Resistance to Change Phenomenon as a Positive Force for Organisations and Individuals - Essay Example

Resistance to Change Phenomenon: A Positive Force for Organizations and Individuals Introduction Resistance to change is one of the important aspects of organizational behaviour. In the ever changing business scenario, individuals and organizations experience constant changes in technology, customer perception, market structure, demographics and in socio political realm. Naturally, it is expected from individuals and organizations to strive to cope up with the change in order to ensure sustainability in their workplace. However, it is experienced that individuals tend to oppose any modifications in workplace or struggle with transformations that may require readjustment of their status quo. Hence, resistance to change may be defined as an emotional behavioural response of the employees involved to the expected threats in terms of changes to be established in work place (Cameron and Green, 2012). Discussion Resistance to change is one of the basic traits of individual characteristics. Generally, individuals become accustomed with the complexities in the workplace and this habituation restricts the individuals to adapt the changes. Such confrontations drag individuals to react in a manner which shows the way of resistance to change (Cho, 2013). Therefore, in order to apply changes in an organization, the management should recognize the nature of resistance they are going to face and accordingly choose strategies to address such resistance (Grieves, 2010). Reasons for resistance to change in individual level constitutes of a no. of factors. The most important factor is job security of the individual. High need for security drives individuals to resists changes. Generally, changes like technological up gradations leads to retrenchment. Hence, jeopardy such as job losses restricts employees to welcome changes. Economic factors also contribute towards resistance to change among individuals especially when wage is closely related to productivity. Individuals fear that they won’t be able to meet expectation or perform the new task as per the standards and eventually that will lead to job loss or cut off in payment. Ambiguity or uncertainty about the change at workplace creates dilemma among the employees in terms of whether they will be able to perform their duty properly or not. This dilemma further develops a negative attitude towards the change. Structural changes often involve elimination of autocratic positions. Hence, strong resistance is often triggered from top to middle level managers as well. Individuals also resist to changes if they foresee that the existing system of work is more rewarding as compared to the changed system to be established. Sometimes, set of structural and cultural norms prevailing in a group for a very long time restricts the individuals among the group to react positively towards any kind of organizational changes. In most of the cases, change is required when individuals working in the organization exhibit some practices which are no longer appropriate for the culture of the organization and to accept such changes, individuals are required to come out of their comfort zone. Also, adapting new set of rules involves considerable time and energy. These hinder the path for acceptance of changes to a great extends (French, 2011). Resistance to Change in Organizational Level is also an important aspect of organizational behaviour. The complex structure of organization makes it so conservative that it becomes difficult to react actively towards any changes. Hence, implementation of structural or cultural changes of an organization as a whole requires great persistence and patience (Sucozhañay, et. al., 2011). Reasons of resistance to change from organizational perspective can be attributed as structural inertia of the organization, limited focus towards the change, group inertia and many more. An organization formulates its policies, structures and work culture according to its existing processes- technologies used, criteria of recruitment, methods of training and developments, all are designed in a way that leads to best productivity. In such circumstances, when changes become important to introduce, the company fears of losing that structural inertial. When decisions for organizational changes are taken, the emphasis shifts towards the changes itself where importance should be given on the requirement & relevance of change from organization’s perspective, taking into consideration the worldwide changing business scenario. Organizations consist of a large no. of interdependent subsystems. Hence, introduction of changes in one system largely affects the other systems. Further, changes may be accepted by some individuals in the work force but certain departments or group may act as constraints towards the change by influencing the individual to resist the changes. As a result of running their operations over a long period of time, gains expertise in some specialized fields. While implementing changes, organizations suffer from the dilemma of whether such structural changes lead to continue their expertise on those specific areas of operations. Organizational changes involve restructuring of long practiced power authorities which may lead to establishment of participating decision making. This acts as a potential threat for the top management. Managing sizeable resources in a cost effective manner proves the potential of the organization. Hence, introducing changes such that technological up gradation leads to decomposition of the existing resource allocation. In this case, management faces uncertainty on the ground that re allocation of resources may require increment in budget or employee lay off (Harvey and Broyles, 2010). Change is inevitable. Though it is next to impossible to completely eliminate the risk of resistance in individual level, following factors should be considered to minimize such factor (Robbins, Judge and Campbell, 2010). The top management level should communicate changes as soon as the decision has been made. They should take this action much before rumours regarding the change spread out through grapevine. Individuals should be made understood that the changes are decided to introduce for their own benefits. In other words, individuals should be communicated how the recent changes can well off them. This will lead to eliminate anxiety & fear among the employees. After communicating the change programs, the organization should ask the existing employees who are considered to be the asset of the company, for further suggestions. This may serve the problem in two ways. The employees will understand that they are still important for the company & the company will get valuable insights from their experienced resources as well. Relevant and adequate training program should be scheduled before implementing any process change so that employees feel confident about the work process. Organizations may counsel relatively aged and backward employees to boost their confidence level further. The management can select some of the employees from their work force and involve the group of individuals