A Critical Analysis of Organizational Change - Essay Example

A Critical Analysis on Organizational Change Organizational development is part of the change that is needed by the groups and companies. In the stage of change, the company must have great leaders who will consider the overall welfare of the organization and not just the goals of the organization. Leadership can be done collectively by all members of the group to ensure higher efficiency and cater personal growth at the same time. All conflicts should be resolved quickly to reduce the damage that may result from them. A Critical Analysis on Organizational Change Introduction Change is constant and nothing can stop change permanently. It is very much needed in present world as globalization progresses. Geographical barrier is the thing of the past in the surge of the information age. The internet allows people to share information without leaving their geographical location. People can conduct business anytime and anywhere. Changes in the environment are also rapid as the climate change, pollution and other forms of environmental degradation happen. Many prominent people in groups have advocacies to change the lifestyle of people to save the planet Earth. Likewise, change must also happen and inevitable in organizations. In order to survive, organizations must also adapt to their environment. In line with the change, a field of study exists to assist the organizations in their transition toward their future form. Organizational change focuses on how to systematically change the organization without suffering heavy losses and sustain its existence. In simple definition, “organizational change is composed of ‘new ways of organizing and working’” (Dawson, 2003, p. 16). It is part of a broader field of study which includes the growth and improvement of the organization that is called organizational development. The study is said to be: A systemwide application and transfer of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development, improvement, and reinforcement of the strategies, structures, and processes that lead to organization effectiveness (Cummings and Worley, 2008, pp. 2-3). After all behavioral science is very much needed in dealing with organizations in a systematic way since human beings are creatures of behavior. According to Porras and Robertson, organizational development can also be defined as: a set of behavioral science-based theories, values, strategies, and technologies aimed at planned change of the organizational work setting for the purpose of enhancing individual development and improving organizational performance, through the alteration of organizational members’ on-the-job behaviors (Jex and Britt, 2008, p. 474). Organizational development is very important in many aspects: it is concerned with the strategy and structural changes in an organization; it is focused on application of psychology concepts like behavioral knowledge and leadership; it is also concerned with maintaining a planned change; it is also part of the designing and implementing changes in the organization; finally it brings about the organizational enhancement. Organizational development is concerned with the strategy and structural changes in the organization since it aims to modify the techniques of the organization. It is focused on the program to support the changes in strategy (Cummings and Worley, 2008, pp. 2-3). Organizational development is also focused on application of psychology concepts since all members of the organization have the so-called psyche or soul and it affects the behavior of the members. The aspect of psychological and behavioral concepts being applied to the organization makes organizational development different from operations management and technological innovation because it is concerned with the social aspect of man. It is also concerned with maintaining a planned change through adaptive process rather than a very fixed and strict plan of how to do things like a blueprint. Such activity involves preparations on how to look and solve organizational problems in a flexible manner (Cummings and Worley, 2008, pp. 2-3). Organizational development is also part of designing and implementing changes in the organization through actions beyond the starting efforts of implementation of change program towards a long-term process of changing. Such aspect of organizational development is related to training and development approaches that maintain the new skills acquired by the members of the organization for their own growth and improvement of the group altogether. The aspect of organizational development is not concerned with institutionalizing the change. Lastly organizational development brings about the enhancement in the whole organization. Three dimensions are used to measure the performance or effectiveness of an organization: the adaptability of the organization, the performance of the organization, and loyalty of customers and external stakeholders while maintaining good workforce. The adaptability of the organization is concerned with the ability of the group to achieve the goals while solving the problems existing. On the other hand, the performance of organization is based upon its financial and technical aspects like sales growth, profits and the quality level of products and services. Maintaining the loyalty of the customers and having an improving workforce are both concerns of the last dimension in measuring the performance of an organization. The organization should be able to maintain happy customers while engaging in business and deals with other groups while improving the performance and motivating the employees (Cummings and Worley, 2008, pp. 2-3). In other words, organizational development has some concerns regarding the group. The existence of organizational development is on