Implementing Change in an Organization - Essay Example

Implementing Change in an Organization

Introduction

Change in an organization is believed to happen through making people think differently while in reality it is brought about by making people feel differently. According to John Kotter, the leader has to make sure he appeals to the hearts of the organization staff and not their minds. The see-feel-change is the new notion being introduced to the workers which fuel actions by illustrating potent reasons to the people which spark their emotions. Kotter argues that the heart of change directs the workers towards improving the company’s production.

Kotter offers an eight-step process of implementing change in a company to ensure success. The steps are as follows, increasing urgency where the staff mobilizes each other to create a particular change, building a guidance team which has to be powerful to guide significant changes. The other step involves getting the vision right where it is the duty of the guideline team to ensure each staff members understand the strategy to be used to enable change. Then communication within the staff to ensure each supports the change process follows. After discussion and agreement, empowering the action follows and creating short-term wins is established as the staff tries to fulfill the vision. In this case, fewer people are against the change. The seventh stage is not letting up as some waves may be experienced due to the people who do not want to follow the change. The last step involves making change stick which is faced by some problems such as traditional pull (Kotter and Cohen, 2012).

The change process is complicated as it involves implementing the changes made in the organization. As a leader, I am faced with difficulties while implementing the following two changes: increasing urgency and making change stick. After coming up with a new idea that will result to change, it will be difficult to convince the staff of the need for the change. Making the staff understand how the change will benefit the company and them will be difficult. As a leader, increasing urgency problem can be overcome by having a small number of workers and then convince them of the importance of the change where in turn they will convince the other members as they can interact with them easily than with leaders and it will end up making workers in the organization supporting the change (Kotter and Cohen, 2012).

Making change stick is difficult as it is faced with problems such as turnover of change leaders and traditional pull. The staff may be tempted to go back to what they were used to do before implementing the change. The challenge can be overcome by establishing strict rules against those who defy the change. In the case of new leaders, they should be educated about the change and be made to recognize their duty to implement it.

Humans prefer a state of homeostatic where their relationship with the environment is stable. People are known to survive for stability and are resistance to change. It is these aspects that make implementing a change and making it stick in the environment difficult. The physical nature is wired in a way that it keeps the systems operating in an unchangeable and stable manner, and emotionally people tend to depend on a familiar person or situation. Changes mostly in the job place results in stress and thus the workers cannot operate efficiently, this among other reasons makes implementing changes hard as it will affect the operation of the employees and before they adapt to the new situation, they may bring down the productivity of the organization. Stress is associated with the transition period and even after people accept the change, it is hard keeping up with it and may find themselves going back to the olden ways.

The management can apply different methods to ensure that change is embraced easily, and the staff learns to live with it without a lot of pressure. The first step is being more nibble where the pace of change in the society should not influences changes in an organization. The second step is educating the staff of the importance of change as in an organization, not the old things should be maintained mostly when they want to meet their objectives. The workers should there be taught on the significant of change and in the change process the less complicated changes should be implemented first (Kotter and Cohen, 2012).

Meeting Kotter’s proposed strategies not a very hard thing to do. Creating a sense of need in an organization, once one employee has undergone the change, then he/she should assist in convincing the others that change is required in the organization. It is vital for individuals to note that the world is continually changing hence they should not just seat back and complain rather they should do something. The matter should not roughly revolve around poor statistic or competition. Sharing an open field dialogue and being honest with the employees about what is going down in the marketplace is very important.

Change is not necessary for the organization as it interferes with the objectives, the management, and operations of the organization, if not planned for, it can lead to failure of the team productivity. Therefore, the organization should ensure that there is a good reasoning for change to take place and inform all the staff so that they cannot be caught unaware which may be traumatic. Involving the staff in the change plan is significant through being transparent and inclusive and it will help them adapt to the idea change from the start, and they can learn slowly how to incorporate it into their daily activities. Training programs are important to reinforce and support the change program and it helps in ensuring stressful situations are avoided and people being resilient against the modification. Acknowledging and rewarding change is important as it motivates the staff to work hard towards improving on the change plan so that they can be rewarded.

Coordination is key, in any one organization. Therefore working in groups would most probably be of great assistance in different key organization progress, that is credibility, leadership skills among many others. Coordinating the behavior of the workers and their changes at this juncture is the most complex, largely determination and confidence. In the where the above-mentioned change coalition is met then, it should be encouraged to work together as a whole team. In addition to potters’ stages then a vision and strategy should be included. Analyze the future in comparison and contrast of the past, how what is happening can change into something better.

An analytical tool in the tumultuous world is very limited. Though, if parameters were to be given, then results would be the best assuming is very limited and minimal therefore the confusions in future will not be there. A good analysis or examination never actually motivates individuals. A good change should put you on a strand where one thinks differently; therefore motivation has little or nothing to do with the thinking process but rather the feeling. Management should not be done to change everything, and not because it is not known how or simply feelings are not present. Organizations do not succeed because they have not lived to make changes in the successful experiences. If the experiences were absent, then organizations would be pessimistic, reluctant to act at any course.

The heart of change involves four aspects which can make change implementation quite easy. Thinking friendly is the first aspect where the change should consider all members of the organization. The second aspect is talk-friendly, and it involves proper interaction with the staff so that they can understand the importance of change. Trust-friendly is an aspect meant to unify the management and the staff towards achieving the change introduced in the organization. The last aspect is team-friendly which implies working together with the management and staff to implement change and ensure it sticks for the longest time possible.

In conclusion, implementing change in a company is a complicated process, and it requires the efforts of both the leaders and the workers to ensure success. Change is good as it is meant to make the company better which is also an opportunity to improve operation conditions of the staff. The major shortcomings observed in Kotter's eight proposed stages is that it concentrates too much on the people’s behavior rather than the strategy, their culture, and lastly systems. The aspects mentioned above are majorly very crucial for any organization although the major one in the workers behaviors; what individuals do and that is the way it should be made importantly. Information collection and analysis is an important asset to any organization in the implementation of change. Though, Potters analysis has major shortcomings being in many situations in the daily working in an organization it is not a requirement to identify truths. Therefore, it does not take much of an effort to take note that the old strategies implemented earlier did not yield hence and therefore a new one was undertaken.

Reference

Kotter, J. P., and Cohen, D. S. (2002). The Herat of Change. Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America: Harvard Business School Press.