Organizational Change and Development - Assignment Example

 Abstract The function of change management is to bring about transformation into the way an organization performs its functions, either through technological changes, policies and procedural changes, changes in practices and hierarchical reporting etc. This is a complex process requiring extensive planning, involvement and engagement, risk assessment, and effective leadership. The present discussion focuses on change management concept from the perspectives of reasons that could lead to its failure and aspects that are required to be included for its success. Popular change management concepts and models, as appropriate, have been referred to in the discussion as a support and a base for the argument. This discussion identifies three perspectives, people, approach and method of change implementation at broader level that impact change management process. What does a critical perspective regarding change and change management entail? Change Management concept: Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, is known to be the first person who touched upon the ‘changing’ nature of the world, in his words, “you never step into the same river twice,” (Cameron & Green, p.10) and “all is in flux” (Stetson & Conti, p.29). This concept is equally apt to the world of business with increasing competition, meeting customers’ expectations, and finding new opportunities for growth in business, career and sustaining the competitive edge in the changing markets (McGrath & MacMillan, 2005). Organisations will have to embrace these challenges in order to sustain in the competitive world. In order to achieve their goals, while catering to the changing demands of the industry, organisations adopt strategic changes, appropriate for achieving every single objective. These strategic changes are meant to bring about radical or transformational change to the established ways of working from both organisational and employee perspectives. Nevertheless, bringing about change at workplace, whether structural, procedural, technological or financial, in order to improve the situation or for better business results entails more efforts than planning the change and its implementation. The forces that cause organisations to opt for radical transformations could be external such as technological advancements, government regulations, increasing competitiveness, and/or changing demands; and internal such as organisational bureaucracy and complacency. Usually, implementing change is impacted by factors such as time and investment required; impact of change on financial performance of the business; return on investment; intensity of improvement; and importantly, its impact on the end customers. At an organisational level, planning for the change and change management as a responsibility rests with, or is the function of, specific project management team or division, but its implementation at an organisational level requires involvement of various, or all, other functions/departments failing which the proposed change itself may fail. This failure can be disastrous to the organisation or business and/or to the people associated with the change and the organisation, which includes all stakeholders, i.e. employees, customers, and all shareholders. Therefore, bringing about a change should equally be balanced by the way change is being managed in order to succeed. Michael Dell believes that companies that learn to manage change are in the best position to continue to take the risks needed to stay out in front (cited Matejka & Murphy, 2005; p.19). Managers and people responsible for change management are required to understand the concept of change and its process from different perspectives in order to successfully achieve the objective of change. On a broader level, these perspectives should include aspects at individual level, team/group level, and functional level; secondly, perspectives of approach, reach and intensity of required information; and finally, method of change implementation and involvement, and risk assessment and control measures. In Gill’s (2006, p.323) words, ‘change requires effective management: clear objectives, planning; organising roles, responsibilities and resources, and compatible and supportive corporate policies, practices and systems; monitoring and control. To begin with the individual’s perspective, Cameron and Green (2004; p.36) indicate that the humanistic approach to change include concepts which have not been included in the theories and systems of management; these include love, creativity, self-growth, self-actualization, higher values, being, becoming, responsibility, meaning, transcendental experience, peak experience, courage and related concepts.’ At an individual level, this concept becomes extremely important for change implementation because it necessitates the need for awareness of change; understanding from the individual’s perspective and corresponding behaviour; and overall impact of the individual’s actions towards the change impacted by the sociocultural influences. They have identified five distinct factors that influence an individual’s response to change which include nature of the change, consequences of the change, organisational history, type of individual and the individual’s history. Secondly, ownership and responsibility of bringing change to effect lies with every individual associated and/or directly or indirectly impacted by the change process unlike planning the change process that may involve only certain function. This, sometimes, may involve all the employees of the organisation. Causing ‘change’ to happen requires all associated people to attain some sort of learning, which could be learning something new, adjusting to new methods of working, management styles, new expectations, desired objectives, new goals, etc. In this context, Buchanan and Huczynski (1985) define learning as ‘the process of acquiring knowledge through experience which leads to a change in behaviour’ (cited Cameron & Green, p. 11). However, very often this responsibility along with the learning or information associated with the change is viewed as the work of a specific group, function or individual. For instance, organisations tend to hire consultants for planning and implementation of desired change. Evidences suggest that the top executives including the CEOs limit their involvement in the change management process, expecting the consultant or project management team to run the entire show and deliver desired results (Hiatt & Creasey, 2003). A critical understanding of individual behaviour based on humanistic