What is organizational change? Are events like: Larry Page taking the reins of Google from Eric Schmidt, or Yahoo laying off 1% of its work force, examples of Organizational change? Sure they are. Re-engineering, right-sizing, restructuring, cultural change, turning around a company, change in leadership, outsourcing, spin offs, merger and acquisition are all examples of Organizational change.
“Only Change is permanent”, one of Buddha’s teachings holds so true today. The world we live in is perpetually changing and evolving. The world that we conduct business in today will be vastly different tomorrow. So, it’s only a natural eventuality that Organizations change themselves to adapt to their changing eco-system.
Why do we need Organizational change, and what can we achieve through Organizational change? Better align with Organizational goal. Reenergize. Bring about cultural changes for more effective market positioning. Be more profitable – the list is endless.
How to figure out what needs to be changed in the organization? Understand the goals and challenges; rethink business model; observe the market – competitors, customers, and the eco system of the business. Then, figure out what should be changed to overcome the obstacles in the way of achieving organization’s goals, or to adapt to changes and prepare for anticipated changes in the eco system.
Minor and incremental changes are easy to implement and succeed. Major organizational changes that affect people in non-trivial ways are the changes that prove to be really challenging to implement and succeed.
Forces that resist organizational change: Fear of the unknown, Cost, Unwillingness to break routine, incongruent teams and goals. Solution? John Kotter prescribes a recipe for successful organizational change: >Create a sense of Urgency >Create a Guiding Coalition – Political willingness >Develop the vision and strategy >Convey the vision > Empower People to implement and overcome obstacles >Secure some early wins >Anchor change to avoid reversal.
1. What does a company who thrives on change do when they have individuals who are a part of their organization, and do not want to change?
2. What are the modern principles of organizational change in organizations? Would employee training cause those individuals to adapt more easily, or have no affect?
3. Does an organization facilitate learning, or train their employees?
I agree that you are on the right track when you say companies implement change for some of the reasons you mentioned above, but should it be out of force, or out of right/wiliness to improve - giving them choice?
I believe in today's dynamic business environment it becomes imperative that companies ingrain "openness to change" attitude into their organizational culture. People do not want to accept change because of their fear of unknown. Even though people may be aware that their current position is not exactly satisfying, they may not know how to make their condition better. So, you have to explain and show how the proposed change can make their condition better. Also, why would people want to accept change if everything is honky dory in their life? The organization's management may have some very passionate and compelling reasons behind the proposed change. However, the same reasons need to be translated into personal reasons of the employees for the change to accepted. Each of us look for "what's in it for me?" in the change. It's the change leader's job to show the employees "what's in it for them" in the change. In my opinion John Kotter's 7 phases of change provide a good frame work for organizational change. Typically training is part of the change implementation strategy. Training can not only be used to convey the vision but also to empower people to overcome obstacles in the path of change. Typically, individuals don't resist change; they resist being changed. Meaning - people resist when they feel that change is being forced upon them. On the other hand, when people feel that they are in control and they have the choice, then they embrace the change more willingly and there is less resistance.
How can we say that the fear of the unknown is why people do not want to change? How do we know?
What if they do not want to change, because their methods and behaviors are what work, and there is no way to improve?
Example: COKE - Do we think the taste of COKE will 'change' because they want it to, or because the companies' culture has instilled 'openness to change?"
The point I wanted to make is that fear of unknown is just one of the possible reasons why people may not want change. It's only natural for human beings to be afraid of unknown. If I ask you to jump off a cliff without telling you whether it’s a 5ft or a 50ft jump then would you not be afraid of the jump?
Why do you say that they don't want to change because there is no way to improve? How did they come to that conclusion? Is their conclusion based on past experiences of failed attempts to change? Is it based on scientific research and reasoning? If so, then change is probably not what you want. Remember, change should have a purpose. Change just for the sake of change may not be worth while.
