Understanding and Managing Resistance to Organisational Change

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Introduction

In the ever changing dynamic world, change is inevitable. Businesses have to be adjusted with the changing environment. Change in a business is a gradual process that must be well planned. The management should be actively involved in the change process since support is required from all corners.

When an organization or a country at large, wants to make a change in the way things are done then the start point is understanding the need that require a change. People are not willing to change, they tend to be in a state of inertia; however if well implemented then it can be a smooth transition.

Change in organizations is greatly favoured by the mode of organizational culture, if a company has a freelance culture; this is a culture that embraces a system that the employees feel free to air their views to the higher leadership, then change can be smoothly implemented.

In large organizations, there can be a division into various departments and the departments are supposed to face a certain area; the same departments can be undergoing varying changes. As much as there are departmental meetings, and departments are supposed to come up with their own way of doing things, there are meeting with the larger managements that are not restricted to the team managers alone.

Views from all are weighed equally and no one is supposed to be seen as the sole holder of wisdom when a change policy is being discussed. Views from all stake holders must be considered. Though decisions in this type of organizations take a long period of time, in most cases they make informed decisions.

They are firms that embrace change and keep changing gradually. Innovations in the organizations are seen as the order of the day and entrants are highly encouraged to be innovative and embrace change. This paper discusses how to manage change effectively.

Change

The world is undergoing different transition; these translations require organisations to align themselves with the changes in the world. Change can be to improve the current conditions, take a complete strategy or adopt a different way of doing things. Change management is a process where the management learn, understand, and critically think about alterations they are supposed to make in an organization.

However, for an effective change process, change should not be imposed to employees but they should be involved in the change system. When undertaking a change, the employees are the immediate people who will be affected and thus they need to be engaged from the earliest stage.

To remain competitive in the changing environment, there is need to adopt new mechanisms which ensure that a business is up to the task with the changing environments. When a business has taken the path of change, there are mechanisms that must be adopted for a smooth transition from the traditional method, of doing thing to a new mechanism.

This takes the form of psychological needs, technical expertise, and structure of a business, suppliers and other stakeholders. To undertake this task, the management need to do their homework well for a smooth ride. The power of inertia will act negatively to the management since people generally do not want to be moved from their areas of comfort to adopt a change. This is where the need for a psychological approach is required.

Objectives of a change management program

Change is taken for different reasons; each reason has some objectives that it aims at meeting; the universal objectives are;

Improve current working condition and strategies
Adopt a different way of doing things
Make new combinations of resources in an organization
Adopt new technology
Change of business, target market, production formulae, management, job schedules, and job description among others
Have a different human resource management system, computer system among others

Change process

Before a company adopt a new system of doing things, there is need to appreciate that the new way can only succeed if the employees are positive about the change. This calls for a gradual way process of implementing the change. The organizational culture is one of the factors that can affect the change negatively or positively. The change agents should understand this well before implementing the change program.

Generally a change follows the following procedure.

Problem identification and analysis

This is where the agents of change realize that there are / is some process that has to be made. After this there is the looking for the probable solution to the problem that must be alighted with the mission and vision of the organization. The staffs that will be affected as well as the entire team should be given the detailed analysis of what the organization want to do.

At this stage the management brain storms the effect of the program with the employees and let the employees learn how they will be affected. If there is any learning needed it is done at this stage.

Generally to have a job well-done, it is of great importance that people involved start from the beginning. Change management is not an exemption. In this stage, a good context of the problem is grasped. It is only after getting the correct understanding of the problem that he/she can make a good decision.

Pilot study

There is always no guarantee that the new system is going to be more effective than the old system, thus there is the need for the system to be run as a pilot study alongside the old system. This also offers the employees the time to have a hand on experience on the new system. They learn more about it and may even improve on it. If the program is seen as a better one, then the final stage is done.

In this stage the manager should gather all relevant data and facts. It is from the facts and data that he develops various alternatives of choices that can be used to solve the problem at hand. The statistics will also be the ones that will support the final decision. There are various methods of collecting data; they include researching, brainstorming, and experimentation.

It is the manager’s duty to choose the right method to adopt because different problems call for different methods. Depending on the problem, the people to be consulted differ. However, an effective manager should ensure that he/she consults those who matter and those who know.

Consultation assists in making a more informed decision and assists in generating more alternatives of choice. Their opinions and viewpoints should be considered in the final decision making, but the manager should always keep in mind that it is his/her responsibility to come up with the right decision.

Choosing the best alternative

After taking time and pondering over the issues (time taken depends on the urgency of the decision on the right change to be adopted), he/she chooses and implements the best alternative. At the initial stage a lot of support of the decision is required to ensure that the whole organization or the departments concerned have adopted it effectively.

It is not always that a decision made bring the expected results; thus feedback from the people on the ground and the general performance of the business should be sorted, so as areas that need improvement are recognized. In-case an area that needs improvement has been recognized, it should be addressed appropriately

Full adoption, control, and monitoring

At this stage, all things are alighted to follow the new system and the old one is switched off. All the employees are supposed to adopt the system. Improvement of the system is the major thing that follows this.

Manager’s role in change Management

Leaders are the people who are mandated with the task of pioneering a business to its desired objectives. In transitional period the leaders is the one who guides subordinates to the desired path. They jointly make rules and policies to be followed in attaining the goals. The role of the leader in this case is to oversee the performance of the roles of subordinates and giving guidance in various areas.

Change needs to be planned at all times when it is being implemented and conducted in such a way that it will be accepted in the business. The role of the leader in such case is the change agent. His (charisma) is put to test. He is supposed to guide his subordinate in a way that will inspire them and give intellectual stimulation.

