Managing Conflict and Change - Literature review Example

Managing Conflict and Change Name: Instructor: Course: Date of Submission: Abstract Change management is a dynamic and wide field that covers individual and organization transition to achieve the desired organization goal. Change has been the norm in contemporary business environment and organization managers that do not embrace and effectively strategize for change risk chances of being driven out of the market. Managers have overly being tasked with the responsibility of ensuring successful and smooth organizational transition with little or no conflicts in the change process implementation. The outsourcing of human resource experts and consultants to plan and strategize efforts for change implementation in some organization have left managers incapacitated to successfully own and spearhead change in their organizations. Pressure for change, a clear-shared vision, capacity to implement change and the action to keep communication channels open are some of the key factors for successful management of change implementation processes. In addition, failure for managers to create time for reflection, planning and learning including improvement to the planned design and implementation have ultimately led to organizational failure in implementing and managing change. This paper discusses whether managers have the capacity and required ability to manage change in an organization by presenting argument for and against and drawing justification from various literatures on organizational change management. The paper also identifies some of the practical issues and implications in relations to the change management discussions. Managing Conflict and Change Scholars have explicitly researched change management owing to increasing dynamics of the business environment attributable the advent of business globalization. Change processes have resulted to both positive and negative results for organizations and the question of effective management of change has been posed to managers’ overtime. In addition, resistance to change by employees has been witnessed several times especially where managers imposed change to the organization and employees were not adequately involved in the process. Consequently, conflicts have not only been created, but also intensified in some areas where the change significantly touches on organization operations with the view to changing the traditions and culture of the organization. The ability of managers to manage change depends with their capacity to plan and integrate change effectively throughout the organization without or with minimal conflicts. Managers have a greater role to play during organization change as they are required to simplify the journey towards new approaches to work and use an array of management tools to achieve the desired change. Understanding Change Management The understanding of change management processes is deeply rooted from lessons learnt from grief management and change management models. Welbourne (2011) consents that, personal loss experiences such as loss of a loved family member were used in designing the change process and appropriate interventions to assist employees embrace and accept change. The grief model was based on the assumption that change is not good and grieving the loss of the pre-change condition and drawn out recognition of negative change was necessary for effective learning for people to carry on. In addition, the grief models provided a clear path of change process especially when applied to business change because the starting and ending points were explicitly visible and then it became easier to plot out the recovery map for the employees in the organization (Welbourne 2011). Therefore, the grief model describes change as an event that requires management of it to have support and collaboration of managers and subordinates in an organization for the process to be positively accepted. The twenty first century has witnessed significant escalation of change cycles characterized by revolution on business processes occasioned by external and internal environmental forces. This has rendered grief models of change management ineffective because in contemporary organization environment there is no time for implementing long grief cycle based change management processes due to frantic business speed. Change has become constant in today’s organization operation and there is great need to embrace instead of mourning as proposed by the grief model (Ashkenas 2013). In addition, there is great need for managers to develop organizational and employee resiliency for the change to work in achieving organizational as well as personal growth and development goal. Moreover, there is need for employees change rates to move in tandem with the organizations, as evident through the department or the groupings were the employee has an affiliation. Effective Change Management Effective change management is well explained through the study of different change management models and theories. The protection motivation theory aimed at managing change to bring about distinct employees behaviors provides organization managers with opportunity to develop interventions geared towards massive attitude and behavioral changes for employees. The capacity of managers to manage change cannot be underestimated because of the available management models and theories whose effective implementation has yielded great results to many organizations. The protection motivation theory underscores the importance of high emotional charge required to capture the attention of the employees to listen to the change message. This has a potential of influencing people to feel confident that they have a chance of succeeding in the new environment. Therefore, it is imperative for organization not only to invest more in transformation and change interventions but also to construct organization teams that are agile and prepared to expect changes because change is constant and comes rapidly within the organization. Managers can effectively manage change through administration of clear communication change strategies including the selection of the best and appropriate messenger. Hanson (2013) asserts that chances of employees receiving and accepting the change message are more when done by a trusted organization manager as opposed to an external expert. In addition, the change management process may be hindered by communication breakdown that involves power imbalance, resistance and lack of consensus among the organization’s employees. Consequently, involvement of employees and communication of the essentials of change is paramount to appealing and responding to employee’s needs and a buy-in strategy. It is worth noting that managers can management change comprehensively by addressing the wider impacts that are likely to be realized including organizational and personal tangible