al. (1974) published their revolutionary ideas on change based upon past ideas, mainly from mathematics. They offered a theory which explained change in terms of first-order and second-order changes. First-order changes are a variation in the way that processes and procedures have been done in a given system, leaving the system itself relatively unchanged. Examples of these changes include creating new reports, creating new ways to collect the same data and refining existing processes and procedures. Second-order changes occur when the system itself is changed: a "redefinition" or "reconceptualization" (Watzlawick, 1974, p.1) of the business of the organization occurs. . _______________________________________ Works Cited Ackoff, RL "The Management of Change and the Changes it requires in Management". Systems Practice. 1990; 3 (5): 427-40. Baloqun, Julia. Exploring Strategic Change. Prentice-Hall, New York: 2003. Boak, G. Thompson, D. Mental Models for Managers. Century Business Books, London: 1998. Gardner, Reed. "Keynote Lecture". Proceedings of the Computer-based Patient Record Institute Conference. CPRI, 1998. Gardner, Donald. Dunham, Randall. Management and Organizational Behavior: An Integrated Perspective. Southwestern College Pub, London: 2001. Kusmierek, Kristin. "Understanding and Addressing Resistance to Organizational Change". Managing Institutional Change and Transformation, University of Michigan: 2001. Mintzberg, H. Westley, F. "Cycles of Organizational Change". Strategic Management Journal, vol. 13, pp.39-59 Wands, Marion. "Critical Success Factors: e-learning solutions". Deloitte Consulting. February, 2001. Read More