Organizational Change and Development Individual - Term Paper Example

Organizational Change and Development Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Literature Review III. Discussion IV. Proposed Strategy of Task Force V. Conclusion VI. Reference I. Introduction Researcher was in-charge of a task force in a large government. The role of the task force is to ensure that employees maintain a high level of resilience on the job. In this paper, researcher has utilized academic knowledge and personal experience to achieve the objective. The first section of the paper is literature review where researcher has studied various factors related to resilience, stress and individual’s personality. The next section is discussion section followed by proposed strategy of the task force. II. Literature Review Various factors influence individuals. Some individuals monitor themselves in every condition and try to improve with time and circumstances. The ability to adapt in such individuals is always high. They utilize their social environments as a source of information. They are concerned about their actions in social gathering, social comparison information and demand of different situations. Various factors of internal and external environment influence individuals in different ways. Moral norms, attitudes, motives, social roles, type of family and guardianship, economic conditions, gender and social view towards particular gender, language and symbols and others influences value system of an individual. It has influence on their decision-making ability, level of confidence and self-perception. Risk is an uncertain situation. Fear of unknown is the most common threat of people experiencing any kind of risk. Risk can be of two forms i.e. inner risk of an individual like low self esteem, low level of confidence, language difficulty or lack of ability while outer risk can be risk of not getting proper education, recognition, risk from cultural and community life, risk from society and many others. “In the last decade, the focus has shifted from burnout to secondary traumatic stress due to the recognition of the specific challenges of working with traumatized individuals. Whether we are addressing the impact of working with others in general or those, who have been traumatized, research agrees that we have a responsibility to maintain our own health and wellness as counselors (Iliffe & Steed, 2000; Miller, 1998; Savicki & Cooley, 1982; Sexton, 1999; Sherman, 1996) (as cited in O'Halloran and Linton 2000) People react to their adverse situations differently. Some people lose their ability to work or perform under stress or high risk situations. This influences their decision-making abilities and positive development. At the same time, some individuals react differently to stressful and risky situations. They develop positively and show considerable resistant to such situations. Different authors, scholars, sociologist and psychologists have defined resilience differently. Egeland, Carlson, & Sroufe (1993) have defined resilience as a successful adaptation or development of competence despite high-risk status or chronic stress. Rutter (1999) relates resistance of psychosocial risk experiences to resilience. Masten (2001) states resilience is a result in the form of positive developmental of an individual in adversity or stress. Resilience is considered as a positive attribute of one’s personality that helps him to cope with the stressful condition in a positive manner. It is measure of stress coping ability. Psychologist utilizes this in treatment in anxiety, depression, and other stress reactions. “Burnout has been defined as "to fail, wear out or become exhausted by making excessive demands on energy, strength, or resources" (Freudenberger, 1974, p.159). The Maslach Burnout Inventory assesses three symptom areas: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization of clients, and lack of feelings of personal accomplishment (Savicki & Cooley, 1982 as cited in O'Halloran and Linton 2000). People can be broadly categorized as people following Individualism or collectivism. The social environment is highly responsible for person developing any particular approach to their life. Various studies have indicated that in American firms individualism is more common than that of collectivism. “Collectivism involves the subordination of personal interests to the goals of the larger work group, an emphasis on sharing, cooperation, and group harmony, a concern with group welfare, and hostility toward out-group members.” (Michael, Duane and Jeffrey, 1994) People following any of the above philosophy of life can face risk situations. In the case of individualism, the risk from inner sources will have greater role that outer risk as the person is relying on his own ability to deal with situations. In the case of collectivism risk from outer sources increases as people, depend on others for the collective outcomes. In any case, a person showing high level of resilience will have certain attributes dominating other attributes of his personality. These are his intelligence, self-confidence, optimistic and positive approach towards life, high level of motivation, clarity of goal and purpose, social skills and good problem solving skills. The person will have ability to receive the best from his colleagues, family and relatives and social circle. There are four different scales to measure resilience developed by different scholars. Wagnild and Young developed their resilience scale in 1993. They were followed resiliency scale of Jew Green and Kroger in 1999. Friborg et al (2003) came up with Resilience Scale for Adults in 2003. In the same year, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was developed to access resilience. The Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) comprises of 25 items each rated on a 5-point scale (0-4), with higher scores reflecting greater resilience. The scale was administered to subjects in the following groups: community sample, primary care outpatients, general psychiatric outpatients, clinical trial of generalized anxiety disorder, and two clinical trials of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder). Reference scores, reliability and factor analytical structure of the scale were evaluated for the samples. Attention was given to the sensitivity of the treatment of PTSD. This method has been proved to e successful based on repeated measures of ANOVA. During the treatment, patients show high level of improvement, which has increased acceptance to this method. It clearly distinguishes between people with low level of resilience and high level of resilience. This helps expert to design treatment method accordingly. The study and results of this scale shows that resilience is modifiable. It can be improved. Individuals’ has different locus of control where people place responsibility of the events of their lives. The choices and control of their life is influenced by this locus of control. Individuals’ can be categorized in two different groups based on locus of control. First are internals whose locus of control are they themselves and second category is of external who believe that anything happening in their lives is