Managing Change within Organization - Example

Table of Contents Introduction 2 Change Management 2 Change Management Model 4 Organizational Change Management 5 Resistance 6 The Change Process 6 Change & Leadership 7 Resistance as a liability 7 Resistance as an asset 8 Managing Change within Organization 8 Models of Reaction to Change 9 Employee Reservations 10 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction The continuously evolving and competitive world has made it imperative that businesses look towards matching the undergoing changes that both the external and internal environment is presenting so that the business is able to grow and ensure a better strategy for the future. The manner in which the external environment has evolved and increased the work pressure on companies has ensured that businesses are able to look towards developing options to match those. This heas led towards the development of force field analysis by Kurt Levin which helps to understand the importance of organizational change. In this strategy Levin looked towards using different forces which may gain favor or cause resistance against changes. Employees are generally found to be reluctant to changes due to the high degree of risk and uncertainty that the employee has to undergo during the process of change. This makes it important that during the process of change employees need to unfreeze absorb the change and then again freeze so that it helps to limit the forces that are against changes (Bridges, 2003, 85) Change Management Change management is an integral part of the business which is important for every organization. This makes organizations use different skills and experiences to make timely changes so that efficiency of the business can be enhanced. Businesses look towards different reason for change like old business structure, decrease in customer base, change in technology, or other factor has an effect on the business performance. Today, change management has become an integral part of every aspect of the business whereas previously it was used in the field of general management, operations, services and joint operations. This has thereby developed the field and has its own researches and theories for the development of the business. This makes the theoretical and practical application of change management being linked to each other. Different literature highlights different areas like (a) organizational change & development (b) different models and concepts applied in the field of management changes. This has made Stewart (2003) identify different approaches, issues and strategies to deal with the changing environment. This has increased the use of open operational model which looks to identify the problems both at the individual and organizational level so that the strategies of change can be decided. Some of the common problems that has been identified relates to the strategy being used, process followed and the structure of the organization. This makes it important that the process, structure and strategy are developed so that the organization is able to perform efficiently. This increases the importance of synchronizations as it improves efficiency. (Pina & Torres 2003, pp. 334-350) has thereby developed a model which is fit both at the individual and group level. This identifies different tools like clear goals, different team members, and performance of the members, coordination, faith and belief for the group level. On the individual level different tools like skills, autonomy and feedback can be used to ensure better decision (Pina & Torres 2003, pp. 334-350). Thus this model looks to bring together individual team and organizational performances together. Thus based on this model different diagnostic tools and techniques can be used to ensure change management in which helps to solve the problem of changes that will be required. Change Management Model Businesses need to look towards using different dimension so that the procedure of change management can be made. This requires different models like value chain, mission statement, vision statement, and different trends which are affecting the business to ensure that they are able to compete on a global level (Walsh 1995, pp. 280-231). Businesses also need to look towards developing a mechanism which looks to look into the aspect of human resources and tries to link it with their vision, mission and goals of the organization. Since, businesses look towards a lot of changes it needs to look at the smaller aspect of the business carefully and identify the different factors which will help the business to succeed over a long period of time. The management needs to understand that the business is looking towards finding out the different capabilities and based on it look towards developing potential requirements which will help in the long term (Deem, 2005). Businesses based on the different needs need to look towards identifying the different variables which are important for decision making of the business and look towards developing the strategies based on three stages: the condition that will help the business to survive; identifying the different reasons for change and finally looking towards developing steps that will help the business to make the changes. This will help businesses to identify whether change will be beneficial or not. This will thereby guide businesses in developing a strategy which makes Businesses move away from the traditional ways; identifying the different problems that the business is facing and thereby develop a mission statement for a short period of time which will ensure easy changes. This will help Businesses to consolidate new ways to do things and will ensure building the capacity that allows them to perform in a better way (Stewart 2003, pp. 675-688). Businesses need to develop indicators which will help them to identify the manner in which changes is done. Using the aggregation model will help to understand the performance of businesses