Change Management and Self Reflection - Essay Example

Change Management and Self Reflection Table of Contents Change Management and Self Reflection Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Sustainability Leadership: Co-creating a Sustainable Future 5 Rethinking Resistance and Recognising Ambivalence: A Multidimensional View of Attitudes toward an Organisational Change 7 Understanding the Role of Politics in Successful Project Management 9 Creating a Climate and Culture for Sustainable Organisational Change 11 Change Experience and Employee Reactions: Developing Capabilities for Change 13 References 15 Introduction I have started my profession in the year 1997 as a restaurant and hotel manager in Amsterdam and continued until 2003. At present, I am 45 years old and have vast experience in various professional fields. I started my business economics degree in the year 1994. During 2003-2006, I worked self-employed and was responsible for conducting trade between Europe and Middle East. Moreover, I was also associated with a labour agency. Followed by this I started working as a store manager in Netherlands, which I started in 2007 and continued until 2009. However, I pursued many managerial courses to learn, develop and improve effective managerial skills that are necessary to work efficiently as a store manager. My next job duration was from 2010 to 2012 when I worked as a public relation manager as well as general manager in a commercial company of the Middle East that used to conduct trade between Europe and Asia. However, after leaving the job, I started my business as a restaurant owner in Plymouth in UK and at present, I am still engaged with this restaurant profession. Thus, in order to gather the effective managerial and leadership skills along with entrepreneurial skills I am pursuing the course of Business Management from Plymouth and currently in my final year. Moreover, from my previous job experiences I have gathered various skills and techniques that help me to run my business effectively. However, in this paper I will be critically analysing five journals and relate the same with my personal life experience in business and management. However, in the following sections I am going to provide a SWOT Analysis about my personality regarding my managing abilities. STRENGTHS Managing people efficiently Efficient analysing skill Highly challenging Good motivational abilities WEAKNESSES Aggressive Develop Emotional attachment Short tempered OPPORTUNITIES Utilising the managing skills and techniques in current business Implement these skills in future business professions THREATS High aggressiveness creates negative impact on performance Sustainability Leadership: Co-creating a Sustainable Future Reviewing the article it can be understood that a Sustainability leader is someone who supports and inspires actions in the direction of a better world, keeping integrated focus on society, economy, technology, public policies and environment (Ferdig, 2007). Therefore, a Sustainability leader always concerns to benefit his stakeholders along with improving the lives of the people who are affected by his leadership and protecting the environment. However, the author has described in his article that a leader is highly responsible for the decisions and actions that he takes for wellbeing of an organisation and people (Ferdig, 2007). Even though, the profitability of organisation and stakeholders should be the first preference of a leader, but it is very essential to develop a concern for the environment and the society before making decisions. Therefore, after reading this article I came to realise that during my past years experience in my professions I have been in managerial positions in most of the jobs and therefore implementing these sustainability leadership qualities would serve beneficial for the employees as well as the organisation. I will therefore try to implement the qualities and skills of a successful sustainability leader in my present restaurant business that will help to prosper my business. For every business, the satisfaction of employees and stakeholders should be the primary objective. However, while taking important decisions related to the benefit of stakeholders and organisations, I will focus on the fact that the environment and society are not being negatively affected by my decisions. Moreover, the author has also stated in his article that “Instead of giving direction, sustainability leaders develop and implement actions in collaboration with others, modifying them as needed to adapt to unforeseen changes in the environment over time” (Ferdig, 2007). This represents that a sustainability leader makes actions and decisions after coordinating with others regarding the issue and even observes the dynamism of changes before making any significant decisions. It is not necessary for a leader to hold the formal position as that of a leader or a well-recognised social or political figure to become a sustainability leader. Any individual who possesses the responsibility of analysing and acting upon various complicated challenges of sustainability can be qualified as a sustainability leader. They often think beyond their self-interest and believe in the fact that every individual can co-create the future by their own ways of understanding, seeing and interacting. Sustainability leaders are highly courageous, realistic and aware of their operations this attracts and influences other people to work collaboratively for a better future. However, I would try to implement these qualities of the Sustainability leader that will help me to prosper in my existing restaurant business as well as benefit the customers and other stakeholders those are related with the same. Moreover, possessing these leadership qualities would not have a negative impact on the environment, society and economy by various decisions and actions that I take. Therefore, the author is highly successful in addressing the effective qualities and skills of sustainability leadership that would help in creation of a sustainable future. Rethinking Resistance and Recognising Ambivalence: A Multidimensional View of Attitudes toward an Organisational Change In this article the author, Sandy Kristin Piderit has provided a detailed discussion regarding the multidimensional attitudes of employees towards organisational changes (Piderit, 2000). From the past era, it is evident at organisational backdrop that employees always resist changes in the organisation that may be related to alteration of strategy or the prevailing organisational policies. However, it is inherent for every organisation to pursue changes in order to sustain among the competitors and run profitably. In the past, the employees were more rigid to accept changes in comparison to the present day employees who are more flexible to accept changes within the organisational