Organizational Change in Today's Economy - Models of Change and Overcoming Employee Resistance - Essay Example

JOURNAL ENTRIES Name Grade Tutor Date Journal entry one Machiavelli once said that there is nothing more difficult to arrange and more dangerous to carry through than initiating change… the innovator makes enemies of all those people who prospered under the old order and only lukewarm support is forth coming from those who would prosper under the new… men never trust new things unless they have tested them by experience. Learning as a process has an invaluable benefit. Knowledge as its product is equated to power in various spheres of life (Philosophy Paradise 2006). I learn that change whether good or bad is inevitable. It neither escapes my understanding that the range of pressures during change in our personal lives, business environments and organizations are constantly growing in today’s world. A simple fact as having to wake up and finding my lecture session rescheduled to adapt to some change drive either internal or external causes some confusion in my life. Questions come to my mind. However, the uncertainty is majorly based on taking my lectures from an unfamiliar territory. I would always boast about my confidence in familiar territory. The unfamiliar territory for me slightly erodes my confidence. Though I finally get to the new premise, I immediately begin to compare the new environment with the former. The seats are not as comfortable as the former place, the lecture hall is much smaller and poorly lighted the list is endless. However at the back of all this meditation is my inner being’s reaction to change. Maybe the former environment was safer. Now there may be new faces on staff and even students. How do I quickly find the library or recreation hall? All am doing is noting what I dislike in this new place and my resistance to change is the motivation This is a typical everyday experience and proceeds in like manner if mapped on the professional or organization level. The words of Machiavelli continue to echo back at every turn in life that supposes change. We eventually settle for the first session of the lecture in this new place. The class setting is a bit different, the lecturer a bit more stern not as friendly as my former lecturer, and ooh! the accent is harder to catch, though I like his presentation style. The class is beaming with new faces, a well-balanced class in terms of gender representation. The session proceeds on to the end and everyone breaks to hurry off to the next session within the campus. I take my break until the next day since I am a part timer pursuing my management course while working at the same time. Journal entry two I have worked extremely hard to ensure that my career is on a positive path. The business world models change because of the dynamic of business. That is hard work because it involves being able to learn and adapt newer ways of doing business. Today’s competitive business is made from change. My career is vibrant despite the challenges that come at the work place. Ultimately, for any one in the workplace a glimpse of their career’s apex is by the path of promotion. Now I have more responsibility, thanks to a rigorous promotion program at my workplace. Probably based on my personal traits in addition to other factors the panel has approved and promoted me. Suddenly I have a strange feeling, an anxiety, and an urge to prove myself. My past lingering resurfaces. The new position and new challenges erupt past memories. Maybe where I was much better, so I think to myself, well is this necessarily the cost of a promotion. I begin to comprehend that position of responsibility is not about you anymore but the people you are leading who look to you for answers. Now I feel ooh boy! Was it better when someone else was where I am, so that I could look to him or her to find the answers? My being is silently resisting that change. Work must continue even though, and so I am figuring the inner inadequacy majorly due to the fear of change. Managing change depends on understanding a number of aspects about change. At organizational level we can identify various change drivers they could be legal, social, environmental, economic, competitive or political (Brown and Harvey 2005). My promotion at my workplace has come with the privilege to sit on the outdoor worker selection panel Journal entry three After two months in my new position, I am trying to settle in properly. I convince myself that this change is inevitable and now is my turn to serve the organization at that level. The inner inadequacy that formerly was is now dwindling as I make new inroads and consolidate new partnerships. With my ear keen on the ground, I gather that my colleagues are treating my promotion with mixed reactions. I try to hear it all, the assessment is on the person holding the position not the process of promotion. Suddenly in comes probably a feminist inspired comment, my promotion skewed the organization’s promotion policy basing on the equal opportunities policy. It is a Wednesday afternoon and as routine, we gather at the board room to interview prospective outdoor workers. The position is competitive and has attracted a record twenty-six interviewees more than half of whom are women. The process kicks off with the chairperson initiating the interviews. I am taking the notes and will ask a number of questions of course they must draw out the organization’s worth from the interviewee. Mr. George Denis beats Miss Linder Burns in a competitive marathon interview. While leaving the interview room after the interviews, I overhear disgruntled reactions to the interview process. Once again, the equal opportunities policy of the organization has been flouted. Therefore, I wonder to myself as I take the bus home, that even the organization as an entity cannot be changed easily; it cannot uphold its own policies during procedures such as interviews. So where seems to be the problem? I muse to myself during my journey home. It seems that change is resisted at personal, team and organizational level. Successful change