helping in the implementation of changes to both the organizational performance and individual improvement at the same time. Such a concern separates organizational development from organizational intervention which is primarily concerned only with the performance of the organization or the individual welfare of the members of the organization. Organizational development can be distinguished from organizational change since psychological theories are incorporated in OD while the concern of the organizational change is more of the techniques and information systems. The last focus is the development of the employees since change starts within each of the member of the workforce. The existence of organizational development is due to the concern of survival of the group and improvement of the poor performance (Jex and Britt, 2008, p. 474). The focus of the paper is on the systemic change that can be implemented to improve the efficiency of the organization as a whole and the change management approach will be described and discussed alongside with the experience and personal point-of-view of the author. The changes in the organization of the author are the main concern of the paper while identifying the key stakeholders that would be affected if ever the plans and strategies will be implemented. Discussion Change management approach and systemic nature of the organization would be the topics discussed concerning the organization of the author. Members of the organizations would adapt the changes to be made and they must be noted for the behavior that may change whether for positive or negative according to the change management approach. It is also important to be systematic in planning and implementing the change for the two actions are very vital for the survival and improvement of the organization. The very first consideration in the change is the leadership. Through the ability of the people in the organization to lead, the better the improvement will be. To have a concrete understanding of the change management approach, perhaps leadership must be defined first. The basic definition of leadership is having followers (Grint, 2010, p. 2). Basically leadership deals with people so it is the very core definition of leadership is about having followers. One may argue that a person can lead without other people. Such claim is true since a person needs to gain a certain level of self mastery in order to start leading other people. Through self mastery, self-leadership follows. Self-leadership starts from behavior-focused and cognitive-focused techniques. Behavior-focused techniques require personal goals and personal evaluation because the prerequisite to understand other people is to understand oneself. On the cognitive side of the self-leadership, it is a good practice to talk to oneself to increase internal awareness and personal beliefs. After such steps are done, people can become good leaders to their members in a group since they can start to teach and help others according to the past experiences as a self leader. Behavioral and cognitive techniques can be learned by the members through exploration and guidance of their leaders. The leaders may act as mentors or coaches to their subordinates. Leadership can also be formed through stewardship – that is about the control of the direction or path to be taken the organization to reach its goals (Raelin, 2003, pp. 65-66). In a formal definition, it can be said “that leadership is a complex social process, rooted in the values, skills, knowledge, and ways of thinking of both leaders and followers” (Gallos, 2008, p. 1). Leadership is like a communication which is a two-way process: the efforts of both the leaders and the followers. Also a leader is a good follower so in essence, everyone is a leader. Since it is said to be a complex social process, the boundary of leadership is sometimes hard to identify. It encompasses various areas of endeavors and very general in nature. According to Helton (1997), several factors are needed for the modern day leaders: vision, the skill to deal with change, self-mastery, core values, open-mindedness and trustworthiness. Although the factors were presented by Helton can be said to be important for leadership, there are still some traits that may not be included in the list but are also essential for leadership (Maddock and Fulton, 1998, p. 2). Leadership can still be studied and defined deeper using various points-of-view: position-based leadership, person-based leadership, results-based leadership, and processed-based leadership. Each kind of leadership is very important. Usually leadership is based upon spatial position that makes it to be a traditional one which is called position-based leadership. Such leadership activity is exhibited by people who are on top of the formal hierarchy giving him the power and resources to spearhead the group. People in position-based leadership are usually called “leadership-in-charge”. For person-based leadership, each person can determine whether he is really a leader or not. It depends upon his personality whether he exhibits what the ideal or usual leaders have like being charismatic. Sometimes leadership is considered to be a collective one instead of just having an individual leader. In such a case, many informal leaders emerge wherein they practice leadership by persuading their colleagues to work harder, do their best and also support the CEO through suggestions and opinions. Some may consider the results as the primary criterion for considering people as leaders. Who needs a leader who is just good in terms of theories? Actual result is a solid means of having the great influence and showing true leadership. The consideration of results-based leadership can also be problematic if it is just pertained to an individual. Perhaps the success of an organization