domain. The past conceptualisation regarding the resistance to change was completely different from that of the present concept. As per the concept prevalent during the previous era, the attitude of the employees in respect to being resistant to change was considered as their disobedience towards the authority or their personal ethics that restricted them to accept any form of changes in the organisation. However, the employees of the present generation are much practical rather emotional and thus they understand the benefit of changes in the organisation (Hallgrimsson, 2008). Thus, majority of the employees of the modern organisations does not restrain changes rather they accept them because they understand that the new changes are beneficial for the sustainability of the organisation (Saulnier, 2015). This has only been possible due to the shift in the negative beliefs of employees towards the organisation they work with. Previously the employees used to believe that the organisations accept changes for the sake of its benefit or for the benefit of the managers and owners whereas the employees would always be deprived. However, the author has represented various examples that help in describing the factors that creates an ambivalent attitude in the employees, which influenced them to accept the practice of organisational changes. One of such factor is considered as the cognitive ability of the employees to understand the importance of these changes (Piderit, 2000). Similarly, in context to my personal experience, I have always positively accepted changes in the organisations where I have worked. However, in majority of the organisations, I was in the managerial position and thus I have experienced a huge problem related to the acceptance of organisational changes amid the employees. As a manager, I was responsible to make important decisions and take actions that would be beneficial for the growth and improvement of the organisation at large. Therefore, while implementing new strategies and decisions in the organisations, I found that there was a mixed response from the employees regarding the acceptability of such changes. Majority of them accepted changes and few of them were restrained towards accepting the same. They were counselled properly regarding the importance of changes that would be beneficial for them as well as the organisation. In my restaurant business, I also face the similar problem while implementing any new policies and strategies to increase the profitability of my business. Accepting or restraining of organisational changes is not under the control of the management because it completely depends upon the perception of individual employees in regards to such changes. However, the employees can be properly counselled by the manager, as it would help them in understanding the importance of these new changes. Understanding the Role of Politics in Successful Project Management The author Jeffrey K. Pinto has provided a detailed discussion regarding the role of politics in an organisation for a successful project management (Pinto, 1998). However, there are certain skills and tactics required by the project managers that help them to accomplish a particular project effectively. Political influence refers to powers and capability of the managers to influence the employees of the organisation and accomplish a given project (Pinto, 1998). Many people think the implementation of politics for organisational success is unethical, but the review of the research suggests that it is a completely wrong perception. Without the existence of politics, it becomes impossible for the managers to accomplish the desired goals of the organisation. The Authority, Status and Influence model adopted by the project managers of an organisation helps them to accomplish their desired goals. However, the model is considered most effective as it provides a clear illustration of major problems that are being faced by the project managers in developing and implementing projects within an organisation. In every organisation, there exists organisational politics and managers try to keep away from these politics, but considering the viewpoint of the organisational success, it becomes inevitable for them to adopt politics to accomplish tasks by the employees. However, it is very essential to implement an appropriate political tactics (Buchanan & Badham, 2007). It is necessary for managers to keep these tactics confidential with the managerial level of organisations. Breaking the confidentiality would result in leakage and misuse of information that would be harmful to the organisation. Moreover, this will also create hindrance for the project managers to ensure success of the ongoing project. The project manager should possess high charismatic skills that would be utilised in influencing the employees of the organisation in order to accomplish the project. In addition, the project manager should also possess good negotiating skills that would help him to negotiate with the internal employees of the organisation as well as external parties that are associated with the project. Similarly, I had been in the managerial position in most of my previous jobs and therefore, I had taken the help of politics many a times to achieve organisational goals or to accomplish a project. In perusing politics, majority of the times the question that engulfed my conscience was regarding to the ethical practice of using the same or not to pursue political tactics in order to get a project accomplished by employees. However, considering the benefit of an organisation and attaining the goals of the same, I realised that it is a substantial part of the organisational structure and therefore adopting the political tactics is not against ethics if it does not harm the interest of the employees and stakeholders. Moreover, I realised that the skills and tactics that are being demonstrated by the author in the article are highly related to real life situations. However, the author failed to demonstrate various internal organisational factors that may create hindrance to adopt political tactics by a project manager. Creating a Climate and Culture for Sustainable Organisational Change In this article, the authors Benjamin Schneider, Arthur P. Brief and Richard A. Guzzo have demonstrated a detailed discussion regarding the necessity of creating a favourable climate and culture in the organisation for substantial changes in the same (Schneider & et. al., 1996). It is inherently necessary for an organisation to introduce changes in the organisational policies, strategies and structure with the view of improving its performance and to sustain effectively in this competing environment. However, sometimes it is found that rather than improvement, the organisational change leads to failure of the same. The main reason being established by the author is the