management must address resistance appropriately (Harwood 2010.). The sources of such a process should be a combination of good communication and involvement of all parties each of whom understands the other’s viewpoint and motivation and between whom a level of trust has been established. Whenever the management of an organization imagines that employees may resist change, they try to hide or disguise the change, worse still they may just impose it. Part of a good change management practice involves knowing that resistance to change is inevitable (Brown and Harvey 2005). This should prompt the management to find out what form the resistance takes and how strong it will be as early as can be identified. The organization may fall into a vicious cycle where the management fears team resistance. They are likely to adopt tactics such as information disguise but this only breeds ignorance and rumours that eventually lead to suspicion and distrust (Brown and Harvey 2005). This goes back to the team resistance and the cycle re-enacts itself. Journal entry four It is a new week and I am meeting my team on Monday morning to review the previous week’s performance and asses the opportunities for the new week. The general feeling and mood within the team and the organization is that the targets set by the top management are unrealistic and unattainable. Johnnie one of the team member wastes no time in clearly elaborating this fact as the rest of the team and I carefully listen. No new targets had been set in the last six weeks. It therefore is healthy and prudent for the organization to set fresh targets periodically in order to remain competitive. It immediately suffices that managing change is a task which will need both skill and commitment on the part of the management. As a team leader I understand that I must take responsibility for helping my team through the difficulties while never losing sight of the objectives which the change sets out to achieve. Desirable traits at every management level within the organization should ensure that the manager is a change driver. They must aim at reducing the factors opposing change and identify the external change drivers. It is also necessary for them to set an example. Back to my team, I have the task of creating the climate for change after realizing that targets are important for the organization and we must work towards some set target though the team’s initial perspective is otherwise. We unfreeze successfully. At this point my team gets to know that as a profit making organization, our lull for the last six weeks has definitely eaten into our profits. While agreeing to this we must therefore agree that new targets are set which concurs with what the management has done. Therefore, the problem seems to be the level of the targets set for my team. My team unanimously concurs with Jacobson’s assertion that the 15% increment in target levels within the next two weeks is unattainable and ambitious. The recent innovative product and service offers achieved through our re-branding campaign has definitely initiated an economic change requiring higher targets. The organization must recoup from the rigorous promotional campaigns carried out during the product and service re-branding process. Therefore, the 15% increment in target maybe ambitious but it is attainable. My team of six members has been putting in a weekly time of 32 hours, which is the input they have on all occasions resulting in a 10% increment target set six weeks ago. However, the three last weeks were after the re-branding campaign. With this understanding it is possible to infer that the last three weeks of the work reveal an under performance by the team. We leave in the evening after the meeting with more questions than answers resolving to meet again until we have fully addressed the issue. I have the next briefing with my team and we continue with the discussion. We agree that the management setting of increased target of 15% is good for the organization. We eventually discover that infact three of the past six weeks, the team was under performing. After designing a solution, it must be institutionalized. This involves re-freezing the organization or team into a state of unconscious knowledge of the new way of doing things. To successfully do this my team must now proceed from the unconscious ignorance to the conscious ignorance stage. I make a submission to my team based on the initial facts. Working at 32 hours as a team of six we achieved a 10% increment before the re-branding campaign. I recommended sixteen more hours to increase to forty-eight hours. The simple assumption is that the 16 extra hours spread out among the team of six implies an addition of just two and a half hours for each member. I make this assumption hypothetically to enable my team to reach the conscious knowledge stage. The meeting ended amicably. Each of the team members has resolved in themselves to work towards the 15% increment target. I know that learning will take time and effort before my team can reach the unconscious knowledge stage perhaps the management will have set newer targets and so change is here to continue. Understanding that learning takes place over time is vital for effective change. Any new way of working will take more effort and time at first. I am glad I was able to transit properly by learning the change that I have highlighted relating to my personal life in my study life. I also realize that my team was able to transition properly after our meetings. They were able to accept the reality, which transitioned into testing and eventually integration of the possible ways of attaining the target level of 15% References List Brown, D. R. and Harvey, D., 2005. An experiential approach to organization development 7th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Harwood, R. 2010. Organizational Change in today’s economy: Models of change and overcoming employee resistance, [Online]. Available at: [Accessed on 24th May 2011] Philosophy paradise. 2006. Famous quotes of Machiavelli, [Online]. Available at: [Accessed on 24th May 2011] Read More