Change managment - Literature review Example

? Literature Review: Change Management Change Management Human life is undergoing constant changes because of the rapid development in science and technology. In fact, changes are inevitable in human life. There are no segments or aspects in human life which resisted changes successfully over a period of time. Changes are visible in our, social, political, legal, economic, cultural, and business circles. In some areas changes happen more rapidly than other areas. Business or organizational world is one segment in which changes taking place more rapidly than in any other areas of human life. The rapid development of science and technology, changes in life styles and life philosophies of people, changes in the consumer psychologies and buying behaviors etc made change inevitable in organizational world. Management of changes in the organizational world is difficult because of various reasons. Employees often resist changes because of their preconceived perception that any changes taking place in the organizational world are intended for maximizing the profits of the organization through increasing the workloads of the employees. Competitors often raise stiff competition which forces an organization to think of changing its normal procedures, policies and business philosophies to stay or survive in the market. In any case, change is avoidable in organizational world and the success and the failures of an organization depend on the ability of the organization in implementing or managing the changes positively. Change management has typically been defined as a process involving unfreezing, moving, and refreezing values, practices, and procedures within organizations. Unfreezing refers to the creation of a perceived discrepancy between the existing and ideal state of an organization that generates a desire for change and lowers people’s resistance to change. Moving refers to the various processes such as training, education, and restructuring that lead to the development of new behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. Refreezing regards reestablishing a new state of equilibrium within the organization by stabilizing the new patterns through a variety of support mechanisms (The World bank, n. d, p.1). Moreover, “Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level”(Change management, 2010). This paper analyses available literatures to get more insights about organization learning, organizational effectiveness and the role of change management.  The need of change management to an organization “The journey of Change Management starts with a Request for Change”(Doherty, 2006, p.5). It could be from external sources like customers or internal sources like the employees. Customers may often demand improvement in services they received from the organization Same way employees may also complain about the increased work load or lack of work-life balancing they are facing. These things can force the organization to implement changes in its functioning. Other conditions that facilitate organizational change are; “A dramatic crisis, Leadership turnover, Stage of life-cycle, Age of the organization, Size of organization, Strength of current culture etc” (Approaches to Change Management, n. d, p.1). It is not necessary that the market conditions always remain stable. Market can fluctuate any time depending on the economic and political changes happening across the world. Such fluctuations can result in dramatic crisis in organizational world as we witnessed recently because of global recession. It is difficult for an organization to stick with same policies even on crisis situations. Many organizations reduced their manpower and asked the remaining employees to work more in order to cut the expenses and to escape from the recent recession. Changes are often implemented in an organization because of the changes in leadership also. It is not necessary that the leadership styles of one person are similar to that of other people. Different leaders may have different vision and perceptions about the functioning of an organization which force them to implement changes in their organizations. Moreover, because of the rapid improvements in technologies, changes may become inevitable. For example, no organization can still make use of typewriters and improve its communication efficiency in this computer world. Employees who do not have computer proficiency should be retained after giving computer training or should be replaced by the computer professionals. As the organization grows, more and more changes are required to cater the needs of the employees and that of the organization. The functioning of a medium organization and that of a big corporation is entirely different. Kinds of changes Changes in an organization can be classified into three broad categories; developmental, transitional and transformational (Types of change, n. d., p.13). Developmental changes are often implemented in an organization to correct the existing drawbacks of the organization. For example, Apple Inc recently unveiled or introduced touch screen phones or iPhones in the market. It was difficult for the competitors like Nokia, Samsung etc to compete with Apple using their existing products and they also introduced touchscreen phones quickly in the market. In other words, if an organization feels that there are some loopholes or weakness in their organizational strategies, it can take necessary steps to correct it. Such changes are often referred as developmental changes in an organization. In short, developmental changes focus more on the improvement of a particular product, service, skill or process. “Transitional changes seek to achieve a known desired state that is different from the existing one. It is episodic, planned and second order or radical” (Types of change, n. d., p.13). For example, the advancements in science and technology have made lot of changes in the organizational