Organizational Communication: Foundations, Challenges, and Misunderstandings - Example

Organizational change Name: Course: Institution: Professor: Date: Introduction Throughout the years, the concept of organizational change has attracted a lot of attention in many organizations despite their realization of success. Change is an inevitable process. Organizational change may be understood to be a process that involves the alteration of the current working state in an organization’s operations through the introduction and implementation of new ideas and opinions of how things should be done or rather ceasing to carry out certain practices while at the same ensuring that the cost for the change process is at its minimum level (Margulies, 2010). In most cases, organizational change occurs in a rapid manner. Organizational change may take place for a variety of reasons such as responding to a new opportunity or either a company may be avoiding a situation that is potentially threatening to the organization. Practices in relations to organizational change may include such initiatives as downsizing, attempts for changing the corporate culture of the organization, the introduction of new technology or restructuring of the entire organization. Despite the reason for the change companies have always had difficulties in trying to mange the change. This is a clear demonstration that managing change in an organization can be quite a difficult process (Whelehan, 2006). In connection to this the transitional process of change in a company can either succeed or fail. Herein is a discussion of what are the causes of failure of change in an organization to become successful as well as what processes are managers supposed to adopt in order to improve and make successful the implementation process of change? Failure of change in any given organization may result from various reasons. To begin with, resistance to change by employees may be a reason for failure of change. Employees may refuse to adapt to the organizational change due to Lack of understanding of the body of the organizational changes by the employees (McCallum and John, 2000). If employees basically do not understand what the goals of the changes introduced are, the motives for their introduction and their impact on employees then they will not be able to accept the change. Employees can hardly substitute what they usually do by something new which they are not fully conversant with. This is so since it is the tradition of the people to be afraid of what they do not understand and it results in uncertainty on probability of failure of implementation of change. Since employees are not conscious of the aims of the changes in the organization. There being no enough time to engage with organizational change may result to failure of the change. People are not machines thus it is impossible to make a change in a day, they need some time to get used to new environments, situations and conditions. Handing their current accountabilities and adapting to change at the same time is of great difficulty. Therefore people are not willing to jeopardize the responsibilities that they have been assigned (Maurer and Rick, 2007). In this case, when an employee has fulfill their current tasks and at the same time adapt to a change, makes the job quite difficult. They therefore become resistant to the change making the process not successful. Lack of competences needed in the change may lead to change failure. Employees may often lack the knowledge and skills to do what they have to do in the new situation when change in an organization is being implemented (Adebanjo and Dotun, 2000). People do not want to reveals their incompetence thus avoid to participate in the process which they are not competent in. The situation may be worsened due to factors such as lack of finances or time to acquire training or study, if employees feel unable to acquire new competences they develop fear and uncertainty in them about the future for if they cannot perform the ability to the new competences required they risk losing their job. For instance if quality management is introduced in an organization then workers carrying out production will have to learn purchasing and supplies control concepts; they may fear they will not be in a position to carry out the tasks (Bateman, Thomas, and Carl, Zeithaml, 2001). They develop a negative attitude toward a quality and resist the implementation of the change in the organization. Employees not accepting the value driving to the organizational change may result to failure of the change. It means that employees believe that it is a mistake or morally wrong to initiate an organizational change and they may attempt to resist strongly in order uphold what their beliefs call for in the organization or safeguard their self-esteem. Change overload may be a failure to change success. Trying to do too much at once is often a great limitationa(Dove and Rick, 2003). It results to doing a lot of incomplete work. Trying to accomplish too many activities at the same time can also create confusion that results in inefficient work or change done thus leading to failure of the change. Lack of incentives coupled together with the change initiative may hinder successful change implementation. Incentives reflect a sense of motivation for the employees. In this case Lack of motivation using incentives gives employees no reason to adapt the change is expected (Bateman, Thomas, and Carl, Zeithaml, 2001). They instead opt to continue with their old behavior which is still being rewarded. There being no rewards to appraise good of employees change may not succeed. Lack of training is another aspect that may result to failure in the implementation of the organizational change. It may