Successful Change Management - Literature review Example

Leadership and management Table of Contents Introduction 3 Definition of Change 4 Individual and Organization change 5 Resistance to change 8 Conclusion 9 Reference 12 Introduction Change is an order of the day. When we think of Indian history, where we study about the Mughals, thereafter came the British and now it has become a free country. In the society, also there was federalism, thereafter came kingship and then the democracy. Now throughout the entire Middle East there was changing dictatorship or democracy. In the same pattern, businesses do also change in various ways. It might be from proprietorship to partnership then again to private limited to limited company. Hence, change is a continuous process in an organization. It acts as an effective tool, which helps the organization to achieve its goals and objectives. Change is possible only when the employees are ready to accept the change. Therefore, change leads to transformation from the old state to new state, which helps an organization to understand its external and internal conditions. (Collett, n.d.). Successful change management requires employees support and top management support. When the change cannot be managed in a systematic way, there will be decline in productivity and quality. Therefore, while implementing the change generally people are not mentally and physically fit to accept the change because employees are shifting their old way of doing the things and thus there will be lack of confidence and disloyalty among the employees. Last but not the least change will lead to increase in absenteeism. In case of effective change management there will be increase in productivity and organization standard, the employees will start contributing ideas and providing solutions towards the problems, employees’ interest and motivation level rises up. Hence, effective change management is required in profitable organization in order to compete in the competitive market and maintaining its competitive market position for a longer period. In order to cope up with the changing world an organization must adopt the change and help its employees to develop their new skills and attitudes. Definition of Change According to Henri Bergson a French philosopher, change is required in order to exist in the competitive market. To exist in the competitive market, organization needs to bring behavioural change in employees in order to help them to adjust in the new organization culture. Therefore, change focuses on creating new product. For example, Tea Gardens, Jute Mills etc are lucrative organizations but they have been changing from hand to hand perhaps because the new ones are not competent like the earlier ones. That is how changes are continuously going from years to years. Change always requires an extra effort to learn new things since it provides an opportunity to people to feel responsible towards the accomplishment of work. From the theories and models of the change management, we generally develop our understanding on planned organization change. According to Kotter’s framework, change management focuses on increasing the employee motivation and encouraging him/her to adopt the change (Heathcote & Taylor, 2007, p.2-7). The reason behind the successful organization change is strong leadership and educating the employees about the change that will occur in day-to-day activities of the organization. Kurt Lewin represented three-stage process of change in order to bring the change in organization. His model is, known as Unfreeze- Change – Refreeze. At the Unfreezing stage, the managers educate the people about the change. A clear communication process is required to make the employees understand that change happens for their betterment. The next stage process of change is the movement from the old state to new state, where people start to accept the change, which leads him to a new direction. At this stage, employees need to know how the change will benefit them. At the Refreezing stage, the change is required in everyday business activity, which forces the employees to adjust according to the new changes introduced in the organization (Lewin, n.d.). Individual and Organization change Changes can take place at both individual and organizational level. The reason for such organization change takes place when the present management cannot adopt with the system. The basic fact is that the aim of any business or any organization is the ultimate profit. Readily we can see the cases of West Bengal State Transport, West Bengal Tramways Company and many others were considered the most profitable sterling companies once upon a time. However, all these organizations are now in complete doldrums. The only reason behind this is organization failure. Therefore, change requires a vision and a good leader to help the organizations overcome from the drastic changes and failure. Good leaders are required to implement the change programs in organizations and helping the employees to overcome from their fears so that they can adjust in the new changing environment. Organization change model follows a structured pattern of work. Then the next change process is followed by different policies and procedures through which the business activities are conducted in a systematic way. After that, managers need to diagnose the circumstances and problems, which take place in the organizations and reengineering the process and procedures in order to implement the change process in a structured way. In many organizations, group building acts as an effective tool in enhancing the skills of the each individual group and managing the group by motivating them to