Crisis, Change and Creativity in Organisations - Essay Example

CRISIS, CHANGE AND CREATIVITY IN ORGANISATIONS] CRISIS, CHANGE AND CREATIVITY IN ORGANISATIONS Planned change is a type of change that is predetermined by an organisation’s top management. The proposed change of activities is meant to make an organisation achieve some desirable objectives, which may not be achievable without a change of organisational operations. Therefore, planned organisational change must be initiated by management. In this essay, a critical analysis is carried out to determine how planned change programs may be harmful to an organisation. This takes into account, the ethical and political issues that change agents face. In addition, the essay critically analyses managers’ better preparation for unpredicted, unintended outcomes and possible harmful consequences of change. This provides insights that enable various stakeholders to understand approaches or techniques for managing change and the limitations of these approaches or techniques, when they are applied. All business organisations are required to adapt to environmental conditions, which keep on changing because the global business environment is highly complex and competitive. This means that organisation have to initiate various changes so that they can maintain their competitiveness and profitability. Examples of organisational changes are mergers and acquisitions, implementation of new technologies, downsizing, outsourcing, restructuring and introduction of new programs such as Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing, as well as Business Process Management. There is a need for organisational leaders and stakeholders to understand how change occurs so as to ensure that the change process is properly managed to ensure organisational effectiveness. Organisational change is a process through which an organisation copes and moves from the present state to a desired state in response to dynamic internal and external factors that alter current realities (Singh, 2005, p, 4). It involves movement from the known to the unknown. Strategic change is the change that impacts a large part of the organisation while incremental change affects some components of an organisation. Organisational leaders face a problem when seeking to maintain congruence of the components of an organisation in the organisation system during the implementation of change (Ramanathan, 2009, p, 20). This is because they have to ensure that there is harmony between departments and organisational stakeholders. During a planned change process, disharmony between various organisational departments and stakeholders normally occurs. This reduces the pre-existing congruence within the organisation. As a result, coordination is tampered with and this reduces organisational performance. Given that the main objective of any planned change program is to enable an organisation to cope well with the changing environmental conditions and sustain its competitiveness, a decline in organisational performance is a harmful consequence of planned change programs. It is better for an organisation to maintain its current performance than to seek an improvement in performance through planned change programs only to be adversely affected by a significant decline in performance due to unexpected outcomes. Planned change programs are perceived as strategies for organisational improvement. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, misrepresentation may occur during the entering and contracting stages of planned change during the building of the consulting relationship. This means that change agents may not communicate the objectives of the change program. When organisational employees lack full information regarding the proposed change, they may resist and fail to cooperate. This is harmful to an organisation. Therefore, there should be openness, but change agents should ensure that they do not give out inappropriate information because it can be harmful to the individuals of an organisation (Cummings & Worley, 2009, p, 63). This is because when inappropriate information is given out to organisational stakeholders, they are misled and they also make wrongful interpretations, which may result into reluctance in cooperation leading to low performance. Planned change programmes of an organisation may be harmful to such an organisation when unintended outcomes surface. Normally, change agents do not plan for any negative outcomes such as resistance to change or lack of cooperation while designing organisational change programs. Existence of ethical dilemmas in organisational change and development activities for both the client system and the consultant may be harmful to the organisation (Champoux, 2011, p, 468). This is because clients and other stakeholders become reluctant in supporting the change consultants because of the existing ethical issues. Though planned change programs are associated with adverse effects on organisational performance, it is imperative to note that intentional strategic change is helpful in organisational adjustment to environmental conditions, preparation for the future and reduction of external dependence as well as improvement of overall coordination for better performance (Trinh & OConnor, 2002). This is because change programs are solely designed to respond to environmental changes and enable an organisation to cope. Therefore, when team members accept the change and cooperate with management, organisational success is achieved. On the other hand, planned change programmes are associated with interruption of an organisation’s operations and activities. This means that organisational change interrupts the normal, day to day activities of an organisation. At times, it tampers with an organisation’s legitimacy. When organisational change is met with resistance, due to organisational inertia, an organisation faces limitations of adaptive flexibility (Trinh & OConnor, 2002). Lack of adaptive flexibility renders an organisation ineffective in adapting to changes that occur in the business environment that is normally characterised by stiff competition. As a result, an organisation performs poorly and is unable to maintain its market share and competitive position. It should also be noted that planned change programs are associated with alterations of roles and relationships within an organisation. In particular, change can alter stability and clarity of organisational roles and relationships. This is because there has to be realignment and renegotiation of formal pattern of relationships and policies. After a change of programs is implemented, new roles emerge and existing stakeholders are required to perform new roles and create new relationships. This is because the structure of work within an organisation is completely altered. As organisational members seek to adopt into the new system, stability and clarity of such roles is low because they have not become used to the new roles. In addition, organisational stakeholders are also not conversant with the new relationships that surface due to change. This affects cohesion among teams within an organisation, which