Winning Hearts and Minds: Overcoming the Obstacles to Change - Essay Example

Teacher Winning Hearts and Minds: Overcoming the Obstacles to Change Change is tough. Especially if change involves the transition from normalcy to a tough time where stress could run high and everybody negatively affected. This is my experience during the previous financial crisis when organizations are on the defensive to weather the tough times ahead. There are three aspects that I witnessed where my organization fell short of the ideal in handling it. These were the action steps 7,8,9 which were about rewarding behavior in support of change, provide people time and opportunity to disengage from the old and develop and communicate a clear image of the future state.

The organization failed to reward behavior in support of change because it did the opposite. Employees then realize the need for the organization to adapt to the crisis but instead of reciprocating this support, employees were left in the dark and were fired. It also failed to provide time and opportunity to disengage from the old as work was abruptly cut without notice. There was no lead time for remaining employees to absorb or even understand the change. Many were in their old routine and did not even know the new schedule.

Lastly, the organization did not communicate a clear image of the future state such as how long the cutting cost measures will last and how should the organization become once the crisis is over. This inadequacy to identify future prospects was a very demotivating that many employees left the organization even if they were not retrenched and even if jobs were tough to find during that time.