in the energy sector so that the different dimension of the business is looked into. The different indicators will help to identify the aggregate value of the second level indicators. This will help to ensure that business is able to develop sub-indicators and variables whose values can be applied to improve the performance on a large scale (Pina & Torres, 2003). Organizational Change Management In this second stage special emphasis needs to be laid on identifying the manner in which the management is looking to place new management policies and the barriers that business encounters. While developing that business needs to ensure a tradeoff between them. The third level looks towards the following indicators Development on new management policies: This aspect looks to identify the different measures that have an effect on the performance of the employee which is being looked by other companies in the global environment (workload, productivity, and other aspects of the work domain). This aspect will also the different employment like part time and fixed and the different aspect of valuation like hierarchy level, training of employees, responsibilities of the employees and other factors that has a relevance on the employee performance (Walsh, 1995, pp. 280-231). Barriers to change: In this level of aggregation organizations needs to look towards developing three sub indicators which are barriers to change, reasons for not looking into automation, and the manner age is affecting business. The first subgroup looks into the aspect of entrepreneur barrier to change. It looks to identify different factors like no skilled labour, lower cost of labor, lack of educated people, cost associated with training, technical aspect, production issues and other aspect of the management which has a relevance of the final output. The barrier if automation looks to identify the different factors which makes it difficult to ensure changes in the automation process. Lastly, the factors look towards the staffing structure and developing the human resource aspect in a manner that looks to understand the age profile and develops the business over a long period of time (Deem 2005, pp. 107-128). Resistance The greatest difficulty in ensuring change is that there is a lack of political resistance and difficulty in executing the plans as the employees are resistance to change. The major resistance relates to what to change, how to change, what to change, and the effect of change on the individual aspect. Technology is another barrier to change which a disincentive is making employees to stay away from change. This will result in stiff changes from different areas of the business (Davenport, 1993, p.56). The Change Process Change is a process which looks towards unfreezing absorbing the changes and finally ensuring that the changes are applicable to the business. This makes the last aspect of the business difficult as the business is unable to identify the manner in which change will be done. This raises the question as to the reasons for employee not changing with the time? Employees and other resist changes due to fear of loss and lack of knowledge but it sometimes it is also due to frustration. People thereby show changes through anger, showing that they are not happy with the company and highlighting disagreement with the organization. This makes it difficult for the organization to ensure the changes and if the management is able to build a strong a leader which ensures optimism and growth for the employees help in the process of changes (Hardt, Negri, 2000, p.78). Change & Leadership Change is an important aspect of business and organizations that are not able to change find it difficult to sustain for a long time (Bridges, 2003, 85). This makes it important that organization looks to differentiate the changes and the modification that the change requires. This makes that leader look towards using one goal, picture, plan and role so that the change is accomplished (Hirschman, 1970, p102-105). This increases the role of communication as being able to ensure that employees are communicated clearly will ensure that the process of change moves smoothly. Resistance as a liability Managers look towards ensuring that the employees look towards changes as their resistance might act as a hindrance in the path of growth for the business. This has been highlighted in the book moved my cheese? In this context cheese is used as a metaphor where we look towards developing perception of our self, life and success (Dent & Goldberg, 1999, p. 25–41). This book shows that when the cheese is moved it results in resistance as the perception is violated as is termed as blockers. But for the mice change is restructing the way success is governed and helps to identify the importance and nature of change. This metaphor highlights an example and shows the manner in which the changes can be implemented in the actual business scenario so that the resistance to change reduces and business is able to flourish (Lawson & Price, p30–39). Resistance as an asset It is also argued by some that people resisting change do it because of the fear inside them and inability to change. Resistance happens because it creates awareness and ensures that the business is able to move further. Karp has looked to present that traditional methods can be used by the business to ensure changes. This positive approach helps to ensure that the employee discusses and looks towards identifying the resistance to changes thereby ensuring in developing a relationship for the changes to be implemented in the business (Dent & Goldberg, 1999, p. 25–41). Managing Change within Organization Managing change in an organization is a process which looks towards developing new ways and taking decision which will help the business to develop a strategy where the business is able to grow and ensure the required changes from time to time so that the business stays ahead from its competitors. To ensure the change management