The Role of Background Conversations - Coursework Example

The Role of Background Conversations Name Institution Course Date The Role of Background Conversations Introduction Resistance to change in organisations is seen to occur as a result of personal experiences and evaluation with regard to the reliability of others (Lewis, 2006). Normally, efforts are put to alter these factors for the purpose of wining support and overcoming resistance. However, such understanding tend to ignore the socially constructed reality of resistance whereby individuals respond more openly to background conversations in which any change initiative is introduced than to the particular change itself. In overcoming the resistance to change, the change agents have some work to do. Background conversation is considered an implicit and unspoken against which the so called explicit and foreground conversations occur (Ford and McNamara, 2002). Background conversation is context and reality and takes place due to experience with direct and inherited tradition and offer a way through which an individual listen to and a possibility of what is said or unsaid (Ford and McNamara, 2002). It tends to constitute organisational culture. Therefore, background conversation often than not facilitates the work of chance agents. The work of the agent of change is mostly to bring into line and fit organisations, through involvements to an existing reality. The effectiveness of such interventions is viewed as demo of a agent of change capabilities to properly mirror reality and the ability to fit in the suitable intervention for that actuality (Elliot, 2005). Thus, fruitful change initiative eventually depends on the capability of the change agent to accurately mirror reality and select and institute interventions that are appropriate to that reality. Change agents therefore must use interventions not to generate superior configuration with a ‘true’ reality but to just construct, deconstruct or reconstruct the prevailing realities in order to produce different performance (Ford and McNamara, 2002). This paper will detail out the importance of background conversations and their roles in facilitating the work of change agents and in overcoming resistance to change. Background Conversation and Change agents Each reality tends to yield a specific view of life whereby what is said always derives its meaning straight from the background conversations and not from one-to-one conversation with an object (Elliot, 2005). Meanings are typically derived from the on-going interacts and understandings in the development of particular realities. Such meanings and understandings are found within the communication protocols comprising different realities. In this context, change agents act and relate to conversations that give them the world but not to the external world of the employees, nor to an internal world constituting feelings, thoughts or meanings. Nevertheless, background conversations often constitute contexts and realities that frame a change initiative and offer the change agent vocabularies for the resulting action and reaction (Fleming, 2005). We can define a change agent as an individual from inside or outside a given organisation with the responsibility of transforming an organisation by taking into consideration matters like the organisational effectiveness, productivity, improvement and development. In the process of instituting change in an organisation, change agents have the responsibility of ensuring that they overcome the resistance that may result. And resistance to change is viewed as the function of background conversations and these conversations constitute realities for the participants (Fleming, 2005). Background conversation prevent miscomunication Those involved in change process are required to learn to listen and put aside the previously used confortable and familiar ways of seeing and also knowing things (Johnson and Haide, 2008). Background conversation assists change agents to understand how others especially the employees think, interpret and respond with regard to a change initiative. In a sense, different background conversations act as a means of blinkering change agents to the intentions of others (Lapointe and Rivard, 2005). It mends communication breakdowns, and damaged behaviours and reactions of the employees. Therefore, change agents are required to learn to listen effectively to the background conversations and come up with ways of acting and responding in order to help prevent miscommunication and relationship breakdown that develop during the change process (Lapointe and Rivard, 2005). To be effective, every change agent should have the will and the ability to listen to the senior management and most importantly to the people in the organisation who often resist any change initiative. They should have the willingness to acknowledge and listen kindly and readily from tailored interventions by reframing meanings and actions. Background Conversation as a diagnostic tool From a practical point of view, background conversation has the ability to articulate and develop some sort of diagnostic tool that can be used by change agents, perhaps even before a change process face a challenge or a problem (Ford and McNamara, 2002). Such a tool could act as an aid, especially to the change agents to assist in identifying situations where the background conversations of stakeholders involved in a change process are serving to cause any type of communication breakdown and failure to understand, assess and interpret properly the behaviours and discourse of the parties involved in a change initiative (Martin and Huq, 2007). Background conversation and resistance to change Social constructionist perspective and the concept of background conversation also are very helpful in viewing and analysing perceived resistance to change in organisations (Burr, 2007). This is because; it challenges the foundations and notion of traditional thinking about ‘use resistance’. Effective use of background conversation by change agents can be utilized in making sense of any conflicting perspectives and stories and can further help in understanding each organisational party’s reality in a comprehensible, sensible and sensitive way. With the use of theory of background conversation, change agents do not inhibit the same content and have different experiences (Martin and Huq, 2007). It suggest that, it is very essential for the behaviours and thoughts of the change agents together with the change recipients to be considered and having a full insight into background conversations is one way of doing this as it allows the reflection on the created relationships and behaviours. Thus, social constructionist perspective and the theory of background conversations have an impact in any change initiative as it assist the change agents in the future to effectively