He will consider what is referred to as individualized consideration, where by the focus will be on making each individual in the business comfortable with the change and be able to contribute to decisions as expected. One of the major hindrances of change is organizational culture. A manager when pioneering a company from one wave of leadership to another should first of all understand the culture of the company.

The use of opinion leaders is another way that a manager can use. Change is inevitable however it is one of the things that need to be planned by the concerned change agents since human being repel change; but when well developed and implemented it is adopted freely.

Major barriers to an effective change system

The first step in successful business change is to identify the communication channels to use in coaching employees. This can be through brainstorming where challenges facing the business can be identified. Such challenges can be obtained through reviewing the day to day activities of the business. Some questions may serve as a guideline, these include: Have employees been provided with a good working environment?

Are they happy with what they are doing? Has the business been able to satisfy all the clients? Is proper information provided to all stakeholders? Is there good flow of conversations? Four communication weaknesses or barriers at any company are overload of messages, failure to share information among major stakeholders, failure to include employees in decision making processes, and personal attributes.

Employees are given many instructions and they are not given room to practice them nor to show their expertise. Communication means more than just giving out messages; it involves speaking, listening, sending, and receiving messages. In communication, listening is the key to success and most of the time listening gets people into problems because they do not practice it.

For business communication to be successful, listening has to be proficient. Listening simply means holding back one’s judgment and allowing answers to come from outside. Sharing of important information is poor and most of the time it is withheld from the staff.

The top managers are responsible to make different ideas and views concerning the development of the organization which may be influenced by their knowledge and culture. If incompetent decisions are made effecting a change is a hard task. Good communications will assisting employees embrace change effectively, transition period will also be reduced and efficient.

Change and Organizational culture

Organisational culture is a set of belief that exists in an organization and determines how the employees interact with each other as well as how the workers respond to a certain situation. Culture of an organisation determines how employees are going to perceive change.

The culture like any other society defines issues and expected response to them. It is worth saying that the culture is not written down somewhere but is exists and controls the behaviour of the organization. There are some values that the organization holds, and for one to be seen as a “compliant” member of the larger group, you need to act in line with the expectation.

As individuals we have our personality that is different from others, the same happens with other organizations; they have an organizational personality that is can be termed to as the organizational culture. An organisation which has a freelance culture adopts change more easily than one with a power culture. A certain language is developed, signs and symbols start defining situation in the organization.

As much as there is no set way of punishing those who don’t act in line, with the culture, it is self reinforcing. The culture after it has developed is very hard to change.

The entire entity seems to have deep roots in the culture and anybody who goes against is seen as an outcast and don’t interact smoothly with the other colleagues. There are different issues of organizational culture and have different effects on the leadership of the organization as well as well as the conduct of the employee (Jones 12).

Eight steps to successful change by John P Kotter’s

Increase urgency

This is involving all the people affected by a change in understanding the current position and the need for change. The management should let their employees understand how the change will affect them. One of the barriers to an effective change is negative perception of employees. The perception is brought about by lack of people understanding of change effects.

Build the guiding team

Depending with the kind of change to be implemented, management should develop a team of change agents. They are people who should be well informed about the change to occur and used to train others on the way forward. They are opinion leaders. The most effective people for this task are leaders in departments.

Get the vision right

This is the stage where objectives and timeframes for change are set and discussed with the people who will be affected by the change to occur in a business. Objectives should be attainable.

Communicate for buy-in

This is the most important stage where there is communication to employees on the change. It is the time for training of the new way to employees. An effective communication strategy should be prepared to be proactive. This is a plan that is prepared after defining a business’s success and getting solution from the listening activities.

Things to be included in the plan includes: taking employees to seminars that cover topics such as customer care, organizing get together between employers and employees, rewarding employees, holding regular meetings, including major stakeholders in business decision, assurance to personal service, among others.

This plan does not concentrate in solving past troubles but in laying down a good foundation that guarantees business future success. A communication plan should take into consideration the availability of resources and whether the business aims at a long term or short term objective. Once a communication plan has been prepared, the company now focuses on its implementation.

The expected result should be kept in mind and the main constitute of the plan reviewed to make sure they are in line with the expected result. The implementation process should involve as many people as possible but it should have one person who is answerable to it.

Empower action

This is the stage where practical change is undertaken although operated with the traditional system. This stage assists in polishing any issues which may have been ignored in the initial stage. Employees learn more about the new system and its operations.

Create short-term wins

This is timely evaluations of the system to ensure that it is efficient and can replace the old system. There is no need to wait for long periods for results but can even be done on daily basis.

Don’t let up

This is polishing any deficits recognised as the new system is undertaken. This is support from all angles where the system is made more understandable to the users. At the same time polishing of areas and people who have not grasped the system well is done.

Make change stick

Monitoring and sticking to change. This is where the old system is forgotten and focus is put on the new system. Those people who are repelling the new system are expelled from a company and those entering it will only hear of the old system as some stories of the company (Kotter 57-78).

Conclusion

In the ever changing environment, change is inevitable. Business processes need to be adjusted with the changing environment. Change is a gradual process that must be well planned. Management should be actively involved in the change process since support is required from all corners. The main objective in a change management process is to facilitate better methods of doings things for a cost effective business.

For an effective change, employees should be involved right from the start. They should understand how the change is going to affect their employment; this is through training and good leadership. Leaders are the people who are mandated with the task of pioneering a business to its desired objectives. In transitional period the leader is the one who guides subordinates to the desired path.

They jointly make rules and policies to be followed in attaining the goals. One of the major barriers of change is communication barrier and organisational culture.

Works Cited

Jones, Helen. “Managing Change.” Businessdate 11.1 (2003): 1. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web.

Kotter, John P. Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59. 1995. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Complete. (Document ID: 4470386).

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