Planned Change Programs May be Harmful to Organizations - Essay Example

Planned Change Programs May be Harmful to Organizations Introduction It is general knowledge that change is inevitable for every organization (Cheremisin & Davletshin, 2010). Change is a fundamental aspect of all business enterprises. Change help in restructuring the organization and mending some loose end in an effort to improving the organization (Marion, 2011). Nevertheless, change is not always accompanied by positive implication. Planned change programs can sometimes be harmful to the business organization. To some point change causes a lot of damage to the organization (Cheremisinoff & Davletshin, 2010). Organizational change management enables stakeholders and organizational members to adapt to the sponsor’s new mission, vision, and systems. It also helps identify sources of resistance to such changes. This way, the sponsor can know how to minimize any form of resistance. Organizations area always working towards maintaining a state of change, irrespective of whether such changes are episodic or continuous. Change often create stain and tension in an organization’s social system. Therefore, an organization must always strive to adopt to this tension to be able to evolve. Organizational change and transformational planning is the coordinated management involving change activities that affect users. It is imposed by altered or new business policies, procedures and processes, and the systems being implemented by the sponsor of the organization. The objective of organizational change is to effectively transfer skills and knowledge to enable users to be able to adopt and implement the sponsor’s new mission, vision, and systems, as well as to minimize and identify sources of resistance to the change that is introduced. This paper seeks to critically discuss the view that planned change programs may be harmful to organizations. It is common for every organization that is interested in maximizing its profit to have well-structured organizational plans. Nevertheless, not all planned change works for the best interest of the organization in question. In fact many planned changes are considered to be of great harm to many organizations (Marion 2011). Nevertheless, research shows that there are available alternatives to planned changes. Planned changes are essential to better position the extension organization and focus on client needs and moving forward in sustainability programs (Marion, 2011).. Reorganization provides a framework for longer-term commitment to organizations and sub units are being encouraged to put work teams in place to ensure that each sector integrates staff and services into a cohesive, focused business unit (Cheremisin and Davletshin, 2010). Consultation and participation are believed to be essential for the successful development and implementation of organizational goals and objectives (Cheremisin and Davletshin, 2010). Each work team is asked to develop an effective process for discussion of major challenges and opportunities facing the organization, if possible, over the next decade. Updated strategic plans are then developed (Marion, 2011). In addition to this, these plans form a framework for focusing organizational resources on the most strategic fields by using a well laid out approach. Updated strategies are implemented by workers at all levels of management in many organizations, 90 percent of the work force is provided by the human beings (Marion, 2011). In human effort, changes occur with many types of clients. These are; the individuals, families, groups and communities. Mostly, for a change to be more effective and efficient, it must be accompanied by a well thought out and researched process (Marion, 2011). More so, planned change can as well be distinguished from other changes that arise from factors such as insight or emotional experiences. In accordance to this, there are many reasons as to why many organizations head would prefer planned change (Cheremisinoff& Davletshin, 2010). One of the main reasons is to cope with the competition from other competing organizations. Many CEOs usually establishes companywide programs that pusses change down through the organization (Marion and NE, 2011). They develop a performance appraisal system, a pay for performance compensation plan. Some even go to the extent of developing training programs so as to transform managers to “change catalysts” (Cheremisin and Davletshin, 2010). A planned change is qualitative in nature, it has direction, purpose and in every change process, the adoption rates vary (Marion, 2011).The process of change involves some basic steps. There is the initiation, motivation, diagnosis, collection of information, deliberation, proposal implementation and lastly the stabilization. In the last step, stabilization, that is where problems start arising (Marion, 2011). This step is a proof that planned change does not necessarily bring positive implication to the organization. Nevertheless, despite too much effort in trying to develop change, there are usually no fruits and at times the change is on to the extreme, contrary to their expectations (Marion, 2011). The main reason for change to not be effective as expected, is the fact that many organizations head make assumptions- about who should be the leader of the proposed change, what is actually needed change and more so, how to go about implementing the changes (Cheremisin and Davletshin, 2010). In addition, the processes of change usually come with great impacts on the functioning and structure of the organization and the people