design communication strategies needed in the change process to bring better outcomes from any change initiative (Moldofsky, 2001). Moreover, initiated change requires additional tools that assist change agents to think both in action and practice. Change agents often seek possibilities for change and are faced with resistance to the change. Through sense making of such resistance and possibilities, change agents can reconstruct the relationship between resistances to change and possibility for change. In order to understand organisational change, it is important to also understand organisational resistance (Lewis, 2006). Resistance as a phenomenon is a constructed understanding of the state of an individual relationship with organisational environment. Situations and individuals altogether create a circumstances interpreted as resistance. Effective background conversations assist the change agents to interpret resistance as constructive information in change process. Through proper interpretation of resistance, the possibilities for a change process result from a proper interpretation of background conversational context by the change agent in an organisation. What a change agent interpret as a resistance affects the possibility for change. Thus, change agents’ understanding the exclusive possibilities of change allows an understanding of the occurrence of resistance to change (Johnson and Haide, 2008). Both the organisation and the change agent construct the concept of resistance as they experience transformation (Lewis, 2006). Change agents interpret the emergent change and reconstruct the resistance and change possibilities. With this concept of reconstruction of resistance to change and possibility for change, the change agents are required to take into consideration their interpretations as indefinite but sufficient recreation of the background conversations surrounding change (Mumby, 2005). Generally, background conversation is the means by which change agents are able to eliminate resistance that occur and facilitate their means of instigating change (Lewis, 2006). Background conversations create new realities and predict future In addition, a dialogic perception of urgency stresses the social nature of the role of change agents in identifying and assessing the change recipients who might view themselves as being undermined and demoralized by a given change program. To add to this, since constructed realities are responsible for the generation of a context where individuals act and interact, changing these actualities often creates fresh potentials for action and the comprehension of new orders and outcomes (Mumby, 2005). Therefore, background conversation allows the change agents to create new realities where individuals and organisations are more productive in achieving the results to which they are committed to. Background conversation also opens new opportunities for the change agents to completing self-fulfilling prophecies that can have deep repercussions with regard for the change conduct (Nah and Delgado, 2006). A self-fulfilling prophecy can be termed as a prediction or perception that as a result of being created leads to the foretold event to take place and thereby confirms its own prophecy. As an important element of self-fulfilling effect is an unchanging belief that everything with a name really exist, any stance that something is named has a chance for self-fulfilling prophecy. For instance, the perception of a future event that has not occured yet, e.g. “employees will resist change” or “change process will be interrupted”, creates actions beforehand, e.g. use of strategy to reduce resistance to change, which thus produces the proof of the prediction (Lewis, 2006). In other words, background conversations can be the means by which the change agents predict a future event or situation that may affect the change process such as resistance to change. Also, background conversation is known to facilitate reinvention. When prior changes are yet to be completed, individuals are left dissatisfied. The subsequent attempts to introduce change take place within the ‘conversational space’ of dissatisfaction (Buchanan and Dawson, 2007). People are thus bound to the available background conversation until a change process is brought to completion. Change agents therefore are able to support individuals in completing the incomplete change process through the use of background conversation (Nah and Delgado, 2006). The background conversations also offer a chance for the change agents to acknowledge what has been done and not done and view the expectations fulfilled and those yet to be fulfilled in the past in addition to discovering their commitments for the future. This discovering brings about new perspective to the actions and results of past changes and offers the opportunity for celebration (Buchanan and Dawson, 2007). Illustrations of background conversation Sometimes when a new employee enters a company, he or she is initiated into new culture which constitute unspoken rules pasted quiety as a simple fact. They arise out of a number of cirmstances which normally may or may not be present. Background conversation presents a region which a person has no choice as it cannot be seen or examined. Change agents shoud examine how they do things and choose actions wisely to best serve the expected purpose. For instance, a given change agent can be viewd as a subversive troubolemaker by the employees due to the actions that he does without his intention. This can lead to resistance due to his actions and influence as employees can be scared of him and would not voice out their opinions. Therefore, change agents should effectively use their background conversations to avoid problems. They should listen to the employees and give chance for every employee to voice their opinions. Conclusion In conclusion, background conversation can be termed as implicit and unspoken against which explicit conversations take place. Background conversation stays in the background until it is revealed as a construction. Background contractions can be brought about by the power of dialogue. Background conversation generally has the role of facilitating the work of change agents. To start with, it assists the change agents listen to people especially those threatened by a change initiative. It also gives the prediction of the future and a change to prepare for any resistance to change. Background conversation can also assist in identifying change recipients who perceive themselves as being undermined by a change program and assist change agents to think in action and practice etc. References Buchanan, D. and Dawson, P. (2007). Discourse and Audience: Organizational Change as a Multi-Story Process. Journal of Management Studies, 44(5), 669-686. Burr, V. (2007). 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