world. Equipment or machines used in the past might be outdated at present and needs to be changed. Electronic typewriters were earlier used to prepare documents; however the entry of computers forced organizations to implement complete computerization in all its departments. Such changes can be referred as transitional changes. “Transformational change is radical or second order in nature. It requires a shift in assumptions made by the organization and its members” (Types of change, n. d.,p.13). Earlier, organizations often concentrated more on maximizing its profits. They had not much bothered to exploit the community resources. However, current organizations realized that it cannot sustain its developments, neglecting the community needs. Corporate Social Responsibility is a term evolved as a result of the above transformational change. Current organizations are keener in giving something back to the communities in which it operates as part of its corporate social responsibility. Ways of implementing change management in an organization Organizational changes can be implemented in three ways; ¦ Changing the individuals who work in the organization (their skills, values, attitudes and eventually behavior) – with an eye to instrumental organizational change ¦ Changing various organizational structures and systems – reward systems, reporting relationships, work designs ¦ Directly changing the organizational climate or interpersonal style – how often people are with each other, how conflict is managed, how decisions are made (Branch, n. d, p.4) (The necessity of changing the individuals or employees is discussed later in this paper).Organizational structures and management styles often create problems in implementing changes in an organization. Some organization may give more importance to totalitarian approaches whereas some other may adopt democratic approaches in its management styles. A third type of organizations may adopt a mixed approach. Based on these different management approaches, the relationship between the employees and the management could be different in different organizations. Better employee-employer relations always helpful in implementing change. If the employees have a feeling that the origination cares them more, they will not resist the changes much. In short, organizational climate is an important factor which can make or break the change management efforts. The communication plan is one of the key tools available to change management professionals. We can all agree that in times of change, communications are central to success. Unfortunately, there are many instances where communication plans and efforts are taking place without a change management framework or perspective (Communications: with and without change management, 2011) Effective and efficient communication is the core of any change management policies implemented in an organization. Communication is the blood of an organization and it is necessary for an organization to convey the business philosophies to the employees and to the communities. Internal and external communication channels needed to be enhanced in order to implement change management policies in an organization. The to and fro motion of communication between the organization, employees, and the societies will remove all the barriers created against the implementation of change management. Instant communication is necessary to implement change management successfully. Some managers have the habit of delaying decisions when they are not sure of the outcomes of their decisions. Such tactics will never help the efforts to implement change management policies in an organization. Employees often like to know the outcomes of their activities as quickly as possible. In effective communication often kills the change management efforts. Kotter (1996) has mentioned three patters of ineffective changes; The groups develops a good transformation vision and then proceeds to sell it by holding only a few meeting or sending out only a few memos. The head of the organization spends a considerable amount of time making speeches to the employees, but most of the managers are virtually silent. Much more efforts goes to newsletters and speeches, but highly visible individuals still behave in ways that are antithetical to the vision and the net results is that cynicism among the troops goes up while belief in the new message goes down (Kotter,1996, p.9) The employees should be given adequate information about the changes which are going to introduce in the origination. They should get enough time to discuss the change management policies prior to the introduction of these policies and for that purpose, they should be given adequate time to ask questions or to request clarifications. The vision and mission of the change management policies should be conveyed properly in order to remove all the concerns of the employees with respect to the new policies. There is initial resistance to organizational change for at least three reasons. First, people have had negative experiences as a result of previous organizational change efforts. A second reason for the pain during the transition period is the “mourning” change makers feel from the “death” of their work status quo. To help change makers accept the need for change, change managers attempt to portray the status quo as unacceptable, undesirable, and no longer viable. In other words, the status quo must be “killed” so that we can progress with making changes and creating a better future. The third reason many people initially resist change is the uncertainty created by the announcement of impending change (Ash, 2009, p.1-2) By nature, employees have a tendency to resist any change that happens in their organization. They wanted to keep the status quo as much as possible. This is because of their preconceived notion that all the changes implemented in an organization would be intended to maximize the organizations’ profits and to