result of other factors like luck and others. Holland’s hexagonal model comprises six basic career types namely Artistic, Enterprising, Conventional, Realistic, Investigative and Social. Artistic people are creative, complex, institutive, and emotional and prefer working independently. Social is the group of people are friendly, harmonious, outgoing and have strong verbal and personal skills, and are good team worker. Enterprising are people who are confident about their decisions, socialable, leadership skills and quality oriented. Conventional are people who are disciplined, dependable, efficient, and practical, rules, and policies oriented. They have high-income potential. Investigative are the people with an eye to details. They are process oriented. They have strong problem solving and analytical skills. They are conservative, intelligent and research oriented. Work Addiction Risk Test (WART) is a systematic tool, which helps to identify whether an individual is workaholic, or not. In Fassesl’s view, workaholism is a disease. It is progressive and fatal for the person addicted to it (1990). Workaholics are often judgmental, perfectionist, self centered and confused. They are controlling and crisis oriented. These people create problems for others working with them. There are certain myths about work addiction for instance workaholics are always working. It is positive, profitable and productive. There are various characteristics of workaholics. Usually these people have self-esteem problems, inability to relax, obsessive about their jobs and are defensive to their habits. They are not just addicted to work; they are addicted to other factors that they can get from it. The most important among these is money. They are self-centered, like to work in isolation, and try to control everything, lack intimacy or have some other problems. Realistic people have focus on tangible results and are technology savvy. Recommendations for dealing with burnout in the counseling profession included personal therapy, ample free private time (Watkins, 1983), stress-reduction techniques, development of an attitude of detached concern, and clarification of expectations and beliefs about counselling (Savicki & Cooley, 1982 as cited in O'Halloran and Linton 2000) III. Discussion The assignment of the researcher is that in the given government organization, researcher will work with a task force to improve resilience among people working in the organization. The factors influencing resilience can be broadly categorized in inner factor and outer factor of any individual. These factors need to be identified for each individual working in the organization. The inner factors can be self-esteem, confidence and self-perception of the individual. This will require listing of the factors influencing inner factors and outer factors. People at the organization will have different responsibility with different working conditions. It is possible that particular period of year is more stressful like New Year or financial year ending. All these factors need to be analyzed in order to develop a plan. This is possible that people at different departments have different factors contributing to the risk and their stress. As indicated in literature review section resilience is modifiable. It changes with the development and support system of an individual. Development of the resilience within any organization can be started with the support management provides to people working for them. A positive culture, progressive approach and open door culture where subordinates can clarify their issues or problems with their bosses will contribute to the resilience. Overall, positive culture and team spirit will provide a support system to them. This will influence the overall culture of the organization. In any kind of crisis or risk situation, individuals’ respond differently. The difference in the individual personality, upbringing and social structure is largely responsible for the same. Researchers own experience of dealing with stress and risk situation based on his own ability to take responsibility, support from family, friends, and consistent academic and professional record that have build up his confidence and self-esteem. Researchers are a good communicator and have excellent interpersonal skills. IV. Proposed Strategy of Task Force In a large government organization, there will be different types of people with different approach towards their lives and work. There will be differences in personality and social structure within which an individual lives. This will have impact in their working. There will be different kinds of stress and risk situations within which individuals perform. The task force will work in following stages: Stage 1: Understanding the situation Stage 2: Studying individuals’ personality for Level of Resilience Stage 3: Designing Resilience development Plan Stage 4: Implementing Stage 5: Monitoring and Control Researcher will study culture of the government organization, working conditions; norms and organization structure at stage one. This will provide researcher an idea of working conditions in which individuals are working. At stage, two researchers will be studying personality of individuals so that levels of resilience can be studied. Individuals will have different locus of control, value system and risk situation in which they perform. Based on study of the first two stages, researcher will design resilience development plan. The task force can implement the plan strategically and monitor the development on based on studies conducted in regular intervals. Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) will be utilized for the Stage 2 and stage 5. V. Conclusion Resilience is an important factor that will help to positive development of any individual even in a crisis, stress or risk situation. Researcher is following a five-stage plan for the improvement in the resilience among people working in the large government organization. People from different department and at different levels will be facing different stress and risk situations. Apart from it, they will be from different social class, strata and family types. All these are influencing factors for resilience. Researcher largely believes that getting supportive social environment that consist of family, peers and friends contributes to resilience. In such case, it will be necessary to ask them certain questions relating to their social circle and social support system. Another important area will understand their perception about themselves. VI. Reference EGELAND, B., CARLSON, E. & SROUFE, L.A. (1993). Resilience as a Process. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 517-528 Masten, A. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227-238. Rutter, M. (1999) ‘Resilience concepts and findings: Implications for family therapy’,Journal of Family Therapy, 21, pp. 119–44 http://www.pro-ict.net/var/storage/original/application/phpwI23nK.ppt#260,5,Slide 5 retrieved on 1st October 2007 Snyder, M. (1974). Self-monitoring of expressive behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 30 pp.85-125. Connor, Kathryn M and Davidson, Jonathan R.T. 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