demonstrate lack of knowledge in the side of the employees regarding the change to be effected. A huge gap exists between what people know and what they actually do. Lack of application of both knowledge and talent by employees may lead to an organization experiencing a lot of losses (Dove and Rick, 2003). This translates to failure of the successful implementation of change. For instance acquiring different machines used for printing and photocopying rather than acquiring one that can perform both because of lack of knowledge hence failure of change to turn out successful. Lack of skill and practice by employees may result change failure. Despite having the knowledge of the new change lack of making proper use of it may result to change failure. Allowance of mistakes while starting to implement a new change and proper corrections should be carried out since they create an opportunity for developing the skills for implementation of change with ease thus avoidance of any resistance (Recardo and Ronald, 2008). If skills are not there to enable for an efficient process of effecting the change then the process may not at all succeed. Within any given organization, change is an internal process. Despite this being the case outsiders may be involved in the process of initiating it. For instance, consultants may be required to provide ideas that are valuable (Austin and Ruth, 2006). Employees within the organization have the responsibility of accepting change due to the fact that outsiders may not be fully aware of what is required in the change. Leaving the change process solely to be determined by outsiders may hinder the improvement of prospects of successful change implementation. Lack of monitoring and performance measures may lead to failure of change. Change in an organization is geared towards improvement. Measures that are clear are what aids individuals within an organization to know where they are still in the right path as far as the implementation of change in the organization is concerned (McCallum and John, 2000). At the same monitoring of individual participating the change process ensures that there is a sense of accountability for there to be sustained change. Lack of monitoring allows mistakes to go unknown thus failure of the organizational change. Lack of proper planning and unclear objectives .If proper planning is not done in terms of cost and resources on the change required, failure will be experienced while implementing the changes this may be in term of shortage in resources or high costs compared to the cost anticipated. it is therefore vital for any objective within a program of change to be clear. Any sense of Ambiguity leads to difficulties in getting across motives and benefits of the change to be implemented. Communication can cause failure of change. The problem might that it is experiencing difficulties as far as the delivery of messages and information to the employees is concerned. . Also the problem may be that there is inconsistency in the manner in which the message is delivered by the managers initiating the change in the organization (Modaff, DeWine, and Butler, 2011). With such problems the employees will definitely be in a confused state a situation which would lead to failure in implementing the change in the organization Additionally, by employees having to listen to differing views as well as ideas from their employees is another communication problem. This would mean that employees are in apposition to get the intended instructions from applying their own understanding and knowledge which may be insufficient to support the realization of success during the implementation process of change. It is quite important to ensure that all the major players required to implement a change process take participation in the activity. If this is not the case the failure in the implementation of the change process is bound to arise. Successful Change implementation means; moving an organization to the desired state in the future from the current state with minimized costs in the entire change process. Within any given organization managers play quite role in the process of ensuring that change is efficiently and effectively implemented and that the process turns out to be a success (Dove and Rick, 2003). In connection to this there are practices which managers should adopt in order to ensure that the entire process of change in the organization does no at all fail. It has been identified that likelihood exists of change within an organization being resisted by the people in an organization. In line with this managers are required to come up with a plan on how the change will be implemented and ways of dealing with any resistance to the change from the people in the organization. Communication and education are techniques that managers may adopt to ensure that employees within an organization do not resist the implementation of change. It is essential for a manager to take the initiative of ensuring that employees have a clear picture what is entailed in the change process and how they are impacted by the process. Before implementation is done employees should have information highlighting what is involved, the changes that have been proposed, timescale of change, how the change would be carried out and the major effects that are bound to arise from the implementation of the change. Therefore, Managers should take the responsibility of ensuring that employees get fully informed and in a timely manner about the change to be anticipated (Modaff, DeWine, and Butler, 2011). Information in regards to the logic behind the change as well as about the nature of the change should also be provided to the employees. This may be done through the use of reports, individual discussions, group presentations