approach to change management indicates a variety of expectations from an individual involved in and impacted by change. In combination with individual ownership and responsibility towards change management, individual’s role and behaviour strongly impacts the objective. When individuals are kept unaware of the process of change and/or its overall impact with respect to themselves and the organisation, these humanistic concepts remain unsatisfied, which in turn tend to surface in different forms, the most common reaction being resistance to change. Resistance could result due to lack of information, understanding, motivation and ability to relate to the changes. Also, concealing information and not revealing all facts and/or expectations to the key people involved in the change can cause loss of trust and credibility in the management and system. This, in turn, spreads negative word of mouth and negative attitude among the key people. Usually, the key people who can effectively bring about the change by abiding by the new process and/or policies include front line employees and the first line leadership. Evidences suggest that information related to the change is either incomplete or diluted at the front-line group reducing transparency and lack of appropriate understanding of how they will be impacted by the change. Also, their insight into the organisational objectives and performance is low, thereby unable to connect to the impact of their role in the organisation’s performance. These situations give rise to rumors, misunderstandings, demotivation, and insecurity with respect to job, career and pay; eventually, it causes loss of tenured employees, reduction in productivity and quality of work, and resistance. Kuber (1996) identified specific reasons for resistance to change, which can be closely associated with humanistic approach model. These include, lack of conviction that change is needed; dislike of imposed change; dislike of surprises; fear of the unknown; reluctance to deal with unpopular issues; fear of inadequacy and failure; lack of know-how; disturbed practices, habits and relationships; lack of respect and trust in the persons promoting change (cited Gill, 2006; p.324). Typically, these reasons can be attributed to the individual as well as the teams because the experiences and understanding of specific individuals become contagious, thus spreading through the team. At a team level, it should be noted that the team’s responsiveness to the change or a new project can include a variety of reactions based on individual thinking processes. If the supervisors or the managers are unaware of this fact, there is high possibility of considering the team as dysfunctional. This could lead to a complete failure of implementing the change or could result in undesirable consequences (Lewis, 2005). Myer-Brigg’s Type Indicator (MBTI) model for identifying personality types has been one of the most successful and widely accepted models to assess individual personalities and thinking processes. With respect to change, Green (2007) points the fact that this model proposes that different personalities address and respond to change in different ways; and organisations themselves can be seen to exhibit the personality traits of their individuals, which in turn affect how they will respond to change. The MBTI identifies four distinct personalities: the thoughtful realists, the thoughtful innovators, action-oriented realists and action-oriented innovators; all of these equally play their role in all aspects of change, beginning from planning and including communication, involvement and its implementation. Although, positivists view these distinct personality types as complementary to each other, the natural and routine cynicism of humans will create conflicts before any positive move. Arnett and Arnesen (1999) refer to routine cynicism as the non-thoughtful attitude of people demonstrated through mistrust, non confidence, despair, suspicion, judgment, manipulation of thoughts and words meant to achieve either selfish motives, superiority, individual goals, wealth and power, or even mislead the other party. Routine cynicism has become the reality of modern relationships in all spheres with very little room for humility in the form of an un-assuming nature with respect to assessing individuals or situations. Countering the routine cynicisms of different personalities within a team is a difficult job that can be handled only by a true leader through humility, which is the most important quality required for leaders to take an unbiased approach to deal with changing situations and people. The same issues are attached to change management within different functions in an organisation. From an approach perspective, change management requires a systematic and well-planned structure based on diagnosis of sources and reasons for change; appropriate communication; identification of types of change; appraisal of identified change with organisational culture; identification of and preparation to potential hindrances to change; allocation of finance, time and responsibilities appropriately (Matejka & Murphy, 2005). Each of these steps involved in change management plays significant role in its success; hence, has to be appropriately planned, from beginning till the end and accordingly monitored. Evidences suggest that initiation of change usually happens on a grand note, but the change stalls midway due to various reasons (Mourier & Smith, 2001). Changing one aspect of organisational functioning requires addressing a myriad of tasks, and ignoring even one task can lead to failure of the project. For example, in case of mergers and acquisitions, organisations should address process management, cultural alignment, as well as structural alignment. Another aspect of approach includes employees’ perception and experiences. Mourier and Smith (2001) pointed out one research that indicated visible support from the sponsor throughout the project as a key factor highly correlating with project success. In addition to well-planned and well-managed change system, change management should also include alignment of corporate policies and practices with the strategies for change (Gill, 2003). More often, leadership plays a significant role in change management in terms of communicating with the teams, articulating the goals, motivating the staff towards change by addressing their concerns and clarifications, generating commitment and retaining employees, challenging and energizing the staff for new roles and responsibilities, and proactively addressing the resistance factor. Also, creation of an urgency for