Organizational Change - Assignment Example

Self-Reflection Portfolio Organizational Change Approx. Words: 2500 Change from the Perspective of Organizational Culture Culture is a shared set of beliefs, values and assumptions according to which an organization carry out its functions. These values and beliefs take time to develop and influence every aspect and operation of the firm (Wortmann, 2008). In a broader perspective, culture is the rituals, artefacts, myths, stories, symbols, strategies etc. that circulates in an organization and employees need to get these integrated in themselves to work appropriately. The stronger the culture, the greater would be the organizational performance (Pennington, 2003). Moreover, having a culture similar to large number of firms would not help in achieving any competitive advantage. A culture of an organization could be an open door of a manager’s office or the glass cabins showing openness. It could be the policies of rewarding the customers and employees for their loyalty which was implemented by O2. It believed that by doing so, employees would feel more engaged and sense of belongingness would enhance their performance. Similarly, Pace manufactures set-top boxes and it faced bankruptcy at a time when it felt the need to increase the communication between its employees and bring the management and the lower cadres close to each other. This improved the operations of the company and created a positive impact on its profits. Keeping such facts in view, the organization’s management need to constantly keep up with the changing needs and have to evaluate their performance on an ongoing basis. In addition to that, a strong culture is not rigid rather it is flexible. Its learning tendencies must be high and it should not be imitable for the competitors. Only then a firm could achieve sustained competitive advantage. A change is socially transmitted from one individual to the other and keeps on evolving. A proper categorization of what type of change has to be introduced and at what particular time, is critical to the success of change implementation. Yet, for a positive and strong culture, change is adopted more than often (Pennington, 2003). When there is felt a need that firm is not performing up to the mark, theories of organization and culture should be discussed with the employees. At next stage, a comprehensive account of artefacts, values, symbols etc. should be taken and evaluated for any changes. Then deep meanings of every aspect must be extracted and platform should be developed for bringing improvement in case of any misalignment (Kimberly Buch, 2001). Before any change is brought in any organization, it has to be kept in mind that it is a very complex process. It creates an impact on every element related to the organization. A culture could be exploitative, consultative or participative. Similarly, Handy and Harrison have also given a model introducing four types of cultures i.e. the power culture, role culture, achievement culture and support culture. Whatever the type of culture an organization have, it should be measured for the level of risk involved when the change is introduced and how fast it provides feedback on performance. There are many ways in which a change can be brought effectively. After identifying the need for change, the proposed changes are announced and explained with the help of change agents. Thus, change agents perform a very crucial role in proper execution of a new culture. These agents are the leaders of an organization who sense the needs of employees when a change is carried out and respond to them accordingly or else it could lead towards anxiety, stress and cynicism. Proper training and coaching campaigns should be scheduled so that it could help the individuals to deal with a change (Merv Wilkinson, 1996). In addition to that, stories also have a great impact on the integration of a change in an organization culture. They emphasize the change ideals and provides a framework for future. In this way, not only the change is implanted smoothly but it also helps in knowledge transmission making it easy for the leadership (Elizabeth Briody, 2012). Hence, they are called the most powerful way of bringing a change in culture. Instead of directly changing the behaviors by telling the facts, stories tell what happened with some other person when similar change was brought. They become an account of experience and a way of learning. So, by developing right techniques a change can be effectively incorporated into an organizational culture. There is a need to take the human factor under consideration. Joint projects, employee involvement, appropriate and timely training can increase the chances of success in change implementation. Today’s dynamic environment requires the companies to keep themselves abreast of new ways of carrying out their operations and fulfilling the needs of all the stakeholders. Only then, its survival can be ensured in this highly competitive world. 2) Change from the Perspective of Knowledge Management and the Learning Organization Learning organizations are those which are quite flexible and keep on evolving with the changing trends by incorporating new knowledge and modifying the behaviors according to the requirements. Here, people are free to change the ways of doing the jobs as per need. This learning could be on-the-job where, instead of, formal training sessions the employees learn through small tasks they are assigned or it could be learning through the experiences that already exists in the organizational memory. Utilizing this organizations respond to changing needs and demands of the customers (Ortenblad, 2004). Such organizations facilitate the individuals working for it to evolve in terms of their work and personalities. Chris Argyris is among the pioneers of the development of the concept called learning organization. He exclaimed that it is essential for organizations to learn continuously so that it can ensure success in a dynamic world. Experiencing failures is equally important for the growth. Those who have never come across a bad experience would hardly learn. The learning organizations are, hence, in a better position to transform and introduce changes according to their needs. They can accept a change more favorably than any other organization. The idea of learning has emerged from total quality management which focuses continuous improvement with the help of regular learning, knowledge sharing and its management. And by learning, it does not only means here a formal learning but also self-managed development which is only possible when employees work in an open environment. Such flexible climate of the organization allows the individuals to accept even the big changes easily. Along with that appraisals and rewards for good work increase the likelihood of superior performance and ultimately larger profits for an organization (Geeta Rana, 2014). The essence of the success of the learning organizations is in their knowledge management. The research has revealed that knowledge sharing and managing it is the source of earning competitive advantage. Now, organizations no longer rely on tangible assets alone rather they have been focusing intangible and intellectual assets. It has been found out that performance of the organizations has enhanced with the help of knowledge of employees and applying that knowledge to accomplish the future goals (Riccardo Silvi, 2006). IT has helped in managing, storing, retrieving and sharing the knowledge database across the organization. By doing so, any information can be acquired which could assist in understanding a particular problem and find a better solution if a situation emerges again. In this way, not only time is saved but efficiency is also achieved. So, organizations have now diverted their attention to the practices which could help in developing and disseminating the knowledge and help in learning. The more the organization focuses on minute details and unique