contribute new ideas in the organization. Many individuals in successful organization have developed their skills in refining the structural and group skill building among which there are few individuals in these groups who are lacking the speaking and the listening skill, but these skills can be overcome by the practices of mindfulness and creating grounded presence, which will help the employees to develop the leadership qualities. Thus, the group building approach helps the individuals to develop a mind presence by practicing martial arts training and mindfulness meditation (Dooley, 1998, p.1-4). The theories of individual and organization change helped many organizations to deal with the change in an effective manner. The Kurt Lewin three step change model helped the organization to create a balance in the direction of planned change, the driving and the restraining forces which facilitated the planned change and thus the impact of the change pushes the employees in the desired and opposite direction. The next is the social cognitive theory through which the individuals are able to learn by their direct experiences and observation in the organization. The social cognitive theory proposes that behavioural change affected by the personal factors, environmental influences and behavioural attributes. Thus, this theory will help the individuals to learn and possess the self-efficacy, which is the most important determinant of a person’s behavioural change. Therefore we can find that Lewin’s model is rational and goal oriented, so it does not take into account the personal factors and environmental influences whereas social cognitive theory focus on changing the behaviour of the individuals. However, different theorists Kurt Lewin, Lippitt, Watson and Westley have contributed their own observations towards the change management (Kritsonis, 2004-05, p.1-2). The most effective theory will be the Lewins three-step model in the organization since it forms an integrated approach in analysing, understanding and implementing the change at the organizational, group and societal levels. The organization development theory uses the Lewins three-step model, which involves breaking down of old tasks, behaviour and attitudes towards the new way of doing things and establishment of new routes. However, the change management depends on the situation where we can find various organizations applying the Lewins three-step model of change or Social cognitive theory, so it is important for managers to know how to overcome from the resistance of change. Apart from Lewins three-step model and Social cognitive theory there is another model, applied in organizations, that is American John P. Kotter’s eight steps to successful change. Kotter 8 step change model followed by, the first step increase urgency, which means inspire, and influencing the people to make the objectives real and relevant. The next step followed by building a guiding team, which means fitting the right people at the right place with the perfect mixture of skills and attitudes. Then the next step is getting the vision right, which means establishing a simple vision and strategy. After that, the managers need to communicate for buy-in, which means involving many people as possible and communicating to them the vision and goals. In the next step managers taking empower in action in order to remove the obstacles, providing feedback and receiving support from the leaders. Then the organization need to focus on creating short term wins which signifies, vision that is simple and able to achieve and finishing the current strategies before starting new ones. Followed by the next step do not let up, which signifies never lose hope when the employees are motivated to adopt the change in the organization. Last but not the least is making change stick which means reinforcing the value of successful change via recruitment procedure, promotion and new change leaders (Kotter, n.d.). Therefore, these steps will help an organization in managing the change and these eight steps are generally effective when an organization have a plan to expand its business or acquiring the new talents. For example companies that have gone through individual and organization change followed by Toyota, which is currently changing the organizational climate to renew the culture of quality and efficiency. IBM, which is now a leading service provider. Last but not the least the South – West airlines adopted the cost leadership strategy in order to retain its position as a market leader in the global market. Resistance to change According to Lorenzi and Riley, people are adaptive to change when the things move according to them but difficult to adjust with those things that let them feel uncomfortable in the new environment. Therefore, resistance to change is an ongoing problem in an organization. It is a particular action taken by the individuals and groups when they accept the change, it results to threat, and thus it reduces the productivity, quality and relationships. Organization change is always essential to survive in a competitive market. Since in a competitive market organisational change cannot be effective without the full commitment of everyone involved or affected. Effective handing for change management had been beneficial in some companies like IBM, South-West Airlines in strengthening their market positions (Lorenzi and Riley, 2000). Resistance to change is affected by two reasons. Firstly the change leads to negative consequences which often leads to people react negatively towards the organization change and more likely to leave the company voluntarily when his mind is filled with thoughts of fear and doubts. People often