Improving Management of the Change - Essay Example

Organizational Change Name Course Lecturer Date a) Outline and discuss a recent change that occurred in your organization. Explain how as a leader, you would manage that change (or improve your management of the change) with reference to the readings and discussions we have shared across this unit; For a conscious change to occur in an organization, a change agent is needed. The leader visualizes change and identifies the change agent. A leader can consider internal or external consultancy to induce change depending on the time frame, urgency and organizational members’ analysis. The leader should understand that the internal and the external consultancy differ in the underlying ways of effecting the desired change. While the internal agent is familiar with the relationships and the existing conditions that need to be influenced, the external has to take more time to familiarize with the current state of the organization. Internal agent is effective for the realization of a long-term change as they oversee the imposition and commitment that is agreed upon (Waddell, 2011). On the other hand external agent only realizes a short-term but mostly of greater magnitude change with much appraise. Unlike the external agent who purpose to change specific areas such as production, services or management, the internal transcends the departmental oriented goals and push for a collaborative organizational change. Our partnership organization produces cultural and beauty products for export. It has set up the management structure for marketing the products and obtaining network and support from producers of raw materials and products. The organization gets the finished products and delivers them to customers abroad. Recent prices increase in raw material has resulted to escalating prices of finished products. Our hired products makers decided to look for their own market abroad and that meant they would seize and disconnect with our organization soon after they get a ready market. However due to the business legislation laws and the long process of getting trusted and committed customers their leader approached us to set the way for a new working. The settlement range concluded on merging the producer and buyers as one unit and share profit equally. The organization was in the state of experience high risk conflict as changes would have meant expanded responsibilities, ambiguity, limited skills level, multiple tasks and roles overload. Leadership faced new roles in management and administration. Another source of conflict was seen in social relationships as scarce resources could result as we shared the profit. What complicated the scenario was that consensus was necessary, many people were to participate in decision making process and both organizations were dependent on each other. Leadership qualities help to maneuver through the specific issues and challenges of organizational change. Right leaders help make the organizations effective. Key qualities that a leader needs to be effective are universal despite the varying change phenomena. Such qualities including; being a vision creator, ability to get other members to follow, being an effective communicator, team player, results oriented and ability to handle the change. In order to understand change a leader must be more innovative. Change has to be understood and led. Through the leadership styles chosen whether democratic, interpersonally or task oriented change is effected as well as realizing impact on performance and climate in an organization (Wright, 2009). Since the process of effective change is always slow leaders with a constellation of enthusiasm, energy and hope becomes effective. They must poses components of understanding change, moral purpose, hope, knowledge building, coherence making and relationships to increase the level of commitment from organizational members that in turn lead to positive results (Fullan 2001). As a leader there are three elements to consider in such an organizational change which are of equal importance. They are the stages, the processes and the techniques of change. Since they are inter-dependent and inter-related they are critical in bringing about as well as managing change. For an effective change and assisting others in making changes a leader should focus on all the three elements together. An effective combination of the stages, processes and techniques of change provide a better options to help leaders as changers know what is to be done, why it is done and the best time to do it. This makes them to be successful in the change efforts. Leadership must identify and diagnose the problem then collect facts and analyze the situation. Then it is possible to decide on organizational goals and alternatives. The successful leadership should evaluate the adversary and challenges, develop strategies and apply cooperation tactics. A professional process followed by a leader should start with planning stage (Chun-Ming, & Yan-Xiao, 2010). The conflict that arose between the interests of the two organizations meant that change was necessary. As a leader, planning for a change would be the first step to bring adaptation and survival of the organization. Application of leadership skills was necessary to manage and facilitate change. Focusing on ends and goals it is possible to apply negotiation techniques and problem solving strategy to manage change. The first thing in the process is reach a satisfactory differences settlement. In the process of forming there would be resistance and conforming would mean denial and compromise of some ground to come into cooperation. Storming stage will determine the alternatives and set goals for direction. An established strategy set the performing stage and will determine the rate of production. Planning is core to crystallize thinking and for developing successful strategy for achieving the goals (Woerkum, Aarts, & Grip, 2007). This will involve the above process of identifying the problem in this case cooperation, collecting facts such as economic opportunity, competence and skills and time as important factors to continue with the business. An analysis of situation in this case demand improved management, motivation on relationships and increased production. Direction helps in deciding and setting goals and objectives. Thus planning becomes is key for success. Creating a productive department requires an understanding of the strategic planning process. This means that there must be developed team structure, attitude and the role of administrator in decision making, management, professional development and conflict resolution. First, the stages of change will involve preparation, action plan, maintenance and control process. As a leader anticipating for a change and the time for change determine the success of its application. The stages will describe the type of roles and responsibilities needed to be done to bring changes. The leader should face the major challenges that face leadership in an