ways to operate, the better chances it has to surpass its rivals. Keeping this in view, organizations are now becoming increasingly aware of the importance of knowledge and its proper application. The learning organizations are not only concerned towards the internal knowledge dissemination but they also are equally committed towards the customers and suppliers (Bernard Burnes, 2003). Therefore, turning into a learning organization can help in multiple ways either in earning long-term success or making the individuals empowered and creative. But, the concept of leaning organization may not be applicable on every type of firm. There could be organizations which need a centralized approach. Yet, research says that incorporating skills and knowledge in the employees not necessarily affects the powers of the leadership. In addition to that, a related concept to learning organizations is that of organizational learning. The organizational learning is a certain activity or an experience while learning organization is a whole climate and organization in itself. In fact, a learning is the one which values organizational learning and they both need to co-exist (Gorelick, 2005). There are large number of organizations which are turning themselves into a learning organization and effective knowledge management. Due to this, they have developed the posts for knowledge officers who facilitate the use of knowledge. There are proper databases and strategies established to share knowledge to the very basic level. This approach increases the sense of belongingness in the employees and they become more responsive towards the organizational needs (Nory B. Jones, 2003). These Knowledge Officers are also called the change agents. They influence the internal and external customers and are responsible for carrying out innovation in an organization. Thus, they expedite the use of information by arranging them in organizational memory. For making the knowledge management productive and effectual there is a need to have equally good infrastructure for communication. But, every type of knowledge cannot be made public for every type of user. This is the task of knowledge workers and managers to identify and sort out that which type of information has to be made accessible for a certain individual. Thus, it can be said that it is all about survival of the fittest like in any other walk of life. The organizations giving due consideration to the changing demands and newer trends have better chances of victory over competitors and earning goodwill among its customers. The learning organizations have more flexible attitude towards the changes and they can do this by utilizing the knowledge preserved in their memory. Past experiences make it easy to make adjustments for the future complexities. Therefore, almost all organizations need to be adaptable to a certain degree to cope up with the changes and keep on learning on regular basis. 3) Managing Personal Transition An organization while carrying out its business operations faces multiple issues in managing internal and external customers. Among many issues, one of the most important is the resistance of employees to any change. Because the world is moving at a fast pace and is evolving rapidly. They need to make the employees adaptable to the change initiatives (Choi, 2011). Today organizations are involved in furious competition and in the need for survival they have to identify the reasons that why employees resist a change and how important it is to give consideration to manage their transition. The need for managing personal transition and this resistance is the biggest hurdle in change initiatives of an organization (Hendrickson, 2012). In order to achieve success it is essential for the organizations to motivate its employees to accept a change. Because whenever a change is brought it likely changes the individuals’ narrative of self. Therefore, there is required a certain attitude towards a change in the form of behavioral tendencies to deal with it. There can be seen a clear wave of stress and anxiety among both the employees and managers when a new thing is introduced in an organization. If a firm need to emerge as a successful change implementer it must focus both the strengths and weaknesses (Luthans, 2002). There are myriad of causes behind a resistance towards organizational change. At first place, the leadership is sometimes itself not ready to implement a change and this leads towards a failure. Managers do this because they fear that it would cost them in terms of power and become responsible for wastage of resources. They, basically, fear the failure and are not ready to take any blame for it. (G. B. Hoag, 2002). Secondly, the human factor in an organization is ignored by the management. They divert their full attention towards the technical aspects of change implementation and the emotions and feelings of employees related to it are ignored (Bovey, 2001). Management fails to comprehend the emotions like anxiety, resentment, cynicism and resignation. Thirdly, there are also linked many uncertainties attached to the change and employees feel that that their interests will be compromised. In addition to that, the absence of a social support system in the form of rewards, incentives and appraisals also leads towards cynicism. It does not only harm the organization but the employees as well. Employees can experience a reduced level of job satisfaction, anxiety and stress, and feel lack of belongingness to the organization. This clearly depicts a lack of involvement of employees in the change process and an environment of mistrust and frustration creates great difficulties. This resistance towards a change needs to be dealt with firm and positive approach. First of all, there is a need to bring change in the attitudes and behaviors of the individuals. They should be properly communicated the need for change that why it is necessary to be incorporated and how the organization lags behind in its absence from its competitors. It is also beneficial for organization to make its employees aware of their importance for bringing this change and it must be made clear that what resources organization has for doing this (Armenakis, 2002). There are two strategies that could be adopted to deal with resistance to change. Bovey & Hede, (2001) have given an information-based approach which says that sharing knowledge with employees and increasing their understanding to deal with the change can create great ease for the organization. More the employees are aware about the details of a change, more readily they will be able to accept it. For that very purpose, a message including necessary information about change information can be floated to make everybody understand the need for change and importance of their role in it. This message can reduce the perceived fear, anxiety or mistrust. In this way, employees also feel more valued and consideration to human factor can yield utmost benefits. Another way of dealing with this issue is counseling of the employees. This helps them to identify their attitudes and perceptions. It can be done through training and educating the individuals. Shortly, this generates self-awareness among them and induces a participative culture leading towards a successful change. There are risks linked to these interventions like participation can be time consuming and complex while training can cost high. However, choice of strategy hinges upon the situational factors like nature of resistance and its amount. Hence, organizational change is an important phenomenon. But various personality and emotional factors of employees and leadership’s lack of vision and will reinforces resistance to any change. It hurts the organization and also decreases the motivation and job satisfaction. The leadership should play effective role in sharing information and taking the employees in confidence instead of ignoring their emotions. 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