impacts of change and the processes required to influence working in new approaches that supports change. Change curve is a useful model that attempts to explain the organizational and personal change processes and how managers can help the employees within the organization effectively implement change for the success of the organization (Van de Ven & Sun 2011). New systems, structures and processes in an organization do not guarantee management change but adoption and change of employee behavior through personal transitions is what delivers the change in an organization. Support systems are paramount in assisting individual transitions to overcome potential traumatic experiences occasioned by loss of power and prestige because of change (Soparnot 2011). In addition, the change curve helps managers to comprehend the different stages of organizational and personal change so that they can devise coping mechanism for employees in reacting to the change. Moreover, managers with knowledge of using change curve have the advantage of minimizing the negative impact of change and are able to support the employees in adapting to the change easily. Therefore, effective use of the change curve may result to effective change management because managers are able to provide timely information and support to employees depending on their respective position on the curve for purposes of accelerating change and increasing chances of organization success. Mistakes Made By Managers in Managing Change It is arguably notable that managers cannot manage change based on the commonly mistakes made by them in the process of change management. Organizations have hugely invested in the change management processes through trainings and researches on the effective change implementation frameworks and tools but the success rates have remained wanting over the decades (Ashkenas 2013). It is worth noting that the capacity of managers to effectively manage change has become a bone of contention because of the strategies that have brought about negative change and high failure rates. Welbourne (2011) asserts that, scholars in the change management field have overly shown the contentment with the contents of the subject however, the managerial capacity required in implementing change has been missed by most organizations. Outsourcing of change management to consultants and human resource specialists has transferred accountability from the managers to consultants therefore failing to strengthen manager’s capacity to manage change. Ashkenas (2013) provides a good example of failed process of change management where a given healthcare firm oriented its mangers to a specific change management approach and provided intensive training on techniques and tools to human resource experts after which managers become depended on the human resource experts to implement the plans. This is one of the mistakes made by the organization by making change management process to become a one-way strategy of project implementation rather than an opportunity of thinking jointly on how best to accomplish projects in an organization. Mangers play a strategic role in effective change management and their failure is attributed to that of the organization. Organization managers makes mistake in implementing changes when they do not clearly link the organizational change efforts to the market and business strategy that creates clarity in stakeholders minds. Soparnot (2011), change efforts occurs rapidly in an organization, employees are pressured to transition, and they need to know the reason for change for them to personally commit to the organizational change for the success of the business. Moreover, employees commit and believe in the relevance of particular effort that they deem fit within the wider goal and strategy of the organization and therefore it becomes the duty of the managers to provide this information before the implementation of the change efforts. Employees demands an understanding of how the organization change leads to business success and realization of the organization vision for them to get relevance and meaning of given change efforts (Ashkenas 2013). Furthermore, organizational change is subjective to personal understanding as it influences employee’s ways of conducting business and change of mindset and behaviors. The common mistake mangers make is to let employees speculate and interpret the organization change and this result to resistance from employees as they fail to find meaning and relevance to the change efforts. Mangers make the mistakes of failing to provide a clear leadership roles, structures and decision-making roles when implementing change interventions. Welbourne (2011) consents that, most of the mangers rush to implement change efforts by instituting a plan of action and delegating to project teams without giving them authority to make decisions on the change implementation process. Organizational change efforts require well-planned governance and clear structures and decision-making roles including communication channels and information management efforts that interface with organization operation. Most of the managers set up project teams and rarely spends time in orienting the teams for effective implementation of the change strategies therefore creating avenues for backtracking on decisions made, political confusion, and conflicts. Moreover, change leadership provided by managers should have a clear responsibilities and ways of relating to each other. Change efforts that involve a change in organizational culture and exercise of power and decision making needs a coordinated effort by the leading managers for purposes of aligning new cultural norms with the organizational change (Randall 2004). Contrarily, when managers implement organization change efforts without proper coordination and cultural change it becomes hard for the employees to believe in the change because the mangers do not depict change from their conduct and operation. Strategic discipline for change is a key determinant on the result for organizational change and managers have a great role to play in developing it. Most of the managers makes mistake of not providing strategic discipline for change therefore failing to create common change methodology and the required infrastructure for successful implementation of the change (Paton & McCalman 2008). Provision of thoughtful oversight, tools, methodology, and infrastructure for successful implementation of organizational change is always overtaken by multiple and competing approaches to change that result to conflicts, time wastage, competition, and ultimate failure of the change. Therefore, the need for organization’s managers to establish strategic disciplines is core in achieving successful and consistent change in the organization. Randall (2004) asserts that failure to establish strategic discipline has seen many organizations fail to produce the