working within that organization. A case study, using a macro model of an organizational change, provides a structure for the analysis (Cheremisin & Davletshin, 2010). The model is based on the significance of the stimulus for the organizational change, the target for such of changes and the type and stages of change implementation in an organization. Planned change becomes disastrous to an organization mostly when it encounters resistance mostly from the member of staff (Marion, 2011). It has a range of negative implications which includes, lowered morale. When member of staff, of an organization, does not meet the requirements that come with the proposed change they usually resist the change (Marion, 2011). They usually feel less optimistic, become hopeless about their profession future with the organization. Consequently, this caused a reduced morale (Marion, 2011). More so, planned change lessens the efficiency of the employees. When employees focus on their inability to cope with the proposed planned change, they become less focused on doing their duty (King, 2010). This leads to a reduced level of output. This in return affects the company bottom line. Planned change usually causes a disruption in the working environment. It sometimes causes commotion with violence regarding the changes and a negative attitude in regard to the managerial staff. This kind of commotion usually causes great unrest among all members of staff (Marion, 2011). Alternatives to planned change It is evident that planned change has served many organizations poorly. In regard to this, it should a core role for every organization to come up with other alternative strategies that would drive change down its system defiantly (King, 2010).since change is an inevitable factor for every organization; Planned change- when done appropriately can be exactly the right tool for any organization (Marion, 2011). Organization heads should focus on the question that need answers and not go on with the planned change blindly. This improves the clarity and gives the change process meaning. Getting every member of the organization on the same page is another key aspect. Usually, the idea of change comes from the senior staff. Crisis arise when these senior member of staff pusses the change without consulting or minding the other member of stuff down the hierarchy. The aspect of communication plays another major role in this part of the process. When the idea of change is communicated to the other members, the chances of rebellion from them are minimized (Marion, 2011). Planning is another key aspect that should be considered as an alternative to planned change. It involves determining the organisational goals and objectives. Planning begins with the creation of a philosophy consisting of a statement describing the values, beliefs and altitudes of the organization. Planning gives the organization heads a clear view of what need to be given first priorities in the implementation of a well laid out planned change. The use of creativity in enhancing plan strategies. The organizations managers increasingly face a creative and innovation dilemma when it come to the application of creativity in the plan strategies (Marion and NE, 2011). A good example is the effort made by managers in food production processes. Managers sell more with fewer new products in an environment where new products are providing lower revenue yields. Therefore, understanding what drives successful innovation is a key aspect associated with creativity of paramount importance (Marion, 2011). A case study suggests that the organizational innovation hypothesis is a function of individual efforts and organizational systems to facilitate creativity toward innovation to facilitate plan change. Our model formulates creativity as a property of thought process that can be acquired and improved through instruction and practice. In this context, individual creativity mechanisms refer to activities undertaken by individual employees within an organization to enhance their capability for developing something, which is meaningful and novel within their work environment (Henkoff, 2006). Organizational creativity mechanisms refer to the extent to which the organization has instituted formal approaches and tools, and provided resources to encourage meaningfully novel behaviors within the organization (Marion, 2011). The results of many case studies suggest that the presence of both individual and organizational creativity mechanisms led to the highest level of innovation performance in coming up with good plan strategies. The results also suggest that high levels of organizational creativity mechanisms (even in the presence of low levels of individual creativity) led to significantly superior innovation performance than low levels of organizational and individual creativity mechanisms (Marion, 2011). The study also presents managerial and academic implications. This study suggests that it is not enough for organizations to hire creative people and expect the innovation performance of the firm to be superior. Similarly, it is not enough for firms to emphasize management practices to enhance creativity and ignore individual mechanisms. Although it is true that doing either will improve innovation performance, doing both should lead to higher innovation levels (Henkoff, 2006). Our understanding of what and how creativity influences innovation performance can be greatly enhanced by additional research that integrates the intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of creativity. Research that examines the role of team