can be attributed to the collective efforts of the members as well. The results do also matter or related to leadership if it is done by a bully or tyrant? The outside may seem to be good but how about the thoughts of each member towards the “leader” in such a case? It would seem to be problematic. Process-based leadership may focus on the procedures, methods and actions taken to make people follow as the basis of leadership (Grint, 2010, pp. 4-14). Leadership and organizational development are both needed in organizational change. For the situation according to the personal view of the author, systematic thinking would be important for a change in structure of an organization that will increase its product line. The organization is an internet technology company and the focus of the paper is on the technical support team which will increase a product line that may lead to promotion and changes in the position of leaders and members of the company department. The director of the technical support has three main managers under him namely: senior manager, overseas manager and senior manager. The senior manager was promoted from the technical support engineers to manage the product lines. Initially team of the senior manager has no subdivision and before he became a full-fledged senior manager the director still supervises the work of his team. Later on he has the full responsibility of managing his team. As the customers increase, the whole company must adjust and increase the product lines so the team of the senior manager and he needs to divide his team into two. He wants to promote one of his technical engineers to become a manager and the other product line would be managed directly by the senior manager. The problem is how will the change be implemented? It would be of big help to apply the systematic thinking for the situation based on the personal point-of-view of the author. Systems thinking is the study of complex systems as they exist even in organizations. A system is an organized body composed of parts that should coordinate in achieving certain goals (Mc Namara, n.d.). Considering the company or organization as a system should be the priority based upon the personal view of the author for it may help in solving disputes and boost the overall efficiency of the team. It is about settling of conflicts and working harmoniously to achieve common goals. In achieving common goals, it would be necessary to consider the five disciplines of systems thinking: personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning (Mc Namara, n.d.). According to personal point-of-view, self mastery is needed to build the leadership abilities and skills of individual employees. It would help the manager with his job so he can see the succession of leadership and can boost the overall performance of the team. Mental models are then used to simplify the concepts and for easier understanding of the goals and applications that must be done by each member of the team. Building shared vision strengthens the bond among the members of the organization so they can work together and achieve a common goal. They will be able to direct their efforts on the same directions using a shared vision. Lastly they should learn together as a team for it improves the camaraderie and the bond of the members. To solve the possible conflicts like a support engineer who does not like to report to the newly-promoted manager and wants to join the other production line team under the senior manager, the differences of the new manager and the support engineer should be discussed and considered thoroughly. The change approach should be humanistic psychology approach since such approach uses the psychoanalytic, behavioral and cognitive approach to change while developing its own style. The approach is concerned with the following: searching for the reason behind a surface behavior, checking at the actual person while trying out new things, accepting the importance of sense-making, using the creative juice, using the technique in both the group and individual, approaching the person in a holistic way, giving importance to gratification and individualization, letting the person experience to learn and change, and opening the possibilities to new paradigms and techniques (Cameron and Green, 2009, pp. 40-41). Conclusion Change is inevitable and organization should adapt to the change for the growth and development of its members. In the process of change, planning and implementing the change would not be easy. Humanistic psychology approach would be the best to deal with the change for it considers the well-being of the members and at the same time produces and recognizes the budding leaders. Collective leadership would enhance the change and the development of the organization and solve any problems and conflicts that may arise. References Cameron, E. and Green, M. (2009). Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change. Kogan Page Publishers. Cummings, T. and Worley, G. (2008). Organization development & change. Cengage Learning. Dawson, P. (2003). Understanding organizational change: the contemporary experience of people at work. SAGE. Gallos, J. (2008). Business leadership: A Jossey-Bass reader. John Wiley & Sons. Grint, K. (2010). Leadership: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Jex, S. and Britt, W. (2008). Organizational psychology: a scientist-practitioner approach. John Wiley & Sons. Maddock, R. and Fulton, C. (1998). Motivation, emotions, and leadership: The silent side of management. Greenwood Publishing Group. Mc Namara, C. (n.d.). Systems thinking, systems tools and chaos theory. Retrieved from http://managementhelp.org/systems/index.htm#anchor296937 Raelin, J. (2003). Creating leaderful organizations: How to bring out leadership in everyone. Barrett-Koehler Publishers. Read More