Is There One Best Way of Managing Change in Business Environment - Essay Example

?“IS THERE ONE BEST WAY OF MANAGING CHANGE IN TODAY’S BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT?” World has become extremely fast paced in the current time. Due to increased interconnectivity every change in one corner of the world has been affecting the entire world. Example of recent global financial crises best suits to the proposition as the change in the business market in one economy had rippled impact on almost entire economies of the globe. Moreover, since recent past businesses are changing their business model from being profit oriented businesses to sustainable business models that provide due attention to the all areas of society. Across the board every individual as well as business is consistently facing the pressure to change to ensure success or more appropriate to state would be fact that for the mere survival changing with change has become essential (Marshak, 1993). Accepting the fact that change is inevitable individuals and businesses have directed effort to equip for change management than resisting to retain current status. Change management, simply stating implies efforts and mechanism employed for the meeting the demanding pressures of adaptability from change. Jung (2001) defined change management as transition from one stage of existence to the other. In accordance with Jung (2001) the stage from which the individual and business are attempting to move from can be defined as the state of problem whereas the state to which the efforts are intended to direct the subject is the state of problem solution. Change management is broad domain of study. Change management can be required in the product portfolio, business processes, organisational culture, people, technology, structure and so on so forth (Daft and Marcic, 2006). Each aforementioned sub- domain, though not limited to, has its own expansions. For instance the change management in the technological domain has been among factors that have taken lead in today’s organisational context. Constantly increasing web based dominance of technology has forced businesses to adapt to new technological formats such as social media presence, online portal for sales etc. Similarly, organisational structures have been leveraged support from the change management theories to expand the business structure more towards horizontal format i.e. team based structure from traditional formats of increasing hierarchy levels. Apart from the change management in various components of business another classification of change has been emergent change and the planned change. Former refers to the situation where business on whole or the processes are forced to change with the changing business environment. The latter mode of change is one in which organisation deliberately plan to change. For example, organisations in the contemporary business world are forced to infiltrate efficiencies in their business model that are mere necessary for survival. Marks and Spencer being among the most preferred brands of UK faced steep decline in sales in 1990 due to increased low cost offerings in UK market from competitors having manufacturing set ups in cheap labour emerging markets. In contrast to M&S strategy of providing “Made in UK” incurred increased cost. Therefore, M&S had to adapt to change with business model shifting manufacturing from local country to low cost emerging countries. While planned change example can be seen as today’s businesses are moving towards sustainable business models such as improving entire business processes to energy efficient process or using renewable energy etc. Planned change has significant distinction from the other changes mainly. As name implies the planned change is intentionally initiated by the people for particular purpose. Further also noticeable fact is that planned change has preparations done and planned it accordingly. However, even within planned change the response to change varies such as some change implementation requires autocratic imposition whereas participative methodology is also adopted based on the wide range of factors. Among the most significant examples of the planned change is observable in Faslane HM Naval Base Clyde of UK. Faslane Naval base was managed by the UK ministry of Defence and Royal Navy that collaborated with private industrial firm Babcock for integrating change in the overall processes for the objective of cost saving. Babcock acknowledging the sensitivity of the project for being defence apparatus implemented change in a way that did not affect the critical aspects of the processes. To cite an example, since sensitive processes review of every decision at Faslane was spread across various bureaucratic levels requiring 56 days for each decision making. Babcock didn’t eliminate any of the levels to maintain the reporting clarity for accountability purpose but re-engineered processes that required only six days for every decision review. Further the change management at Faslane also adopted participative method with all stakeholders keeping in view the critical importance of the stakeholders’ satisfaction. Hence, only within first year of change implementation the Babcock managed to generate the cost saving of around 12 million British Pounds against the target of three million only. Further, over years change for infiltrating efficiencies in the processes reported incrementally increased cost saving (Babcock, 2009). Hence, depending upon the nature of change businesses adopt strategies to meet the challenges of change requirement. Another basis of developing distinction in the type of the change that requires relevant response are on the basis of speed with which change is taking place as well as extend of the change. Defined below are four different types of change on the basis of the above two factors (Martin, 2006): Evolution (incremental speed and transformational extent): Can be defined as a form of planned change as proactive initiatives are taken to integrate change considering it need of the time ahead. Evolutionary change is implemented through