and memos. Employee resistance may be overcome by the manager inviting them to participate and involving them in the process of designing and implementing the stages of the change. The reason behind such a practice is basically that individuals who engage themselves directly in the process of decision making understands them in a better way and therefore they become more committed to the change process and in support of it leading to success in the implementation process (Lewin, 2004). Managers can carry out facilitation as well as offer support to the employees in a bid to overcome resistance on the change implementation process. This means that managers should ensure that they provide the employees with the needed resources to make the change effective. They should empathetically listen to the problems that employees go through and offer them support as far as their efforts are concerned (Bateman, Thomas, and Carl, Zeithaml, 2001). Negotiation with employees and offering them rewards are practices that may as well be applied by managers to overcome resistance to change. This may be done through making that employees receive incentives to gain their cooperation. All this practices geared towards managing resistance of employees to change ultimately improves the prospect of successful change implementation. There are a number of steps that managers can adopt to improve the prospect of successful change implementation. To begin with, managers need to carry out a diagnosis of the organization (Quinn and Cameron, 2001). This practice enables them to understand the current status of the organization. It involves identifying the needed changes by simply carrying out a SWOT analysis and pest analysis. There also the determination of some of the major issues requiring attention in the organization, identifying and assessing the key shareholders, winning employee support, identifying key obstacles to the process of the change, determining the risks to be encountered while implementing the change as well as the cost of the change and finally understanding reasons why resistance may arise against the change and how to manage it (Trahant, Bill, Warner Burke and Richard Koonce, 2003). Basically, this step entails the process of identifying problems in the organization and giving each problem some level of importance. Assessment is then done to facilitate coming up with the nature of changes required so as to provide solutions to the problems. The next step involves the manager coming up with a design of how they wish the organization to be in the future. They picture the ideal state of the organization after the implementation of the change. The vision is then conveyed to all the participants in effecting the change (Wallington and Patricia, 2000). The fact that designing implies to transitioning to a new state should be made clear by the manager to the employees. Understanding the transition process is important since it enables the employees to maintain stability in regards to the organization’s mission objectives. Another step that is very crucial for the manager’s practices geared towards improving the prospect of successful change implementation is the management of the transition process. A manager should carry out this practice in an effective way. It basically assists in coming up with a plan that would encompasses how resources are to be allocated as well as pointing out a key individual to be in charge of implementing the change. The manager should work towards generating enthusiasm for the process of change through sharing the vision and goals with the employees. Success of organizational change requires for managers to realize there is value in effective collaboration, cooperation and motivation of employees in the organization. Different members in an organization may have different views and opinions regarding a certain change process. Additionally not all members may have the courage to honestly speak out their views to the managers. In connection to this it is the responsibility of the mangers to ensure that they maintain an interactive relationship with their employees through communicating and listening to them. With this practice, a manager gets the opportunity to understand the unfulfilled needs of the employees. In an organization people come from different backgrounds and cultures. They therefore have different attitudes and perceptions in line with where they have come from and how they were raised since childhood. It is there the responsibility of managers to understand the different attitudes of employees putting into consideration the phases of human cycle concerning negative response. They should guide employees interactively through the change process being aware of the fact motivation of employees is important as far proceeding with the implementation of change is concerned (Schwartz and Andrew, 2004). Employees may come up with new ideas as the change is being implemented. Managers should ensure that they are receptive to such ideas. Most importantly convincing employees of the benefits of the change should be their main aim (Ansoff and Igor, 2001). These practices will undoubtedly aid in the process of improving the prospect of successful change implementation. Immediately the change is implemented, it is important for a manager to continue communicating with the employees concerning the implemented change. Employees may shift away from the idea of change even after its implementation. Need therefore arises for a manager to maintain the idea of the employees being supportive to the change. Manager-employee communication is vital since it promotes a process of open exchange of information and ideas among all the participants in effecting the change within an organization (Anonymous 