Relevance of Organisational Change Models - Essay Example

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE INTRODUCTION Organizational development is defined as the collaboration of its leaders with groups to go ahead with planned or systematic change and solve root-cause problems to enhance productivity and employee satisfaction by bringing an improvement in the processes that gets their work done. In today’s world, change is the only constant thing that keeps happening. This is mainly due to the technological advances faced by the world today. These progresses in Information Technology specially have greatly altered the operations and functions of an organization making it more flexible, variable and modern. The wide and easy access to stores of information, both external and internal has made it easier to organize tasks and to define roles. (Lippit. R 1958) However, the fast-paced on going change means that organization now have the added task of planning and tackling issues that will be affected by the change in future. Some of the issues can be related to the personnel of an organization or with the administration itself. Organizations now need to have a proactive and practical attitude and prepare for future change. If the organization does not prepare itself for the times to come and does not adapt its working to the changing environment in advance, it will run the risk of facing closure and losing its customers and profits. By envisaging the impact of the changes on the organization in the times to come and responding to it appropriately, the organization minimizes its chances of facing serious problems. THE STEPS IN CARRYING OUT A PLANNED CHANGE Moreover, an organization through some change of leadership, customers, and environment feels the need of bringing appropriate change into the organization. An organization through a series of steps can find out the nature of the required change, gauge how it is likely to affect the organization and adjust its functions and work systematically. Firstly, to initiate a planned change process, the organization has to concern itself with entering and contracting. This step enables the managers to envision the further steps in the planned change process and it assists them in deciding whether planned change is what they actually need for the organization and how to allocate resources to facilitate the change. This step involves the gathering of ideas and suggestions and to formulate a plan of putting them into use. Opportunities and threats facing the organization are analyzed and discussion is held between the various members of the organization. Then, the organization moves towards contracting, or drawing up a formal agreement for the planned change process. The second stage, diagnosing, revolves around the identifying of problems and their causes and after effects to get a better understanding of the organization’s standing and its components. It is considered to be one of the most important activities in the planned change process as it deals with understanding the organization, analyzing what it needs and informing the managers and other members of the organization about its problems and positive attributes. This step is made complex by the analysis of three kinds of problems to the organization. The first type of problem is the collective problems faced by the organization, the other concerns group level problems and the last is concerned with problems affecting individuals in the organization. The analysis can be done by organizational meetings, charts, market research or through interviews. The planning and implementing of change comes next, where the members of the organization collectively plan and try to execute organizational development interventions. The interventions are design to assist in the improvement of the organization. These interventions depend upon an organization’s willingness to change and its current capacity to welcome change, its culture and power distributions and the agent’s skills. The interventions are of four types, the human process intervention which is related to the individual, group and system levels, the interventions to enhance an organization’s structure, interventions to better the performance of organizational member ands strategic interventions. In this stage, the external environment of the organization is evaluated and the validity and support capability of the internal systems and structure is gauged to formulate a business strategy. Managing the planned change process involves driving the change forward in the right direction, envisaging the future of the business after change, gathering political support, managing the transformation phase and maintaining the effects of change after it has been implemented. The last step in the planned change process is about evaluating the change that was implemented and whether it has fulfilled the initial purpose of the business. The members of the organization receive feedback about the consequences of the change, its effectiveness and whether it would be better to modify it or eliminate it altogether. Institutionalizing chance is about reinforcing the effects of change through rewards, training, incentives and feedback. THE ROLE OF A LEADER The most important role of leadership is to formulate an integrating vision and a general strategy, build a support system for developing the change, and providing guidance and coordinating until the strategy is fully implemented. The task of leadership is not only to formulate guidelines and giving the details to all levels of management, the leader is also responsible for encourage the lower levels of management and organization to incorporate change into their workings gradually according to the general vision and strategy of the leader and organization. (Guest R.H, 1962) (Tushman L. 1997) To ensure that the change is effective, the leader should try to avoid being a dictator but instead he should give suggestions, support and encouragement and provide the necessary resources to facilitate the change. The eight stage model of leading planned organizational change was suggested by John Kotter and the leader is required to follow all the stages and avoid making critical mistakes. (Guest R.H, 1962) The first step is of establishing a sense of urgency to gain cooperation from other individuals. Complacency should be discourage because a high level of complacency will do nothing but lead the organization away from implementing change. The performance standards of workers should be uplifted and the broader picture of the organizational development should be within the focus of the senior management, instead of the numerous tiny details. Feedback from all quarters should be encouraged to ensure the future success of the planned change. People should be constantly led away from stress and negativity. (Guest R.H, 1962) (Tushman L. 1997) Secondly, it should not be believed by the leaders that they can pull of the entire organizational change single-handedly. They should be open to suggestions and adopt a cooperative style of working which will also involve the other members of the organization to participate and provide their own feedback. Tasks and responsibilities should be distributed among the various members according to their capabilities and personalities. (Guest R.H, 1962) Thirdly, the leaders need to clarify the vision and strategy of the organization from time to time to motivate people to take the right actions and to coordinate the different actions of various members. The vision should be flexible, communicable, focused and realistic. The time and cost estimates should also be known by the members so that they can perform accordingly. (Guest R.H, 1962) (Tushman L. 1997) Moreover, the members of the organization should be empowered so that they can actually effect change. They should have the required knowledge, expertise, discretion and support extended by the leaders to make things happen. It becomes the responsibility of the leader to reward