interrelated activities of organisation and spread over a period of time. Revolution (Huge intensity speed and extend of change being transformational): The extent of change being transformational with high speed requires considerable initiatives to be taken on many aspects. Further, the intense speed to change the organisation requires to force change whatever way possible. Therefore, often turns out to reactive. As the big band change forced at high speed therefore asserts that such change has become inevitable for the organisation mainly due to the competitive position. Adaptation (Incremental speed of Change with the realignment extent): As the change in enforced with incremental speed and the objective also remains to be realigning the firm therefore it can be defined as method that is done in a participative manner. In addition it is also expected that such change implementation is conducted stepwise and in sequential manner to achieve the desired results. Reconstruction (Huge intensity Speed with extent of realignment): The change here is intended to reconstruct the organisation with realignment to the path of its objective based operations. Reconstruction change forces and integrates change initiative considering the need of the time. Therefore, fast pace change with the speed of big band requires many initiatives undertaken simultaneously. Change management aspects defined above asserts the importance of the factors that drive change as well as their respective impact on the change implementation process and strategies are evident. There can be large number of factors that can drive change such as technological innovation, structural processes discrepancy, new strategic initiative, changing the market dynamics etc. For example ZARA, Spanish fast fashion retailer, identify large number of factor that has driven change within the fast fashion. ZARA has adopted business model that focus on the efficiencies exploitation in the bottleneck areas of the supply chain. ZARA reduced the replenishment time to twice a week as compare to the other fast fashion retailers that required at least two weeks or even a season. Therefore, many fast fashion marketers have started to enhance focus in knitting the business model closely to reduce the efficiency gap in comparison to ZARA. Therefore, irrespective change is forced or planned; it is always driven by the objective as the objective of all fast fashion retailers including ZARA have been gaining efficiencies in business models (Wang, Tan, Kao, Tao, and Shen, 2012). The objective of every change is to amend the current status of business to the future status that has to different. The difference of the future state business also has to be better off from the present standing of business. Change management also receives significant impact from initiator of the change. Though change implementation is being conducted by the entire organisation that is either in the role of change director or direction receiver, there is always a leadership that guides change. The successful or unsuccessful results of the change are the reflection the leadership that led the change with objective. Nadler, Thies, and Nadler (2001) have reported that for the change to be successful specifically in case of the cultural change, the role of active leadership with change execution team is re-replaceable. Nadler, Thies, and Nadler (2001) have further noted that organisations that have been successful in the coping up with change are organisation that had active leaders playing important role in directing the people sequentially towards the desired goal. The rule is similar for every change that has been planned or imposed by changing business environment. The duration of moving from the current status to the desired status is also dependent on the pace with which change agent is capable to reduce the resisting forces as compare to the driving forces of change. In the similar respect Lewin has determined force field analysis for identifying the drivers of change and the restraining forces against such drivers in achieving the ideal state of change. In accordance with the Lewin’s model, change agent if equip to deal with the restraining forces are to gain success. As an example, on implementing change the personnel or the employees of an organisation are concerned for their respective positions in the future status of the business (Marshak, 1993). These concerns can be in terms of power, position job consciousness etc. Unawareness about the mentioned factors will lead to the resistance for change. However, in case the leader devising mechanism maintains to consistently communicate with employees for addressing the concerns can reduce the power of resistance. In some instances the resisting forces are also required to be eliminated. Hence, either by reducing the power of resisting forces or enhancing the power of drivers of change business can ensure successful integration of change. Change management, to be successful in the current business environment, has to be so implemented that it also remains aligned with organisation. Organisation sensitive change management is important as it enables the business and its constituents to gain the status that is desirable by the firm. Balogum and Halley (1999) devised a change kaleidoscope in three levels that enable business to adapt change in way sensitive to business as presented in the image below: (Balogun, 2001) The outer circle of the Balogum and Halley (1999) change kaleidoscope provides manager guidance in the broad context of the organisational strategic context. Middle level or the middle ring of the change kaleidoscope provides strategic contextual feature of the change management in more specific way. Areas that have been identified by the change kaleidoscope to ensure change alignment with business context includes time, scope, capability, preservation, diversity, capacity, readiness and power of the organisation’s culture, competency as well as current situation of the business. For instance, the capability of the organisation at individual, managerial as well as organisational level to adapt