also reduces performance. This is a harmful effect on an organisation, which arises from planned change programs. In addition to destabilization and destruction of clarity of organisational roles and relationships, planned change programs can cause interpersonal conflict and leads to loss. As a result of change programs, which are normally initiated by top management of an organisation, some stakeholders may lose meaning and purpose within the new organisational structure. This loss of meaning and purpose may result from failure to let go the old attachments. In most cases, workers are used to an organisation’s tradition and the old way of doing things and they are never ready to adopt new ways. When such a resistance exists, then it becomes very hard for old organisational employees to leave their old working patterns and adopt new ones. The conflict that ensues leads to low performance. Without proper training and orientation, employees lack proper meaning in the new system because they are not yet competent in performing the new roles. Planned change in an organisation involves activities that are meant to change individuals, groups and organisation structure and process (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2012). If these goals are not achieved comprehensively, then planned change programs are most likely to be harmful to an organisation because performance is adversely affected. To overcome such challenges, change agents should embrace innovation. It should be noted that innovation and acceptance of the problems as opportunities are requirements of planned organisational change that always lead to real improvement when pursued appropriately (Stojkovic, Kalinich, & Klofas, 2012, p, 418). According to Marsee (2002), change stresses culture and creates uncertainty. It alarms culture keepers of an organisation. Culture keepers are those people who observe traditional ways of doing things in an organisation strictly. Such people are never willing to adopt new ways of doing things within an organisation, even when top management proposes so. When an organisation that is undergoing a planned change has a significant number of such employees, resistance may lead to low performance of the organisation. Planned organisational change is limited by its assumption that organisations operate under stable conditions. The perception of change as a process with linear characteristics is wrong because change is often faced with resistance (Ramanathan, 2009). Therefore, when change agents assume that an introduction of a change program will be successful and go ahead to implement the program without consulting all the stakeholders, negative consequences are most probable. Resistance to change should be addressed first, before any new or change program is introduced. Other factors that can lead to harmful effects, after the introduction and implementation of planned change programs should also be considered. In addition, planned organisational change may be harmful in cases where organisations operate on less than the brainpower that is available. This is so in cases where workers and middle level managers do not understand decisions that are made by top management (Johnson, 1999). Therefore, top management and change agents place expectations on employees that too high than their capability. Change agents should understand that organisational change involves broad understanding of alterations that occur within an organisation by individuals and groups. Therefore, they should involve both individuals and groups while implementing the change process to avoid harmful effects on the organisation. Regressive change can be harmful to people whose identities are closely tied to the organisation (Kezar, 2001, p, 129). This is because regressive change is sudden, meaning that change agents might not involve all the stakeholders, leading to low organisational performance. Culture of an organisation that is not unique is likely to create pressure, which emanates from external groups and weaken the influence of an organisation’s top management because such a culture may have strong meaning and values. This is because in such a case, managers compete with other groups as they seek to define what is correct and good for an organisation (Alvesson, 2013). Such pressure may lead to harmful effects on organisational performance. In spite of the aforementioned effects of planned change programs, which are harmful to an organisation, there are various ways in which change agents can ensure successful implementation of planned change programs. Therefore, planned change should be accompanied by training. An organisation should have a training committee, which is responsible for the designing of the training approach. Training activities should be sequential, rhythmic, varied and continuous (Dimock & Devine, 1995). This means that training sessions should follow each other logically, and altered when necessary to ensure that they are beneficial to all stakeholders. Organisational leaders and change agents should ensure that they embrace consultative management style because it contributes to problem solving, decision making, flexibility and creativity in an organisation. In some case, change decisions are made at the top management level of an organisation. This means that the change process has to be communicated from the top to the bottom of the organisation. However, such change cannot be forced on bottom level employees. In cases where the bottom level employees reject the change approach, failure is most likely to occur. Therefore, at times planned change is harmful to the organisation, if not well planned and implemented. Organisations adopt various strategies so as to cope with crises and manage profound change. Some organisations respond to environmental changes that affect their performance in the market in a timely manner. The leaders of such organisations ensure that the response is also efficient. Timely responses to a crisis facilitate adequate mitigation of the negative effects of a crisis to avoid loss to an organisation, which may affect organisational performance, in turn. Relevant stakeholders are involved in such response plans and necessary training is implemented to incorporate competence among the organisational members. To overcome resistance to change successfully, there should be clarification of communication of the problems that are inherent the current situation so as to enable people realise that the current way of doing things is faulty. Therefore, organisational stakeholders should have to open their eyes and look forward to change (Sage Publications, 2014). In addition, managers should involve all employees of the organisation in the change process. This facilitates communication and builds ownership of the change programme. When organisational stakeholders are involved in the implementation of change, they feel included and perceive themselves as owners of the change program to be implemented. This motivates them to work hard to ensure that the organisation succeeds. Further, sufficient time should be allowed to people to adjust (Sage Publications, 2014). Change does