into the change management planning process. This group, in turn, to be directed to communicate the change process among the employees. The change process is expected to be more acceptable while communicating through the employees themselves. The organizations can also put forward examples of other corporate which have experienced similar structural changes in the recent past and as a result enjoying the benefits of such changes at present. This will incorporate faith and confidence among the workforce, eliminating the uncertainty regarding the future. Many social and corporate strategists have contributed significantly towards the theory. Among them, Lewin’s Change Management Model is considered to be the most prominent model in this regard (Pluta, 2011). Lewin’s Change Management Model states that it is important to understand the requirement for change way before implementing the change process into the organization. The theory consists of three significant stages: Unfreeze, Change and refreeze. Unfreezing involves understanding the requirement for initiating the change. Requirement of change needs analysis of changing business environment, technological upliftment and other economic and socio political factors affecting business (Reiss, 2012). his step is of utmost importance in change process as it defines the stakeholders of an organization that how the changes can improve their status quo, enhance productivity, profitability and earn competitive advantage in the market. Availability of such information reduces the extent of resistance among individuals. Figure 1: Lewin’s Change Management Model (Snape and Redman, 2010) The next phase, change, is the transition phase for an organization where changes are implemented in actual terms. This phase involves maximum uncertainties among the individuals. Hence, successful execution of this phase largely depends on successful implementation of unfreezing as employees show lower level of resistance if the requirement and long run benefits of the change are clear to them (Griffin and Moorhead, 2010). The final stage of the model is refreezing which ensures reinforcement and stabilization of the newly introduced change process. New organizational norms, rules and regulations are also established. Moreover, refreezing restricts an organization and its employees to revert back to their old structure (Reiss, 2012). Conclusion In this contemporary complex business scenario, change management and employee resistance to change is the key issues that almost every organization is facing today. The process change and resistance forces are pervasive. While legitimate efforts to regulate resistance to change may produce long enduring result for an organization, failure of managing the resistance to change can be devastating. Now further analysis will be presented from thoughts of reflection to draw inference of this discussion (Vogelsang, Townsend and Minahan, 2012). Word of reflection Resistance to change is a crucial factor in any change process. Therefore, managements’ expertise relies on its ability to control the force effectively. Now, to analyze this factor I would like to establish the relationship between the resistance and organizational inertia. During the course of research we have experienced that resistance to change is most powerful in case of strategic changes in the organization as compared to the evolutionary changes. This is mainly because strategic changes often involve communication barriers, silence of top management and capability issues which in turn creates doubt in the mind of individuals working in the organization regarding their economic security. Therefore, organizations should be aware of all these issues and address them well in advance. This will help the management to control resistance to change effectively, much before those issues appear to be critical for the organization (Zimmermann, 2011). Another inference we can draw from the discussion is that in order to ensure stability of the organization, managers should examine the scope for incorporating changes. They should take calculative measurements on how much changes can be incorporated that the organization can absorb and use for further applications (Peccei, Giangreco and Sebastiano, 2011). Figure 2: Organization’s perception of change according to time (Snape and Redman, 2010) Further analysis also shows that time is another contributory factor for planning, implementing and manage change within the organization. In practical applications as well, proper timing of introducing change minimizes risk of uncertainty and resistance forces. Hence, from my impartial point of view, we can conjecture that an individual who is very reluctant to the change process, if properly interpreted the reasons behind change, may react moderately afterwards and eventually revise his perception about the change process. Therefore, the discussion can be concluded by stating that resistance to change, though an inevitable phenomenon, if properly managed, may result in sharp growth, profitability and prosperity in the long run for the organization (Sverdlik, 2011). Reference List Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2012. Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Cho, S., 2013. Critical Pedagogy and Social Change: Critical Analysis on the Language of Possibility. London: Routledge. French, R., 2011. Organizational Behaviour. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. Grieves, J., 2010. Organizational Change: Themes and Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffin, R. and Moorhead, G., 2010. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Boston: Cengage Learning. Harvey, T. and Broyles, E., 2010. Resistance to Change: A Guide to Harnessing Its Positive Power. New York: R&L Education. Peccei, R., Giangreco, A. and Sebastiano, A., 2011. The role of organisational commitment in the analysis of resistance to change: Co‐predictor and moderator effects. Personnel Review, 40(2), pp. 185-204. Pluta, J., 2011. Human Progress Amid Resistance to Change. Ottawa: Friesen Press. Reiss, M., 2012. Change Management: A Balanced and Blended Approach. Amsterdam: Books on Demand. Robbins, S.P., Judge, T. and Campbell, T., 2010. New York: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Snape, E. and Redman, T., 2010. HRM Practices, Organizational Citizenship Behaviour, and Performance: A Multi-Level Analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 47(7), pp. 1219-1247. Sucozhañay, D., Sigüenza, L., Zhimna, C., Cattrysse, D., Euwema, M. and Witte, K., 2011. Change Management Strategies for Successful Implementation. IATED, 1(1), pp. 1051-1060. Sverdlik, N., 2011. Ambivalence toward imposed change: The conflict between dispositional resistance to change and the orientation toward the change agent. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96 (2), pp. 337-339. Vogelsang, J., Townsend, M. and Minahan, M., 2012. Handbook for Strategic HR: Best Practices in Organization Development from the OD Network. Washington DC: Amacom Div American Mgmt Assn. Zimmermann, N., 2011. Dynamics of Drivers of Organizational Change. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media. Read More