Organisational Change and Development. Why are there different perspectives on change within organizations - Essay Example

? Organisational Change and Development Contents Why are there different perspectives on change within organizations? Consider your answer in relation to both theory and practice and with an attention to value(s) and valorisation. 3 Reference 13 Why are there different perspectives on change within organizations? Consider your answer in relation to both theory and practice and with an attention to value(s) and valorisation. Organizational change is the much discussed topic and the most important question arises is how to bring in change within the organization. Organizational change has become the popular management theme. The main question whether organizational change is desirable is positively answered by most of the authors. But at the same time the authors do not go with the same kind of changes and on the basis of their different views, the reason for undergoing change also varies. But these authors have in common their support for change in a positive and rational manner. According to Boonstra there are two common approaches which are applied to achieve the desired changes in the organization. Therefore the two approaches are planned change and organizational development approach. These approaches are based on the assumption that an organization needs to be balanced both internally that is within the organization and secondly with the outside world. The change process can be well planned in a rational manner and can be controlled by means such as analysis of the environment, formulation of the goal, development and implementation of strategy. Feedback and interventions plays a role in controlling the change process (Ven, 2011, p.5). In many organizations there still exists a mismatch between the actual working practice and the current realities of the workforce of the organization. One of the reasons for mismatch is the traditional way of working which tends to overlook the diversity of the work culture. A growing number of men and women likes to work in a way which allows them to fulfil their needs and also spend quality time with their family members or can even take part in the other social activities. For example the European workers work in a way that allows them to have a life of their own beyond work. Also a study in Britain revealed that the profession of a Chartered Accountant which generally demands long working hours, most of the youngsters is resisting the work dominated lifestyles of their seniors. The youngster believes that they can work more effectively if they have the opportunity to integrate their professional and personal life. But in reality these benefits tends to be constrain for the organization and it assumes that an ideal employee have no responsibilities beyond work. However it is not only the com position of workforce that is changing but the nature of the job is at a flux. With an increase in the globalization of each sector, people are experiencing an intensification of work. Thus it is not always possible to hold back change but the forces of change can be well utilized or viewed in a positive way (Lewis & Cooper, 2005, p.4). About more than 70% of the change initiatives in the organization either fail or stall prematurely. The goals set are not achieved, policies are not implemented as well as the customers do not experience any changes or improvement in the organizations services air quality of the products. And in the process the employees, staff and the middle men gets confused with the entire change process. It has been found out that in USA majority of the change implemented no do succeed and turns out to be in vain. Thus it can be said that organizational change are difficult and the reason provided for difficulty in adoption of change includes, policy making and strategic management, the exiting structure of the organization, politics and power in organization, the culture of the organization and uncertainties of individual and resistance to change (Boonstra, 2004, p. 2). Significant change does occur within the organization, such as when a certain organization changes its strategy for the need of success. For organization to develop it needs to go through certain changes at various stages of the development of the organization. And this is one of the reasons why the topic on organizational change and development has become popular in business communication, organization, leadership and in management. The leaders and the management of the organization continuously try to accomplish changes which are successful at the end. Some mangers are good at this strategy while other fail to succeed. One of the reasons for changes in the organization is to improve the performance of the respective organization or even a part of the organization (Free Management Library, n.d). There are different ways to consider a change in the organization. Some of the key factors include the source of change, the scale of change along with its content and the political aspect. A change is usually characterized in two major extremes which are as revolutionary or evolutionary. Revolutionary refers to a change process that affects the dimensions of an organization simultaneously. Revolutionary changes involve large scale changes which affects the culture of the organization, the management control system, structure of organization, the reward system and of course the leadership. These changes take place because of the strategies implemented by the organization in order to bring about a product development or any mergers and acquisition triggered by some external force such as technology, competition etc. Whereas evolutionary changes refers to those changes which affects part of an organization like operational change. These changes usually takes place within the existing strategy of the organization and culture and includes factors such as modification of products in terms of distribution or design, recruitment of more personnel or else change or improvement in the quality of the service offered by an organization. Evolutionary changes occur gradually and sometimes also referred to as continuous change (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2007, p.15). Therefore one of the prominent reason as to why there are different perspectives towards change in an organization is because of the uncertain future. Many are worried about the change about the life of an organization as the pace of change quickens and the future is becoming more unpredictable. According to Drucker, organizations are like large symphony orchestra and according to the theory of organization, it must also consist of