psychology or perception of the members towards an organisation (Schneider & et. al., 1996). Therefore, for the success of a sustainable organisational change it is very essential to change the perception of the members for the organisation. The perception arises because of the nature of organisational climate and culture in which they are working. It is essential for the managers and the management to create a favourable organisational culture as well as environment that would create a positive perception of the members regarding the organisation and thus help it to achieve success in implementing sustainable organisational change (Schneider & et. al., 1996). From my point of view, the authors have provided a clear understanding regarding the fact that employee perception towards an organisation is a major component that restrains the success of a sustainable organisational change. However, the authors have not considered other factors including the impacts of external environment and competitors that may also create hindrance for a sustainable change. The change in the organisational climate is based on the policies, procedures and practices that are being adopted by the same. In order to create a favourable climate it is necessary to create positive beliefs and values regarding the organisation, which is a part of the prevailing organisational culture. Therefore, climate and culture are interrelated with each other and that highly influences employees’ perception towards the organisation. Climate is generally referred as an environment that is being experienced by the members of an organisation and culture is what the members believe regarding the organisational values. A sustainable organisational change is ensured only when both the climate and culture of the organisation are altered towards the benefit of both the employees as well as the organisation. However, from my experiences in my profession it can be stated that I as a manager always preferred sustainable changes in the organisations where I have worked and in many instances the results of organisational changes were not successful. It therefore created difficulty for me to understand the reason for the failure of a sustainable organisational change. Therefore, the article helped me to understand that the negative perception of the employees towards the organisation influenced the organisational climate as well as culture creating a hindrance for the success of implementing a sustainable organisational change. Utilising the knowledge gathered from this article would help me to implement them in my current restaurant business, which will help in the future growth of the same. Change Experience and Employee Reactions: Developing Capabilities for Change The authors Inger G. Stensaker and Christine B. Meyer have demonstrated in this article regarding the change in the reactions of employees towards organisations due to experiences with organisational change (Stensaker & Meyer, 2012). It has been a common practice in organisations in respect to the phenomenon of change, that while management introduces any organisational change, majority of the employees do not prefer to accept these new change. However, the employees of the present generations have become more cautious and practical regarding the benefits of organisational change and thus they are changing their attitude towards such changes. The practice of organisational change at a frequent rate can even create mistrust and wrong perception among the employees towards the organisation or even positively influence adverse response from the employees. The authors have therefore demonstrated the role of experience in influencing the employee reaction towards the organisational change (Stensaker & Meyer, 2012). Analysing the article I have realised that there are some employees who try to develop capabilities within themselves in order to cope up with the organisational change. Among these, some employees accept changes on the basis of their experience based capabilities. While other group accept changes on the basis of experience that, there is no other way to react to the change. Therefore, it can be understood that experience is one of the most essential factors that helps an employee in understanding the probable reactions to organisational change. Thus, the employees who possess effective experience never resist change rather they show loyalty towards the organisation by accepting the same. However, the author has also demonstrated that in addition to the level of experience possessed by the employees, the employee reactions towards the organisational change also depends upon the type of experience being possessed by them. There are both negative as well as positive influences of experience on reactions involved with organisational change. Management plays a major role in organising and planning the process of change and thereby provides an effective structure that may be utilised during the change implementation. However, it is also revealed through the article that the positive experience of organisational change helps in developing change capabilities by maintaining control and coping with various uncertainties of organisational change. The article has therefore helped me to understand the role of experience towards the reaction of an organisational change. However, there are certain drawbacks that I have realised from the entire article. Firstly, the concept may not be applicable for all employees in an organisation because their personal ethics may prevent them from accepting to organisational change. Secondly, the organisational culture and climate may also influence the change reactions of the employees. References Buchanan, D. A. & Badham, R. J., 2007. Power, Politics, and Organizational Change. Journal, pp. 1-24. Ferdig, M. A., 2007. Sustainability Leadership: Co-creating a Sustainable Future. Journal of Change Management, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 25-35. Hallgrimsson, T., 2008. Organizational Change and Change Readiness: Employees’ Attitudes during Times of Proposed Merger. Journal, pp. 1-75. Piderit, S. K., 2000. Rethinking Resistance and Recognizing Ambivalence: A Multidimensional View of Attitudes toward an Organizational Change. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 783-794. Pinto, J. K., 1998. Understanding the Role of Politics in Successful Project Management. International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 18, pp. 85-91. Schneider, B. & et. al., 1996. Creating a Climate and Culture for Sustainable Organizational Change. Organisational Dynamics, pp. 7-19. Stensaker, I. G. & Meyer, C. B., 2012. Change Experience and Employee Reactions: Developing Capabilities for Change. Journal, Vol. 41, No.1, pp. 106-124. Saulnier, D. S., 2015. Organizational Effectiveness: Preparing Your Workforce for Change. Journal, pp. 2-6. Read More