and survive with change factors being implemented has to be considered in detail. Similarly, time factor is also very important as the change being implemented is required to be achieved within the defined time. Businesses are required to evaluate the time factor very critically. Time cushion available for change implementation enhances business capability to easily deal with the resistances and discrepancies that come in way of change implementation. However, in case the time for smooth transition to the changed status is over businesses are then forced to adopt change likely or unlikely by the organisational participants. Change implementation in the context of the time factor is also very critical for the fact as every organisation does not retain the capability to adapt or resist change equally. Hence, the role of every factor identified in the middle ring of the kaleidoscope is critical to manage change in context to organisation. Finally, the inner most circle of the change kaleidoscope requires change agent to adopt from available design menu for change implementation. The design choices available to business or more specifically the change agent include option for change implementation with respect to change path, change style, change roles, change start point and change interventions. All these factors of the Balogum and Halley (1999) change kaleidoscope are to be aligned within organisational context in order to achieve the desired successful status in future. Change implementation in the business spectrum is always in a form of process and therefore cannot be implemented in an abrupt manner. Even the forced changes are required to be implemented in a sequential or simultaneous series. The phases that change management passes through include status of shock for those that are being made part of change. Shock of leaving the set pattern and moving to a new model is initially responded by the denial to the change. Change agents in such situations can ensure the least level of denial by strengthening the communication between organisational components. Stronger communication will increase the level of awareness related to the change processes and its ultimate benefits to the participants as well as organisation as whole. Support from the change agent or leader in form of technical guidance and emotional support also plays decisive role in controlling the level of resistance. Awareness leads to the acceptance of the change process for testing only. Response to change implementation from testing requires mechanism that determines its level and pace of integration within business. In the phases of transition the role of change implementation is extremely critical (Sturdy & Grey, 2003). In addition to the discussed aspects change management requires to explore many other aspects. Such as skills required for change management, devising the comprehensive strategy for dealing with changes need especially in case when the change is forced on the organisation. Each of the aspects discussed and mentioned above are comprehensive domains in themselves. Planned change can result in devastating failure and forced change can be result in successful transition to new status depending upon the mechanism with which change is has been dealt (Olson & Eoyang, 2001). With broader enlightenment of factors it can be well understood that the change management is a vast field and therefore, every change requires mechanism that is best suited for dealing with respective change drivers. This asserts that business cannot simply replicate single strategy on every change requirement. However, in order to equip business with capability to deal with change in crises business can outline the mechanism. For instance, level or the types of resistance expected from company employees can be anticipated to certain extend. Therefore, business can integrate plans to increase the adaptability of the employees to changing business environment. Hence, there cannot be defined any single best strategy to deal with change other than adaptability (Kritsonis, 2004). List of References Babcock. (2009). Process improvement at HM Navel Base- Clyde: achieving operation effectiveness in a critical environment. Available from http://www.colinbarr.com/assets/articles/achievenoperationaleffectiveness_babcock.pdf [Accessed 20 April 2013] Balogun, J. (2001). Strategic Change. Management Quarterly, Part 10. Available from http://www.tomorrowsleaders.com/A5569D/icaew/content.nsf/DocumentLookup/ICAEWSTR0109/$file/MQ10+Strategy.pdf [Accessed 20 April 2013] Balogun, J., and Hailey, V. (1999). Exploring strategic change. Prentice Hall Daft, R., and Marcic, D. (2006). Understanding Management. Mason, OH: Thomson Higher Education Jung, D. (2001). ‘Transformational and transactional leadership and their effects on creativity in groups’, Creativity Research Journal, vol. 13, pp. 185–195. Kritsonis, A. (2004). Comparison of change theories. International journal of scholarly academic intellectual diversity, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-7. Marshak, R. J. (1993). Lewin meets Confucius: a review of the OD model of change. The Journal of applied behavioral science, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 393-415. Martin, G. (2006). Managing people and organizations in changing context. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Nadler, D. A., Thies, T., and Nadler, M. (2001). ‘Culture Change in the Strategic enterprise: Lessons from the Field’. In: C. L. Cooper, S. Carwright and P. C. Earley, The International Handbook of Organisational Culture and Climate. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Olson, E. E., & Eoyang, G. H. (2001). Facilitating organization change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer. Sturdy, A., & Grey, C. (2003). Beneath and beyond organizational change management: exploring alternatives. Organization, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 651-662. Wang, X., Tan, T., Kao, K., Tao, Y., and Shen, F. (2012). ZARA Synopsis. Available from http://www.sfu.ca/~sheppard/478/syn/Synopsis6.pdf [Accessed 20 April, 2013] Read More