several groups of vice presidents but this is not the way an organization works. Perhaps this is an example that Drucker has provided and expects the organization to function like an orchestra in the future (Senior, 2009, p.13). Change is the only thing constant and a society is reflected in many forms. Changes in values in a society generally pose an impact on the markets and ultimately affect the way organisations behave and manage their responsibility towards the change. Similarly there are changes which take place within an organisation and these changes takes place because of some factors such as new technology used in work process, alteration of the organisational structure, physical setting, jobs, modification of employees attitude, skills and expectation. Organisations also have the power to influence the internal environment. It is often assumed that organisation do find difficulties in implementing the changes but one must accept that change is not a recent concept it’s an age old concept which needs to get implement during a course of life. As per Gottlieb change has always been with organisation and it’s only that it has become much more intense and occurs much more frequently than in the past. Models of Change In this model of change an organisation passes through three phases and they are formative, normative phase, and integrative phase. Apart from the three phases of change Lewin had described a three step change process which includes Unfreezing, change and freezing. Unfreezing is a stage in which the employees of the organisation recognises the need for change in their respective organisation. This process aims to inform the people in the organisation about the importance of change and how it might affect their job and responsibilities. It is of much important for the employees to feel that the current activities of the organisation are not effective enough to get them or produce effective results. And it is believed that the proposed change is introduced for transforming the current situation of the organisation. Change is the actual movement from the old situation to the new situation and during the change involves a process that actually alters the existing relationship and the activities of the organisation. Refreezing is the process in which the changed behaviour of the people is made solid so that it is not reversed easily. If things are not refreeze then the old method of doing or performing the activities might pop up while performing the activities in the new changed environment. In addition, rewards must be given to employees to try to bring about a change and implement the change that has already been implemented in the organisation. Thus refreezing can also be described as a step when the change gets accepted. Continuous change process model is an alternative model to Lewin model. This model is considered to be more realistic as this process aims to examine the change to be brought in the organisation from the perspective of top level management. The alternatives for change are discussed and the best and the most acceptable alternative are then adopted. In the continuous change process a major part is played by a change agent. This person is concerned with managing the efforts corned with the change and directing the change properly (McKenna, 2000, p.505). To relate the theories of change in an organisation and why does organisations implement changes here are few examples of some renowned organisation which has implemented the change in their respective organisation. One of the most important and effective form of internal change is the cultural change. The next few lines are going to explain the cultural change in one the market leaders in the FMCG sector. The major issue was regarding the best practice of human resource and the corporate culture in a large MNC in the FMCG industry and the problem involved in alerting the culture of the company. The following example deals with the organisational culture of a well known FMCG company, Procter & Gamble. This example aims to discuss the issues on the HR practises performed by the company and also the company’s corporate culture. This case study elaborates the step taken by former CEO of P&G Durk Jager, to bring about changes in the corporate culture so to enhance financial growth and innovation. This case study aims to measure the reason of failure of Jagers strategy. The case in the latter part also discusses the strategy adopted by the new CEO who managed to restore the cultural equilibrium in P&G. The company P&G was faced with a situation of stagnant revenues and profitability in its late 1990s. Thus in order to tackle the problem, P&G’s CEO Jager, launched the Organisation Program 2005 during July 1999. The Program was a six year long restructuring organisational exercise which involved revamping of P&G corporate culture, retrenchment of its employees and reduction in the hierarchal structure. With this new program P&G had thought to increase its global revenue from 38billion dollars to 70billion dollars by 2005. According to analysts, the Organisation 2005 program was able to convince the people but the program was not executed properly. Jager tried to change the culture of the organisation in a drastic manner and within a short span of time. Thus this step taken by Jager resulted in increase in cost and decline in its profitability. In April 2000, the company declared that the company had suffered an 18% decline in its net profit. This was the first time that the company P&G has experienced a decline in its profit ratio. Jager could not take this issue anymore and resigned as the CEO of P&G approximately after 17months of the loss in the company’s profit. In June 2000, Alan George Lafley took over the CEO’s position in P&G. Lafley set back the old culture and did not make radically change in the organisations culture. By 2003 the company share price rose up by 58% which amounted to about $92billion. But the analysts did express doubts about the leadership strategy adopted by Lafley in order to sustain the growth of P&G. P&G treated its employees as part of its family, the core values, and principles along with vision focused on the development of its people. The overall P&G HR practises and culture were known to be the best. P&G also followed a comprehensive recruitment process while hiring candidates. The company followed a culture where all its recruitment was done on the campuses. Resumes were scanned of the chosen candidates and also for those who did not attend the interviews. The top officials of the company usually went for pre placement talk to the collages and as a result a strong relationship was build between the company and the collages. The