2003). Attentiveness of managers at this time enables them to find out the extents to which the employees are affected by the change and thus acting immediately to make corrections so as to gain support from them. For instance, managers should take the initiative of ensuring that they are aware of the fact that despite the change bringing positive outcomes to the organization it may not as well bring the same to the members of the organization. In connection to this change may lead to increased income of the employees but at the same time result to increased work load thus reducing the morale of employees to work and may as well make them experience fatigue. In this case, managers should consider creating an environment that would enable the employees to accept the change as well as sustaining the competitiveness of the organizational a bid to improve the prospects of successful change implementation (Abrahamson and Eric, 2000). Successful change implementation in an organization requires use of energy, wisdom, persistence, incentives, education, timing, communication, resources, training and patience. Proper management of change by managers remains to be a leading responsibility of managers within any given organization (Bradford, and Burke, 2005). This implies that when decisions as regards the application of change arise managers are tasked with the role of ensuring that it turns out to be a success. Organizational change is necessary within any given organization. Despite the necessity of change, it is important for the management to first of all give suggestions in line with recommendations for the change directed towards successful implementation of the change process. Need arises for them to carry out an analysis of the factors that may lead to failure of the change in the organization. In conclusion, from the above argument it has been demonstrated that the major cause of failure of the successful change implementation is but the lack of managing practices that are efficient and properly planned. In the same course, it is quite essential for managers to keep in mind resistance aspects to the change from the employees that may result to failure of the change process. An important aspect for managers to consider as far as successful change implementation is concerned is learning to make the difficult process of change transition an easy process. This paper reflects that managers form an integral in an organization as far as their role in ensuring successful implementation of change is concerned. There are demonstrated as the key drivers towards efficient and effective change implementation as well as maintenance. They have responsibility of basically encouraging employees, ensuring that they gain their trust through motivating them and engaging them in the change process. Such courses of action make employees feel valued in an organization as well as having a sense of belonging. Ultimately they would undoubtedly offer their support to the change process having a clear understanding that occurrence and acceptance of change is a worthy course that opens an organization to more new opportunities geared towards enabling it gain competitive advantage. The method or technique that managers apply to effect change in an organization is what determines whether there would be failure of the change or not. Harsh practices by the managers such as coercion and employee manipulation may result to negative impacts to both the organization and the employees. This may hinder the improvement of prospects of successful change implementation. It is therefore important for managers to know how best they can approach the concept of change within their organizations. References Abrahamson, K. and Eric, G. (2000). Change without pain. Harvard: Harvard Business Review Adebanjo, H. & Dotun, K. (2000). "Corporate Restructuring: Managing the Change Problem from Within." Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 2(1), p. 34-78. Anonymous. (2003). Making change work – for real. HR Focus. Ansoff, J. & Igor, K. (2001). The New Corporate Strategy. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Austin, D. & Ruth M. (2006). "Managing Change." Management focus.   Bateman, Thomas S., and Carl P. Zeithaml (2001). Management: Function and Strategy. Homewood, IL: Irwin Bradford, D. & Burke, W. (2005). Organization Development. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Dove, M. and Rick, J. (2003). The Principles of Change. New York: Mc Graw-hill.   Hurst, David K. (2000). "When It Comes to Real Change, Too Much Objectivity May Be Fatal to the Process." Strategy and Leader-ship Journal.  Lewin, K. (2004). Group Decision and Social Change. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Margulies, N. (2010). Organizational Development: Values, Process, and Technology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Maurer, D. & Rick, T. (2007). "Transforming Resistance." HR Focus.  McCallum, H. & John S. (2000). "The Face Behind Change." Ivey Business Quarterly.  Modaff, D., DeWine, S., and Butler, J. (2011). Organizational communication: Foundations, challenges, and misunderstandings. Boston: Pearson Education Quinn, J. and Cameron, H. (2001). Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture. London: Addison Wesley. Recardo, D. & Ronald J. (2008). "Overcoming Resistance to Change." National Productivity Review. Schwartz, Andrew E. (2004). "Eight Guidelines for Managing Change." Supervisory Management Trahant, Bill, W. Warner Burke, and Richard Koonce. (2003). "Twelve Principles of Organizational Transformation." Management Review Journal.  Wallington, H. and Patricia, M. (2000). Making Change. New York: CIO Whelehan, S. (2006). Capturing a Moving Target: Change Management. New York: Consultants News: Read More