organization. One is to develop clarity and understanding about departmental chairs’ roles and motives. Before the change commence, departmental leadership and administrators attitudes requires intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to get on with the new role. After contemplating change, there should be a preparation stage where the leader becomes determined to create change. At this point the leader diagnoses the issue while considering feasibility of the structure and organizational members. It begins by creating and communicating a shared vision and embedding a sense of urgency. A smooth facilitation of the process is possible through leadership oriented in coherence making. It is significant to use the change scenarios to evaluate the organization, define the alternative possibilities and enhances collaboration. This is a continuous process applied with stages and demands. Change of roles, re-assignment and control bring about coherence. Preparation stage has to consider the organizational culture and a leader use qualities such as competence, honesty, inspiration, humility, patience to seek and consult with others in different matters (Levick, & Kuhn, 2007). After making full preparation, a leader takes action actively and brings changes by modifying behavior. To be effective elastic strategies are selected and put into action. Members need to be clear and know their roles and expectation in the change process. Appropriate communication is core at this point to build trust and apply strategies in the most proficient way. The process of building resilience helps in meeting members needs by being sensitive to people in the change process. Other aspects to be put into consideration are organizational structure, timing the information flows, and prevailing pattern of attitudes. The leader as a change agent must be strong to avoid being influenced by organization interaction. Maintenance stage focus on consistency of a leader to maintain the changes accomplished over a period of time. Engaging with members enhance role modeling through knowledge building as a result from social context of discussions and sharing. As members share in and across their organization they end up in a process of creating knowledge. To meet the organizational goal knowledge and internal commitment must be enhanced. Through continuous training, workshops and seminars human resource leader evaluate the short-term and long-term implementations that result from internal and external consultation. Knowledge boosts individual as well as the organization in its application. Openness and teamwork creates alternatives to make the desired change effective. Secondly change processes describe the useful strategies that help in making changes. Walker, J., Armenakis & Bernerth, (2007) argues that effective transitioning in an organization is challenging. Even though change offers benefits both to leaders and members it usually causes disruption and anxiety. A leader’s strategies of change management help to mitigate anxiety and disruption effects on operations, internal people and organizational members. They also enhance an effective alteration and helps in achieving the ultimate outcomes. The process of change follows a pattern as considered. A leader starts with defining and communicating the value of change for the members and organization. Since the leadership might understand the reason for the change to take place but the rest members in the organization does not understand. The reasons have to be clearly communicated. A leader also need to define his/ her mandate and communicate it showing how the change will aid in meeting member needs better and make a compelling and clear vision for the future. In the process a leader addresses the potential barriers toward the change success. This is done before implementation to determine members’ resistance for change. Then the designed mitigation strategies helps to communicate to the members the value that change would bring to them. Along with the process a leader should find the people believing in the change. These change agents are identified in the organization and then recognized as leaders. They should demonstrate a combination of aspects of active transactional leadership and transformational leadership as managers of change they should go through training programs that are relevant and also developmental relationships like mentoring and coaching. Such people exert power and influence to members. Since these members visualize change positively they move, set and lay down the tone that influence others. Their effective commitment will be determined by the leader’s vision formulation, social values content and assimilation which is emotion focused. Effective commitment of members to the organization is enhanced by transformational leadership perceived from their supervisors. An effective change sets members up for achievement and success. A leader should not assume that members will figure every objective out without any help to navigate through the process of change. There should therefore be a set structure put in place to support a new way of action. This will ensure that members get a sense of full support and get the tools, time and processes to learn everything they need and therefore embrace change (Bohn, 2002). Thirdly, change techniques describe the leader’s activities, and specificity to each individual in making changes. These techniques help in achieving the strategies for the change processes. To carry out the responsibility of running rapid and unexpected change, leaders use a set of techniques. It is through behavior modification, controlled planning, implementation and control cycle, managing by means of objectives, organization development, management development and management auditing that a change becomes effective (Dunphy, Griffiths, & Benn, 2003). The strategy taken take concern of people’s values and emotional aspect. When aspects of behavior are modified, people will run well along the change. Leaders exercise a continuous process in planning and implementation of action and control them for effectiveness. Decision reached to set goals and objectives refine the actions and bring coordination. In the process the change must reflect development in organizational and managerial aspects. Behavior change requires effort, time and emotion. As a leader good preparation is needed for change to be effective. There are stages followed for change and this help to understand the process and the activities that individuals should engage to create self-changes and assist others for change. Behavior result to a culture and culture can be created, passed along and recreated through a system of rules and philosophy that result to a set of behaviors and norms. This then brings about closeness of members and formation of an identity that is not easily affected by external forces. Emotional intelligence determines leadership’s preparation and determination to enforce denial and take conscious action to face resistance through