company did hire students for various sectors such as finance, marketing, manufacturing, research including sales. It hired candidates from well knows institutes such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton. The company had taken several steps and had developed its employees where the superiors were encouraged to train and help their subordinates. This process was well coordinated across the globe for P&G was Work and Development Planning System. P&G culture changes under the leadership of Jager The organisation 2005 programs, the corporate structure of P&G was reorganised from 4 geographic business units to 5 global units. The program worked for speeding the decision and to enable the company to innovate and introduce new products also it aimed to reduce bureaucracy and in a way reduce the cost. The program also aimed at creating an informal work culture which facilitated sharing of knowledge among its employees. This program was directed to revamp the culture of the organisation so that the company can focus on its new philosophy that is Stretch, Innovation and Speed. As per Jager, the program focuses on one thing that is leveraging the company’s innovative capabilities. Jager believed that the best way to accelerate the company’s growth of sales, earnings and volume was to innovate big and move faster. Therefore under the program initiated by Jager P&G changed the way the company looked at appraisal of individual and moved from a conservative goal setting process to a more stretched goal. But the program encountered a loophole; earlier the company would appraise its employees on the basis of target sets and their achievements. But the present program set easy targets and there was a possibility that an underperformer manager might take the credit as targets can be easily achieved. Cultural changes under Lafley Lafley after taking the position of CEO rebuilt the top management team and has made efforts to improve the company’s profitability and operations. Lafley took an unpredictable step in which he transferred 15 senior members of P&G and assigned the roles to women. One of the senior women about 42 years of age was appointed as the head of the company’s global baby care division. After the eminent changes made in the management structure, the operating business heads and the corporate functions heads were sent to represent 13 different countries. Thus the average age of the company’s Global leadership council was 49 as compared to 54 in the year 1999. Lafley also managed to promote competition among the top level management’s teams. In the Global Leadership council, Lafley said that the company motivates people who are by true nature performance oriented and for those whom the company did not motivate; P&G was probably not the right place to work for (ICMR, 2004). Thus this shows that Lafley did manage to bring about change in the organisational culture but slowly and gradually. Lafley did understand that to bring about a change in the culture of the organisation, the company need to act gradually and according to the needs and wants of the employees as in P&G the employees are treated as a member of P&G family. This case shows that change is possible in each and every organisation the only thing that needs to be right is the time and the way a manger implement the changes. The second example deals with the initiative taken by the top level management of departmental store chain JC Penney under the supervisor of Mike Ullman. This initiative was taken in order to bring about a change in the culture of JCP which was too formal and was one of the reasons for the company’s turnover and its ability to attract talent. The work conditions of JCP were not aggressive enough to achieve the objectives set by the company. Thus Ullman and his team initiative various changes that has helped the company to regain its position. The issue which Ullman addressed were to appreciate the importance of HR in attracting, motivating and retaining employees, to understand the importance of organisational culture in order to regain its competitive advantage. Thus the CEO had realised that he had to make JCP a great place to work in for its employees. His aim was to build a customer focused culture in JCP but Ullam did face challenges while trying to incorporate the changes. The culture of JCP was very rigid it did not want to change and Ullam realised that the prevailing mood of the employees were rigid and were not conducive to attain the goal set by the company. To bring about changes, Ullam introduced campaign such as Just call me mike in which the company encourage the members to call by their respective name, a relaxation in dress code and most importantly disbanding the office police which was adopted by JCP. The notable changes were the Retail Academy and winning together principle. At the end of 2006, the cultural change brought in by Ullman was visible as JCP was able to attract sufficient talent and also the company was able to post its 15th consecutive gain at the end of the fiscal year 2006. The CEO was credited about the change that bought in JCP’s culture. According to experts the culture of the organisation was driven by the top level management and the initiatives taken by Ullam were too good for the company. Thus the changes brought about by Ullam and his team was very well appreciated (ICMR, 2007). Reference Alvesson, M. & Sveningsson, S. (2007). Changing organizational culture: cultural change work in progress. Routledge. Boonstra, J. J. (2004). Dynamics of organizational change and learning. John Wiley & Sons. Free Management Library. (No Date). Organizational Change and Development. [Online]. Available at: http://managementhelp.org/organizationalchange/index.htm [Accessed on January 6, 2012]. ICMR. (2004). Managing Cultural Change at P & G. [Online]. Available at: http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and%20Organization%20Behavior/Managing%20Cultural%20Change%20at%20P%20&%20G-Human%20Resource%20Management%20Case%20Studies.htm. [Accessed on January 7, 2012]. ICMR. (2007). Remaking JC Penny Organisation. [Online]. Available at: http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and%20Organization%20Behavior/JC%20Penney%20Organizational%20CultureManagement%20Case%20Studies.htm. [Accessed on January 7, 2012]. Lewis, S. & Cooper, C. L. (2005). Work-life integration: case studies of organizational change. John Wiley & Sons. McKenna, E. F. (2000). Business psychology and organisational behaviour. Psychology Press. Senior, B. (2009). Organizational Change, 3/E. Pearson Education India. Ven, N. V. D. (2011). The Shame of Reason in Organizational Change: A Levinassian Perspective. Springer. Read More