2nd Bac - Change Management

Change Management

Is organizational change easy?

Change management can be defined as the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers. (Moran and Brightman, 2001)

Writers on change management agree on two key things. Firstly, that change affects all organizations, and secondly, that business is changing faster nowadays than in the past. The reasons for making changes are usually simple: to solve a problem or to improve results. So, it is important that business professionals understand the drivers of change and how to manage change at work. The difficult thing is how to make serious changes to a business in a successful way so that all the stakeholders are happy.

Many academic writers have looked at the reasons why people dislike and resist change. Rosabeth Kanter gave the following reasons why people often fight or try to stop change:

§  Loss of control – they have no choice about their future

§  Loss of face – they are afraid it will change the way people think about them

§  Loss of identity – some people use their work to define who they are

§  Loss of competence – they are good at their work now, but maybe not in the new situation

§  Personal uncertainty – they don’t know what is going to happen and they are worried

§  Surprise – they don’t know this is coming

§  More work – they think they will need to work more

§  Past events – previous changes affected them so they will not support new ideas

Another academic writer, Kurt Lewin wrote about the process of change in the 1940s and introduced a number of business ideas and models for understanding and analyzing change. He suggested that change should happen in three stages and compared it to taking something from a freezer, letting it thaw and changing it and then re-freezing it. The idea is that first you need to prepare carefully before making the change (unfreezing). When the people are ready, you can make the change. Then to make it effective you have to work hard to help people accept the change and think it is normal (re-freezing). 

Lewin’s process of change

 

So, what can a business leader do to deal with these problems and use this understanding of Lewin’s process of change? Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) created a list of ways to help to make change go well, both before starting and after finishing the change.

§  Avoid unnecessary change – if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

§  Communication and education – the need to explain and give reasons for the change.

§  Participation and involvement – the need to include all the staff and stakeholders in the decisions and activities.

§  Support and development – help people to make the change, for example, by giving training.

§  Negotiation and bargaining – to discuss the new arrangements with all the people involved and reach a new agreement.

§  Building coalitions and alliances – create teams or groups of people with a similar interest and with similar aims and objectives.

§  Making people agree without giving them a choice – forcing them to change.

Changes can affect the whole business so everyone must be involved. Many business leaders don’t think enough about change management and don’t make a plan. As a result, many changes fail because there is too much opposition from internal or external stakeholders in the business. So, it is very important to understand the issues around change management. You can then analyze the possible reactions from the stakeholders and create a plan where you decide how best to communicate and how to persuade people to understand and accept the change.

Classwork: Scan and send me the class copied to your notebook in a PDF file to my email: engteachermiken@gmail.com by the end of the class.