not take effect on people instantly. It takes some time for people to adjust and adapt to the new structure. Therefore, creative organisational leaders should allow stakeholders to adjust so that they can fully participate in the change process and support the new organisational structure for success. Culture is an important element that determines the success of change within any organisation. According to Harris and E. Ogbonna (2002), managers, especially, middle level managers are required to possess values that may enable them convince other people or employees of an organisation to accept change. This means that such employees agree to alter their culture for the sake of planned organisational change (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2008). They should be persuasive enough so as to convince others. They should employ an appropriate response to cultural change and act in the right manner so as to communicate to their subordinates on issues pertaining to cultural change. Management style and organisational culture should focus on openness, learning, delegation, trust, cooperation and mutual exchange (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2008). Due to the presence of various beliefs about the intentions of planned change, initiatives may result into unexpected consequences. For instance, top management can initiate change whose main aim is to create an organisation that is more customer-focussed, but other employees such as middle level managers may reinterpret or reinvent the expected values that have been communicated by top management in their own way. As a result of this, such employees may interpret that the change is meant to reduce their power and that the new or proposed working conditions are meant to exploit them more. People are known to respond to a cultural change in an ambiguous way (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2008, p, 43). Unintended consequences refer to the unforeseen or unpredicted results to an action, which are often negative in nature. Change in organisations may be undermined by an unintended consequence, which either slows or stops the change program 37 (Harris & E.Ogbonna, 2002, p, 37). Cultural change cannot be implemented at will, but it has to be carried out as an incremental change. Separately, cultural variety, differentiation and variety affect the coherence and meaning that culture builds among individuals. Therefore, management should be capable of influencing beliefs, values and meanings of the subordinates so as to change culture (Alvesson & Sveningson, 2008). Culture can be easily changed, if the change emanates from the top management of an organisation. Culture involves in depth interpretations that take a very long time. Given that it is very difficult to ascertain the effects that organisational change has inculcated on individuals, it may be difficult to ensure cultural change. Cultural change in large organisations is often associated with problems because it involves a large number of stakeholders (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2008). According to Kolb, continuity does not predict that successful adaptation results from using a continuity strategy. Instead, continuity is the first adaptive strategy of most people (Kolb, 1990). History is very significant because future change relies on the current resources. Appropriateness is ideal in creating organisational change because it is linked to creative rereading or misreading of the past (Kolb, 1990). Therefore, change agents should critically analyse an organisation’s past performance and its current resources before initiating a planned change process. Therefore, continuity can be sustained and organisational flexibility in adaptability achieved. Change is normally associated with conflict. It is therefore, expected that conflict may surface during the process of organisational change. Top management is therefore, required to ensure that they sustain continuity of organisational operations. They should also control or reduce disruptions that result from the change process. However, when there are disturbances, management can utilise that opportunity to re-establish firmer control (Holden, 1996). This means that management capitalise on the disruptions that an organisation faces so as to create better relationships between employees and introduce new roles, which can contribute to organisational goals achievement. Managers and other top leaders within an organisation should ensure that they incorporate risk and business continuity in the design of strategic planning and planning processes. Many organisations incorporate business continuity planning during the wrong stage of the change process. However, in order to attain successful organisational change, business continuity management should be integrated into management practices (Graham, Kaye, & Rothstein, 2006). It should be noted that cultural change is a vital element of business continuity management. Some traits and behaviours are necessary for organisational change. For instance, trustworthiness and competence are employee behaviours that influence their perception about their managers’ credibility. These traits are related to cynicism. In turn, cognitive, behavioural and affective cynicism influences organisational commitment (Kim, 2009). Therefore, top managers should ensure that their actions are competent enough to guarantee trustworthiness from other employees. Though organisational change programs may be planned, ethical issues arise from the process of organisational change in the role of change agents and in the ethical outcomes of the unfreezing and re-freezing process. As far as the role of change agents is concerned, they should ensure that they create interventions that have the highest likelihood of helping in a particular situation. They should also ensure that clients and other stakeholders are fully informed about the change. The promise of unrealistic outcomes can lead to failure (Woodall, 1996). Therefore, change agents and management should not create unrealistic expectations during the change process because it eliminates the aspect of unanticipated problems. This means that the re-freezing phase of the planned change process will be irrelevant because there will be no unanticipated problems and side effects to be addressed, with an aim of maintaining positive changes. References Alvesson, M., 2013. Understanding Organizational Culture. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S., 2008. Changing Organizational Culture: Cultural Change Work in Progress. Abingdon: Routledge Publications. Champoux, J. E., 2011. Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. Abingdon: Routledge Publications. Cummings, T., & Worley, C., 2009. Organization Development and Change. Stamord : Cengage Learning Press. Dimock, H., & Devine, I., 1995. Training for Planned Change. North York: Captus Press. Graham, J., Kaye, D., & Rothstein, P. J., 2006. A Risk Management Approach to Business Continuity: Aligning Business. Brookfield: Rothstein Associates Press. Harris, L., & E.Ogbonna., 2002. 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