resist change since the change disrupts a person’s habit. Secondly, risk tolerance is another factor, which is the reason behind the resistance to change. Researchers have found that people who are expert in their jobs ready to accept the change and have the willingness to perform under the new system. Thus, resistance to change might be positive in some instances and useful for the people who are committed to organization (New Charter University, 2012). Tactics for overcoming the resistance to change are summarised as first tactic education and communication shows resistance to change need to be communicated to the employees in order to make them understand why change is needed in an organization; and generally the communication is a one to one interaction which can be done through group meetings, discussions. Second tactic is participation, which encourages the employees in participative decision-making. In participative decision making style the employer tries to obtaining the commitment from the employees in order to reduce the resistance to change. Third tactic is facilitation and support, which indicates the change agents are the ones that can provide support to the employees when they are suffering from fear and anxiety. Therefore, at any particular point of time employee consulting and training will be the useful technique to reduce the resistance to change (Exploring HR Management, n.d.). Conclusion In my opinion, the new management should see that its management staff is so wee equipped that it can take any challenge in the areas of engineering, financial and marketing. The basic fact is that in the matter of HRD there should be no compromise, which makes the organization unable to recruit the best talents from the market. We should not also forget that finance is the nucleus of the industry, since in each area of activities there is adequate internal control, which cannot be manipulated. According to Abhijit Shankar (2006), Marketing Consultant Globalization, privatization, acquisitions and mergers are some of the revolutionary changes, which are occurring in the organization now days. The objective of change management is to maximize the output and productivity of an organization. Change Management is a discipline, which controls especially the IT industry sectors in order to overcome the problems relating to infrastructure and other things. It also helps to maintain a balance between the expected loss and impact of the change. While implementing the change, small groups are created since in larger groups the discussions on a particular topic will not be effective. Thus, to deal with effective change, good communication technique is required in order to communicate the changes to the employees and create a sense of ownership among the employees to improve the decision making process. (Shankar, 2006, p.1). Different models of change help the organization to deal with the employees, managers, customers, stakeholders etc. Hence, change Management is not an easy work since it has to deal with diversity of the workforce, application of certain policies in new objectives and goals set by the organization and processes, which in turn bring changes according to the advancement in technology and equipment. So managing the change is important in an organization to help the employees become accustomed to the new changing environment, which brings rapid advance in technology and uncertainty of the risk associated with the business environment. Change must be flexible enough to adjust easily in the new organization climate and therefore it requires good planning to make an effective decision making system. Hence, change management is an effective tool to handle the organization problems and strengthen the competitive market situations (Shankar, 2006, p.3). Reference Abhijit, S. (No Date). Change Management. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.cgn.net/pdf/Change_Management.pdf. [Accessed on April 23, 2012]. Collett, J. (No Date). Change Management. [Online]. Available at: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/arossett/pie/Interventions/changemanagement_2.htm#top. [Accessed on April 23, 2012]. Dooley, J. (1998). A Whole-Person/Systemic Approach to Organization Change Management. [Pdf]. Available at : http://www.well.com/user/dooley/change.pdf.[Accessed on April23,2012]. Exploring, HR. (No Date). Organizational Analysis. [Online]. Available at: http://www.explorehr.org/category/Organization_Analysis/Organization_Development.html. [Accessed on April 23, 2012] Heathcote, E. & Taylor, P. G. (2007). The potential contribution of change management literature to understand and support student transitions. [Pdf]. Available at: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/10082/1/10082.pdf. [Accessed on April 23, 2012]. Kotter, J. (No Date ). Kotters’ 8-Step Change Model. [Online]. Available at: http://globalliteracy.org/content/kotters-8-step-change-model. [Accessed on April 23, 2012]. Kritsonis, A. (2004-2005). Comparison of change theories. [Pdf]. Available at : http://www.nationalforum.com/Electronic%20Journal%20Volumes/Kritsonis,%20Alicia%20Comparison%20of%20Change%20Theories.pdf. [Accessed on April23, 2012]. Lewin, K. (No Date). Change Management Model. [Online]. Available at : http://www.change-management-coach.com/kurt_lewin.html. [Accessed on April23, 2012]. Lorenzi, N. M., & Riley, R. T. (2000). Managing Change. [Online]. Available at : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC61464/. [Accessed on April 23,2012]. New Charter University. (2012). Organization Behaviour. Flat World Knowledge. [Online] Available at: https://new.edu/resources/resistance-to-change. [Accessed on April 23,2012]. Read More