increase the workloads of the employees. They do believe that the ultimate victim or sufferer of any change management policy would be the employees rather than the organization. Their previous experiences may cement such thoughts in their minds. If the change management implementers fail to remove such apprehensions of the employees, the changes may bring more harm than the good in the organization. When changes are imposed without consultation and we have no opportunity to influence an outcome, our anger may not be overt but will be directed underground causing resentment, conflict and organizational rumor. This can also lead to work related stress and increased sickness absence, a situation that most managers want to avoid (Change Management Training – UK Consultant, n. d, p.2) Changes can be implemented successfully in an origination only with the help of the employees. Employees are the most important resource of an organization since all the other resources of an organization require the supervision from the employees. Dissatisfied employees always try to make an effort to defeat the change. Therefore, the success of any change management policy purely depends on how the employees may respond to the changes. The top management should educate the employees about the necessity and benefits of any change management polices well before its implementation. The employees should develop a feeling that the proposed changes are necessary and it may not cause any harm to their interests. In short, if the organization fails to gain the confidence of the employees, changes cannot be implemented or managed properly in an organization. It should be noted that even in normal situation, goal conflict exists between firm (owners) and its employees, but the magnitude and intensity of this conflict is very low and so it is hidden, we call this ‘goal difference’, and both parties (firm & employees) accept each other’s goals. In a strategic and major change program, firms alter their goals, which result in shifting and increasing their focus towards new goals. The shift in focus and increased commitment of firm towards attaining its new goals, increase the magnitude and intensity of goal conflict and it became very difficult for both parties (firm & employees) to accept each other’s goals (Khan and Rehman, n. d) Leadership is another important factor which is crucial in the implementation of change management procedures in an organization. Visionless leaders often cause more barriers while implementing changes in an organization. For example, suppose an organization tries to implement strategies to reduce its overhead expenses in order to escape from current recession. If the CEO of that organization tries to renovate his office or purchase an expensive vehicle for his company use, the employees may not get the right message from the leadership about the necessity of change management or the cutting down of expenses. Numerous studies have identified leadership and participation by top management as the single greatest contributor to success in change management programs. Change leadership must be diffused throughout the organization and an effective leadership network established to overcome resistance and inertia within the organization. Among the requirements of leadership during planned organizational changes are the courage to confront resistors and deal proactively with conflict, the ability to provide vision and coherence (linkages that hold the organization together), and the ability to motivate and overcome resistance (Branch, n. d, p.9-10) It is possible for everybody to become leaders, but it is difficult for all such leaders to become effective leaders. A true leader will always be a person with vision and mission who is capable of working for the accomplishment of common tasks. He values his mission more than anything else and will never work for his individual interests at the expense of the organization’s interests. He should show the way of practicing changes in an organization. If the leader is capable of showing the way, the employees may not show much resistance to the changes implemented in the organization. There are two kinds of leaders; active and passive. Active leaders will always work for the betterment of the organization whereas the passive leaders may not give much attention to the organizational goals. In short, active leaders or leaders with a positive vision will always helpful implementing changes in an organization. References 1. Approaches to Change Management (n. d). Retrieved from http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/IIT-MADRAS/Management_Science_II/Pdf/6_1.pdf 2. Ash P. (2009). Fast and Effective Change Management. Retrieved from http://www.adb.org/Documents/Information/Knowledge-Solutions/fast-effective-change-management.pdf 3. Branch K.M. (n.d). Change Management. Retrieved from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/doe/benchmark/ch04.pdf 4. Communications: with and without change management, (2011). Retrieved from http://www.change-management.com/tutorial-communication-with-without.htm 5. Change Management Training – UK Consultant, (n. d). Retrieved from http://www.training-management.info/PDF/Change-Management.pdf 6. Change management,(2010), Retrieved from http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid183_gci799426,00.html 7. Doherty P (2006). Change management Retrieved from http://www.ca.com/files/whitepapers/30264_change_mgmt_processmap.pdf 8. Khan, K. & Rehman, M., (n. d), Employee resistance towards organizational change, Retrieved from http://www.projectsparadise.com/employees-resistance- organizational-change/ 9. Kotter, J.P. (1996). Leading Change. Harvard Business School Press 10. Types of Change (n. d). Retrieved from http://www.karis.biz/storage/crew_cv/types%20of%20change.pdf 11. The World Bank (n. d). Change Management. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTGOVACC/Resources/ChangeManagementweb.pdf Read More