risk-taking attitudes and achievement of short-term goals. After that, the leaders should consolidate short term goals and communicate the overall vision to enact a better and bigger change. The short-term successes should be evaluated and matched with the actual task. Lastly, leaders should bring about a change in the organizational culture by gradually communicating the new values and beliefs and by eliminated the old thought-process, traditions and mind-sets of the organization. (Guest R.H, 1962) THE USEFULNESS OF PLANNED CHANGE MODEL IN MODERN ORGANIZATIONS The modern organizations are global, responsive, and flexible, encourage team-based and project-based approach and closely networked. The restructure and redesign of organization is making them more flexible, enabling a greater amount of knowledge sharing and allowing global integration. The changes in the organization caused by the rapid advancement in technology coupled with the implementation of planned organizational change involve a complex, uncertain and unstable process. This is because of the perception of the employees of an organization towards change and the way in which they actually incorporate change in their workings and performance. (Kaufman. H 1994) Planning organization change is a traditional approach for managing technology based change which involves a series of defined steps limited by a time frame and cost estimates. These models serve as a guide in planning a set of actions, comparing the performance with the plan and discouraging any deviations from the general vision. The problem that arises is the fact that the change, when it occurs is not so systematic in nature and is fast and evolving. The planned change model does not always keep that in mind and actually restricts change by planning for it. (Kaufman. H 1994) The planned change model does not recognize that the change is typically an ongoing process which is made up of opportunities and challenges at every step which are not very predictable. It often fails to recognize the realities of technology-based change and keeps the organization away from experimenting and from having a more opportunity-based approach. The opportunities that arise during the process of change are not fully utilized as it is actually a deviation from the original strategy set down by the leader while envisaging planned change in the organization. (Kaufman. H 1994) Moreover, planned change sometimes encourage strict controlling and command by the management when the actual requirement of the flexible environment is decentralization so that lower levels of management can quickly respond to it and administer change. Senior management necessarily does not have to get involved. The planned change model requires that strategies should be set, planned, developed and then communicated to the lower levels of workers. However, the more appropriate change for modern organization should be the other way round as the lower levels of workers have a greater idea of what the environment requires and how to actually alter the operations of the organization to suit the requirement. (Kaufman. H 1994) This, however, does not mean that planning is not the right thing to do in today’s environment. Instead, it means that the focus should be more on implementation or effecting the change than on planning as the change is never predictable but is always spontaneous. Instead of defining each step and controlling events, an environment should be created in such a way so that it facilities change and is more responsive and adaptable. An adaptable environment can only be created when the employees of the organizations have the necessary motivation and drive to accept change. Norms and cultures of the organization should be developed with the process of change rather than being changed after the planned change has been incorporated into the operations of the business. (Kaufman. H 1994) Instead of providing support and training to the employees of the organization, there should be a joint collaboration between the two ends of the organization where two-way communication should be encouraged. Workers should have the authority to suggest strategically useful ways of bringing change into the organization. As modern organization are relying more on flat and horizontal structures, the concept of leadership has also changed since the task of decision making is spread onto smaller and decentralized units. (Kaufman. H 1994) The task of planning, developing and implementing a change, for example, does not fall into the job description of any one person. Modern organizations are also known as jobless structures because full time permanent jobs are no longer encouraged. It is more fashionable and appropriate to hire part time and contractual employees. With this change in the requirement of employees, it becomes even more difficult to bring a systematic change in the organizational culture as it is vast, varied and diverse. (Kaufman. H 1994) Part time and contractual employees are not permanent and thus the organizational culture is flexible as the organization is host to a lot more people with varied skills and backgrounds than it would have been with permanent employees. The new organization also prefers matrix organization type with one permanent functional management and the other temporary project management. With the issue of dual authority, planned change is an inappropriate thing to do as the two types of management will always clash when it comes to making a strategy or plan. (Kaufman. H 1994) Sometimes, problems also arise when it comes to the management and implementing of change due to a lack of appropriate skills in the organizational development practitioners who are likely to ignore some vital strategies, as the process of OD is very complex. Mistakes may also occur in the diagnosis when managers or the owners of the organization try to avoid cost by not carrying out the process properly. The planned change process is a time consuming one and demands a lot of attention, consistency, commitment and motivation to be able to implement it effectively. It is very important that the implementation is carried out well, so as not to waste the resources allocated or utilized initially. It is unsuitable for organizations who are looking for quick solutions or believe that modifying one area of the organization will prove to be beneficial instead of going through the entire systemic change. It is important to let things go with the flow, adapt and respond to the environment and let the working of the organization be more spontaneous even if it involves some amount of risk. However, it is also important to note that planned change may not always be a failure. In fact, it can be useful in some situations where the change is somewhat predictable or is not so huge and uncontrollable. An organization that already has a flexible style of working may find it useful to enact small planned changes so that the members of the organization work in a more aligned and harmonious manner to achieve the long-term organizational goal. In organizations, where the technological change are simple and expected, the planned change model will be a better option for implementing change. Also, in organizations where experimentation and risk-taking is not supported and who have a high level of uncertainty avoidance, planned change model again will be successful. In a nutshell, it will be better for the modern organization to not stick to one model of change. Instead, they should customize different change models and use the one that is most suitable for their type of organization. It can be helpful to take a “right mix” of the steps of different models. References: Guest R.H (1962) Organizational Change: The Effect of Successful leadership Kaufman. H (1994) The Limits of organizational change Lippit. R (1958) The Dynamics of Planned Change Marguiles N. (1973) Organizational change: Techniques and Application Tushman L. (1997) A Practical Guide to leading organizational change Read More