creativity efforts in enhancing innovation performance is also vital to an overall improved understanding (Henkoff, 2006). In addition to this, metaphoric reasoning and thinking plays a major role in helping in the strategic management. The clause, “time is money” has been largely used as a metaphor to explain the aspect of time management in many organizations. This use of comparison to express ideas and solve problems is usually very effective. By thinking about time as money, senior staffs create a powerful image. They see any time wasted as money down the drain. This helps in maximizing the available working hours (Verbeke, 2013). Apart from maximizing working hours, the use of metaphor has helped in explaining complex ideas regarding the managerial positions as well as the clerks. In addition, it has also helped in creating impact and improving communication in an organization (Marion, 2011). Downsizing and its consequences in a business enterprise. In a business enterprise, downsizing is the reducing the number of employees on the operating payroll. Many techniques have been used to enhance downsizing (King and RO, 2010). These include, providing incentives to take early retirement and transfer to subsidiary companies, but the frequently used technique is the termination of employment of a certain number of people. Every year thousands of companies lay off their workers in the hope of enhancing organizational efficiency, reducing cost and improving organizational performance (Verbeke, 2013). Research on the impact of downsizing, however, is inconclusive and a large number of companies rather than become “lean and mean, often end up lean and lame” as a result of downsizing (Henkoff, 2006). In this paper we focus on the impact of employee downsizing on organizational innovativeness. A number of scholars have demonstrated the importance of innovation to organizational competitiveness in the current challenging and rapidly changing business environment (Brown and Eisenhart, 2011). The Resource Based View (RBV) and dynamic capability literatures consistently refer to organizational innovation as one of the critical organizational capabilities for achieving and sustaining competitive advantage Considering this, during layoffs and downsizing is not the time for organization leaders to retreat to board rooms and private offices to plan the future (Marion and NE, 2011). After a downsizing, or following any major change, for that matter, leaders must be visible and accessible. Layoff survivors need to interact with their supervisor and the organization leaders on a daily basis so as to show their gratitude, for being left in action (Marion, 2011). Leaders may have to listen to people express pain and sadness. As a leader, listen; really listen, without judging or trying to solve the problem. You can’t. You can only use each conversation as an opportunity to re-emphasize the necessity for the downsizing. You can speak positively about the vision, mission and plans for the future (Marion and NE, 2011). You can thank each individual for pitching in and making the changed organization an even more effective and inviting workplace after layoffs. At the same time, managers and supervisors must be strong leaders, decisive yet participatory. You must inspire confidence, at this time, so people feel you can be depended upon as they take the first steps into the unknown future. This kind of relationship would in any case reduce negative aftermaths caused by downsizing. Change in the organization culture. Any change in an organization affects the organization culture directly or indirectly. Organization culture is the behavior of humans who are part of the organization. It includes the organization values, vision, norms and working languages among many more (Marion, 2011). It affects manners in which individual and groups interact with each other, clients and with the customers. Considering this, when planned change takes place it is known to alter this interaction in an organization (Marion, 2011).This affects the organizations collective values, beliefs and the members of staff principles. More so, organizational change usually fails (Marion, 2011). One major reason is that leaders do not know how to deal, manage and lead change (Henkoff, 2006). Thus for change to be effective, the ability to manage change should be made a mandatory skill for leaders in every industries and sector of the global economy (Marion, 2011). Conclusion In conclusion, it is evidence that planned change does not necessarily cause positive implications as assumed by many. For every change process to be successful and meet the organization requirement there is need to employ more improved strategies. These strategies are mostly ignored or assumed by many heads of the organization as being insignificant in the process. The aspect of communication, involvement of every member of the organization in the process and having a well laid out plan are the key strategies that should be incorporated. Other factors in the organization like downsizing should be put in to consideration. Their consequences and their effect on the organization and the employees should be looked at deeply before the action of downsizing is undertaken. In addition to this, any effort toward improving the organization and maximizing profits should be given first priorities. The use of metaphor may seem absurd to many but to those who have used it, it has proved to be of great relevance. References Business in Spain for Everyone: Practical Informations on planned change. 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