needs to look towards achieving the goals and the objectives that the business looks to achieve. While developing a mechanism to ensure that the goals are achieved then the business needs to look towards identifying all measures and actions which will help the business to ensure changes in a timely manner. This will help to achieve the goals and objectives of the business as the change management will shape the performance of the business. This might seem like a simple process but instead companies and organization find it difficult to find ways to ensure the changes and the manner the changes will affect the business and the different outcomes that the business has to deal with (Maurer, 1996, p356-358). Models of Reaction to Change There are a variety of model that has been used to ensure changes in the management of the business. These models have been developed based on pragmatic context but don’t have any empirical ones. This has made the Sarah model being used in case of organizational change and during the feedback process (McAllaster, 2004, p318–328). This has ensured towards a development of a different model by William Bridges which looks into different forms of transitions. This looks towards the following steps Cessation, losing & Letting Go: This stage looks towards making people to look towards moving from the resistance to accepting the change. This requires that the employees and the management look to make people understand the change and what the change will impact. This will ensure emotional response and enable to deal with it (Piderit, 2000, p783–794). Neutral Zone: This phase ends when the old ways are given way but new changes haven’t been implemented yet. This might be a difficult process because making employees understand the manner in which changes have to be done and guiding them is a difficult aspect of the business that needs to be looked into. This may lead towards creation of confusion. This makes the management looks towards guiding the employees so that process of change can be easily implemented (Piderit, 2000, p783–794). Employee Reservations The manner in which employees react to change depends on the manner in which cost benefit analysis is examined so that the change can be facilitated. Members look towards developing contract with the organization so that business is able to change. Another reason which makes individual reluctant to change is the fact that employee are uncertain and unclear about the changes which will make it difficult to make the changes. Also, the changes require a change in the behaviour makes it difficult for the business to implement the changes. Another reason which has been identified for the changes is that the psychological contract barriers that people have makes it difficult to ensure changes and have procedures that facilitates it (Lawson & Price, 2003, p30). The study developed by Giorgi’s (1989) four step model highlights the qualitative methods that have to be used in the data process. This follows a series of step which involves bracketing, finding the central reason, coding, and finally presenting the findings that can be used for future development. This increases the aspect of ethical practices which has been finally looked into Conclusion The long term approach should look towards identifying different factors which create long lasting impressions and look towards removing the technological and other barriers faced in the short run. This helps to understand the best strategy over a time period of 15 to 20 years that the business can use. This can be seen from an example of contemporary design which helps to identify the different pricing tools that can be used over a longer period of time (Davenport, 2003, p. 56). This increases the use of new replacement schemes in place of the old ones so that crucial factors which have a bearing on the performance of the organization can be looked into so that the financial rules developed according to the business requirements. References Alvarez, R. 2008. Examining Technology, Structure and Identity during an Enterprise Systems Implementation, Information Systems Journal. p. 54-64 Bridges, W. 2003. Managing transitions: (2nd Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press: p85 Deem, R. 2005. Management as ideology: the case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education. Oxford Review of Education. pp. 217-235. Davenport, T, 1993. Process Innovation: Reengineering work through information technology. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Pp.56 Dent, E.; Goldberg, S. 1999. Challenging “resistance to change:” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science: 35(1): p25–41 Duncombe, S. 2004. Cultural resistance reader: New York: W. W. Norton: (2002). p36 Hardt, M.; Negri, A. 2000. Multitude: New York: Penguin: p78 Hirschman, A. O. 1970. Exit, voice, loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: p. 102-105 Lawson, E.; Price, C. 2003. The psychology of change management [Special edition]: McKinsey Quarterly: 2(4): p30–39. Lewin, K. 1952. Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers. London: Tavistock: p47 Maurer, R. 2002. Why don't you want what I want? Atlanta, GA: Bard Press: p89-96 McAllaster, C. 2004. The 5 Ps of change: Leading change by effectively using leverage points within an organization: Organizational Dynamics: 33(5): p.318–328. Pina, V., Torres, L. 2003. Reshaping public sector accounting: an international comparative view. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. pp. 334-350. Piderit, S. K. 2000. Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: A multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change: Academy of Management Review: 25(4): p783–794. Stewart, J. 2003. Change management - strategy and values in six agencies from the Australian public service. Public Administration Review. pp. 675-688. Walsh, M. & Wigens, L. 2003 Introduction to Research. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Read More