behavior modification. Through communication of the explored alternatives and goals it is possible to attain effective motivation and an enhanced commitment to change. Management personnel form the structure the drive change. They should exhibit strong self-evaluation and transformational leadership. Most leaders chose the junior managers with high levels of education and skill during organizational change. The role of a leader in selection and recruitment human resources professionals is core and determines the effectiveness of change. Through the structure moral purpose is created to advance the organizational goals. This occurs naturally through the leadership passion and fair treatment. This will enhance the potential of the organization through member’s commitment and created networking teams (Fullan 2001). To make a difference for the desired change effective leaders focuses on leading people in problem solving, develop moral purpose and enhancing their accountability for solutions. Knowledge building is as a result from social context of discussions and sharing. As people share in and across their organization they end up in a process of creating knowledge. To meet the organizational goal knowledge and internal commitment must be enhanced. Through continuous training, workshops and seminars human resource evaluate the short-term and long-term implementations that result from internal and external consultation. Knowledge boosts individual s as well as the organization in its application (Ruderman, 2010). Organizational behavior observed determine the member’s reaction to changes. Leaders concerned with the actual behavior evaluate the strategic readiness that would relate to organizational performance. To impact on performance and effectiveness the aspect of leadership, organizational culture and strategic readiness must be deeply understood. A Strong culture is paramount for the success of the organization. When cultures and organization consensus about values is enhanced it lead to greater performance. For cooperate performance a leader need to take the organizational culture seriously. This must be emphasized by the norms and the stages of forming through performing. The improbability of the whole organization to share the managerial values reduces effectiveness of change. Organizational climate that exist in an organization should be considered by the leader. The climate reflects trust, mutual coordination and persistence relationships that support change process. The purpose of relationships must be understood in attaining organization common goal. For this to occur the role of understanding emotions have to be exercised by the leadership. Since a leader’s emotional intelligence has potential for both negative and positive impact in an organization, a wise leaders are effective in creating, controlling and maintaining good organizational relationship (Szamosi, & Duxbury, 2002). Through skills of learning individual response, a leader understands when and how to structure the communication to gain support and build confidence. Communicating the changes is critical having identified the organizational position and analysis of the issue. This will guide in establishing priorities, identification of groups to advance them and desired behavior. A leader expresses their optimism level in the presentation of motivational speech. Member’s highest commitment in an organization results from leadership articulation of the vision, provision of intellectual inspiration, and promotion of the group goals. Organizational dynamics is important for effective change. In case there is a sense of disadvantageous change in the organization a leader should modify some aspects to regain some lost efficiency. Formats that are employed and preferable in the change process might be haphazard, or through trial-and-error approach and might produce unexpected results. New and old techniques are constantly considered to apply the best one in the process. Paradigmatic shift is expected if a considered changing factor has reached an intensity or size that needs multidimensional adaptation in the organization. Additionally, the leadership of the organization should implement changes in the blurring structure and set distinctions for influencing, managing and policy making. The leader should outline a general model of change to overcome the limitations, and conceptualize change. Combinations of variants are intended for qualitative outcomes through the use of different organizational change elements (Maurer, 2003). In conclusion leadership competency is portrayed by effectiveness at task- oriented and person-oriented behaviors. The emphasis they lay on different activities in the implementation of planned change is important. A logical process of communicating the purpose for change, mobilization of members for change and continuous evaluation of implementation process determine successful change. Additionally, unique functions that a specific change demand should be understood and be executed as not all change follow a descriptive process. Thus special activities and behaviors of a leader, motivation, communication and team-building are important predictors as well as theoretical approach to organizational change. Combination of an array of these promotes successful and effective change. References Bohn, J. (2002). The Relationship of Perceived Leadership Behaviors to Organizational Efficacy. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9(2), p.65-79. Chun-Ming, C. & Yan-Xiao, L. (2010). Research on the relationship between organizational innovation atmosphere and organizational performance. Management Science and Engineering ICMSE 2010 International Conference on, (c), p.457-463.  Dunphy, D., Griffiths, A. & Benn, S. (2003). Organizational change for corporate sustainability: a guide for leaders and change agents of the future, Routledge. Fullan, M., (2001). Leading in a culture of change, Jossey-Bass. Levick, D. & Kuhn, L. (2007). Fractality, Organizational Management, and Creative Change. World Futures, 63(3), p.265-274. Maurer, R. (2003). Why Change Works. Dynamics of Organizational Change and Learning, 26(4), p.259-276. Ruderman, M. (2010). The Center for Creative Leadership handbook of leadership development, Jossey-Bass. Szamosi, L. &  Duxbury, L. (2002). Development of a measure to assess organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15(2), p.184-201. Walker, J., Armenakis, A. & Bernerth, J. (2007). Factors influencing organizational change efforts: An integrative investigation of change content, context, process and individual differences. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 20(6), p.761-773. Waddell, W. (2011). Organizational change, development & transformation, 4th Ed. South Melbourne: Cengage Learning. Woerkum, C. Aarts, M. & Grip, K. (2007). Creativity, planning and organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 20(6), p.847-865. Wright, L., (2009). The Universal Qualities of Effective Leadership. Security, 46(10), 30. Read More