desired and significant return on investment from implementation of various change efforts. Moreover, mangers keep on making significant mistakes by focusing on organizational and technological change initiatives while ignoring the behavioral and cultural requirements for successful implementation of change. Overemphasis on the tangible aspects of organization change such as business systems, processes, and strategies affects the implementation process especially when encountered by the human realities like employee mindset and emotional reactions. Implications of Change Management Process to an Organization Change is dynamic and organizations face or a pressured to adopt some changes for them to survive in business. Effective implementation of change efforts by managers is desired in every organization; however, organizations need to keep a notch higher for them to achieve this. Creation of strategic discipline for organization change that identifies standard change methodology and founds reliable and clear infrastructure for implementing the change initiatives is necessary for an organization to succeed in planned change (Van de Ven & Sun 2011). The development of enterprise change agenda keeps mangers focused on the most strategic change efforts while providing the required capacity necessary for achieving organization success. Moreover, organization requires alignment of priorities for effective measuring of the return on investment relative to organization change efforts investments. Furthermore, development of standard change methodology is relevant in enabling the organization to have successful integration and coordination of change efforts while providing better oversight in the change process. Organizational change is influenced by the conduct of the managers in carrying out their daily operations and businesses. Desired results must be reflected in managers, for instance organization planning to create culture of high performing teams, the managers must model and depict the characters of the desired team (Dawson & Andriopoulos 2014). In the contemporary business environment that is characterized by rapid changes implies that managers revolutionize their management style and model more creative and innovative approaches that embraces and accommodates change. Therefore, management styles that pressures employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, create fear of reprisals in the event that timelines are not met and do not give stakeholder engagement chance in participating to change process must be abandoned because they cause confusion and make employees focus on undesired conditions and approaches in implementing organizational change. Organizational changes are meant to bring positive change; however, resistance of employees towards the proposed change is always there despite the good things that may come with the implementation of change. Havard Business School Press (2005) asserts that, managers in organization should not be surprised by the behavior of employees in resisting change but they should rather expect the behavior. Therefore, the organization managers should be prepared to manage and mitigate resistance through proactive approaches. In mitigating and managing change, the organization should prepare change management strategy that incorporates resistance management plan, communication and sponsorship plan and training plan (Harvey & Broyles 2010). The approaches and plans should focus on transitioning employees through their own change processes and addressing the potential bottlenecks to successful implementation of change efforts and strategies. Collection of feedback on the employee adoption challenges and compliance with the new requirements stipulated by the change will be critical in reinforcing the change. Meaningful evaluation of feedback is paramount as it helps in identifying gaps and resistance points that are still require to be addressed. Furthermore, managers must embrace the engagement of stakeholders in the conceptualization of change strategies and processes for the purposes of owning the process. Conclusion Managers can effectively manage change if some of common mistakes made in the process are addressed through stakeholder involvement and effective planning of change implementation strategies. The nature of the business environment has been unpredictable and managers are pressured to implement changes for the organizations to survive in the competitive and fast moving business environment. The genesis of change management can be traced back from the grief model that described change as an event rather than a process, however, other models have been designed that supports change as continuous process with no destined end. Moreover, the capacity of managers in managing change has been a cause of disagreement as questions have been raised about their effectiveness in implementing successful change. Common mistakes have been made by managers in the process of managing change and this have seen high records of organizational failure and conflicts between stakeholders and managers. Furthermore, there are numerous implications of change management implementation findings such as the need by organization to develop better infrastructures for executing change processes and development of standard methodologies for effective coordination and integration of change processes. Managers modelling and development including incorporation of change management plans with employees change resistance management and mitigation plans are other implications of the findings to organizations planning change. References Ashkenas, R 2013, ‘Change management needs to change,’ 16 April, 2013, Viewed 31 May 2014, http://hbr.org/2013/04/change-management-needs-to-cha/ Dawson, P & Andriopoulos, C 2014, Managing change, creativity and innovation, Sage publishers, New York. Hanson, S 2013, Change management and organizational effectiveness for the HR professional. Cornell HR Review Association, New York. Havard Business School Press 2005, Managing change to reduce resistance, Harvard Business School Press, Boston. Harvey, TR & Broyles, EA 2010, Resistance to change: a guide to harnessing its positive power, R&L Education, Maryland. Paton, RA & McCalman J 2008, Change management: a guide to effective implementation, Sage Publishers, New York. Randall, J 2004, Managing change, changing managers, Psychology Press, Oxford Soparnot, R 2011, The concept of organizational change capacity, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 24, no.5, pp. 640-661 Van de Ven, A. H & Sun, K 2011, Breakdowns in implementing models of organization change, Academy Of Management Perspectives Journal, vol.25 no.3, pp. 58-74 Welbourne, TM 2011, how to manage change management as change becomes the norm, 12 April 2011, Viewed 31 May 2014< http://www.tlnt.com/2011/04/12/change- management-is-changing-as-ongoing-change-becomes-the-norm/> Read More