change has to come from the top executives of the organisation who themselves must be personally committed to bring the change and sustain it. Schein’s model of a successful change process defines three stages, namely, unfreezing/unlearning stage, learning stage and refreezing/internalizing stage (Cameron & Green, 2004; p.49). Schein identified four types of fears associated with change: fear of temporary incompetence to the new situation; fear of punishment for incompetence; fear of loss of personal identity; fear of loss of group membership. Assuming that these anxieties result in resistance, Schein suggests specific ways to deal with the situation of change implementation all of which point toward communication, involvement, and leadership support. Hence, transformative change requires leadership’s active role, besides effective planning and implementation practices. Gill’s (2003) research explains that change management fails due to poor planning, monitoring and control, focusing more on the objective than on the steps and process involved, a lack of milestones along the way, and failing to monitor progress and take corrective actions. This research also points out at a very interesting fact about change management that could lead to its failure; lack of vision. Kotter (1995a) identified that although organisations recognize a need for change and draw interesting change management plans and procedures, they fail to assign a compelling statement of what is to be achieved, leading to confusion and resistance (cited Gill, 2003). Emphasizing the importance of management in bringing about change, Gill’s study listed five key factors driving change, based on a survey of 259 executives from different companies in the USA. These factors, in the order of priority, are leadership, corporate values, communication, teambuilding, and education and training. This study proposes exclusive leadership qualities required for successful and sustainable change management; these qualities include vision, values, strategy, empowerment, and motivation and inspiration. Gill (2003; p.317) asserts, ‘change requires good management, but above all it requires effective leadership.’ Finally, change management process experiences risks in various forms. Organisations opt for change to improve the current situation to a better one, either through adoption of latest technology, new policies and procedures, or to change internal organisational structure. As the transformation is from old to new one, the possibility of potential risks cannot be ruled out. Although organisations anticipate improvement in the situation through change, risks in different forms crop up apart from the reasons that could lead to failure of change management. These risks include technological incompatibility or failure, misinterpretation of regulations, incongruent practices, changing customer demands, quality standards, impact assessment, cost and budget constraints, reliability and validity of information acquired etc. Risks related to change management also depend on the extent and size of change and the organisation, respectively (Hiatt & Creasey, 2003). In conclusion, considering all the critical points discussed, it can be inferred that change management is essentially a multidisciplinary function. It is not a distinctive management practice or tool that can be achieved through specific plans and strategies. A holistic view of change management designates three phases, i.e planning, managing, and reinforcing change. The planning should be strategic in terms of visionary, goal and/or objective, impact, risk assessment, and timelines. The managing part is much more complex as it has to focus on people’s responses, involvement and engagement, acceptance and commitment, and motivation. From a management perspective, managing phase of change management requires communication plans, coaching and training, sponsorship plans, and people engagement plans. Management has to recognize that ‘leadership’ is the key component for successful change management. Leaders play a major role in reinforcing the need for change, motivating their people towards the change, and in achieving the desired objectives. Finally, assessing the progress and results of change at every step will help in reinforcing change management system and also in drawing appropriate plans to sustain the change management efforts. Failure to follow or implement any of these aspects could lead to failure of the project/change intended, which may surface in the form of project delays, resistance, lowered employee motivation, employee turnover, lowered performance and quality, customer dissatisfaction, etc. If change management is viewed as a concept of strategic or tactical management, and not including the ‘people’ factor, which is usually the case, it is bound to fail. for understanding human expectations and behaviour towards change management, leadership is the most important requirement. References Books Arnett, R.C and Arnesen, P (1999). Dialogic civility in a cynical age: community, hope, and interpersonal relationships. U.S.A: SUNY Press. Cameron, E and Green, M. (2004). Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools & techniques of organisational change. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Gill, R. (2006). Theory and practice of leadership. London: SAGE. Green, M. (2007). Change management masterclass: a step by step guide to successful change management. Great Britain: Kogan Page Publishers. Hiatt, J and Creasey, T.J. (2003). Change management: the people side of change. U.S.A: Prosci Publishers. Lewis, J.P. (2005). Project planning, scheduling, and control: a hands-on guide to bringing projects in on time and on budget. 4th ed. U.S.A: McGraw-Hill Professional. Matejka, K and Murphy, A. (2005). Making change happen on time, on target, on budget. U.S.A: Davies-Black Publishing. McGrath, R.G and MacMillan, I.C. (2005). Marketbusters: 40 strategic moves that drive exceptional business growth. U.S.A: Harvard Business Press. Mourier, P and Smith, M. (2001). Conquering organisational change how to succeed where most companies fail. Georgia: CEP Press. Stetson, B and Conti, J.G. (2005). The truth about tolerance: pluralism, diversity, and the culture wars. U.S.A: InterVarsity Press. Journal: Gill, R. (2003). Change Management –or change leadership? Journal of Change Management. Henry Stewart Publications. Vol.3, 4, pp: 307-318. Accessed January 4, 2010 from, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=103&sid=83e5797f-289d-4952-bedd-25289bdeed65%40sessionmgr114 Word count of essay: 2510 words (10 pages) Abstract: 123 words Read More