Stages in the Model of Planned Organizational Change - Essay Example

Stages in the Model of Planned Organizational Change Before going to discuss stages in the model of planned organizational change, let us get a better understanding of what organizational change actually is. Organizational change refers to those changes that occur in the organization due to the influence of various external and internal forces. Rasing (2010) states, “The key to organizational change and development lies in the understanding of peoples requirements and work towards it”. External and internal forces of change not only affect organizational policies but also but also affect organizational structure.

Organizational change is a very important process related to roles and cultural management of a company. It refers to the changes in overall behaviors and roles of the employees of a company for bringing improvement in the overall productivity of the company. There are four main activities involved in the model of planned organizational change, which include entering, diagnosing, planning and implementing change, and evaluating and institutionalizing change. Let us discuss all of these activities in order to know what role they play in bringing change in any specific organization.

Stage 1: Entering and Contracting Entering and contracting is the first set of activities involved in the planned organizational change. In this stage, managers decide whether they need to enter into the activity of organizational change or not. Entering means gathering organizational data to gain awareness of the problems being faced by the organization. Upon collecting the required data or information, the change agents do a proper analysis of data in order to know whether any problem exists in the organizational processes or not.

Once they recognize some problems, they discuss them with employees and other concerned authorities to make a final decision regarding the need of change. If the decision regarding change is made, the agents communicate the contract’s activities to the concerned members in order to avoid disagreements, which may arise in future. Stage 2: Diagnosing Diagnosing is the second stage in the process of planned organizational change. In this stage, the agents identify the causes of the identified problems and selecting the most appropriate models for understanding the need for change and analyzing the information needed to implement the change.

The most important diagnostic activities include gathering data, analyzing data, and using the data to bring required change in the organization. Stage 3: Planning and Implementing Planning and implementing the change is the third stage in the planned change process. Managers of the organization do proper planning to implement the change considering different issues and intervention techniques. In this stage, mangers design interventions and develop action plans to implement the interventions.

There are four factors, which managers need to consider while designing interventions. Those factors include organization’s desire for change, capability of organization to sustain the momentum of change, distribution of activities, and level of proficiency of the authorities, which are supposed to bring the change. After designing the intervention, managers move towards motivating individual to get adapted to change, developing support for the change, and implementing the intervention in the benefit of the organization.

Stage 4: Evaluation of change This is the last stage in the planned change process. In this stage, change agents assess the aftermath of the change and evaluate the outcomes with the expected organizational performance. If the outcomes match the level of expected performance, the change agents mark the change as successful and institutionalize the change by reinforcing it through positive feedback and rewards. On the other hand, if they find any flaws in the change implementation strategy or if the outcomes of the change do not come up to the expectations, they recommend changes in the intervention strategy.

References Rasing, M. (2010). Organizational Change and Development. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Organizational-­Change-­and-­Development&id=3892833