The success of changing a product doesn't depend on the employees of the company; rather it depends on the customers. Coca Cola made unsuccessful attempts in the past to change Coke's taste. I don't see taste of COKE changing because people at Coca-Cola want it to, or because the company's culture has instilled 'openness to change?". Rather, I can see Coca-Cola launching a new soda drink because of the above reasons.
Individual adoption of the new initiative may be either substantive or symbolic.Individual attributes, while important, are conditioned by the local work environment. In terms of personal attributes, individuals are more likely to participate if they trained at institutions that had accepted the new initiative and been active in technology transfer. The longer the time that had elapsed since graduate training, the less likely the individual was to actively embrace the new commercialization norm. Considering the localized social environment, when the chair of the department is active in technology transfer, other members of the department are also likely to participate, if only for symbolic reasons. Technology transfer behavior is calibrated by the experience of those in the relevant cohort. If an individual can observe others with whom they identify engaging in the new initiative, then they are more likely to follow with substantive compliance. Finally, when individuals face dissonance, a situation where their individual training norms are not congruent with the localized social norms in their work environment, they will conform to the local norms, rather than adhering to the norms from their prior experience
Organizational change can also be due to the technology change in the company. When the organization needs change in its structure it needs to also take into account the several organizational elements in to consideration. The organizational elements could be organizational routines, roles, and data.
Organizational change occurred only after some event altered the accustomed daily rhythms of work, and thus changed the way people experienced time. The temporal shifts—changes in a collective’s experience of time—can help to facilitate organizational change. The temporal shifts enable change in four ways: (1) by creating a trigger for change, (2) by providing resources needed for change, (3) by acting as a coordinating mechanism, and (4) by serving as a credible symbol of the need to change.
Temporal Shifts as Triggers Temporal shifts helped to trigger reevaluation of the current situation and enabled people to entertain the possibility of change. Established temporal boundaries, such as normal schedules or project deadlines, were generally treated as inviolable in ways that prevented change. But this assumption of inviolability fell away when temporal shifts occurred. People suddenly found themselves cut loose from regular temporal routines, and thus were more open to change.
Temporal Shifts as Resources Temporal shifts also provided time as a resource. One reason why well-recognized problems went unresolved for so long was that people felt they were simply too busy to address them. But a change in normal rhythms, and the resulting shift in people’s sense of time, created a rare opportunity to focus on problems and pursue a change agenda.
Temporal Shifts as Coordinating Mechanisms One of the reasons organizational change is difficult is that people and groups are usually so busy doing their own tasks that they do not have time to come together to implement change collectively. Yet, most kinds of change in complex organizations must be a concerted effort on multiple fronts. The temporal shifts we observed served to reconnect disparate actors and create a synchronized readiness for change among all those who needed to be involved. Thus, temporal shifts helped teams to undertake change activities in a coordinated way. By contrast, without some temporal shift it was often hard to capture the attention of the critical mass of people necessary to accomplish real change.
Temporal Shifts as Symbols of the Importance of Change Changes in rhythm held high symbolic value. This symbolic role of rhythm changes further reinforced their role as a trigger, a resource, and a coordinating mechanism. Because managers typically focused on maximizing speed to market or meeting tight production schedules, events that inserted real or perceived “time-outs” from relentless schedules had considerable power to demonstrate the importance of change.
I want to pose two pressing questions about organizational change. How important is employee personality and traits in organizational change? Also, does the degree of organizational change within an institution depend on the company culture? If so, wouldn’t it be a pressing matter that the employees’ characteristics match that of the company culture? Do companies that expect and welcome change openly look for employees that show qualities of flexibility, contingency planning, adaptability, etc? If so why do so many firms often face resistance from employees during organization change when they exhibit these characteristics in their day to day job?
As a similar note, what is a manager’s role in organizational change? I think it is important to remember that the term “organizational change” is an all-encompassing term. Organization change happens every day within firms. It can range from something as simple as office relocation or altering an area of responsibility to more complex situations including restructuring of company reporting or mergers/acquisitions. Regardless of the type of company an employee works in, he/she will be faced with organizational change throughout their career. It becomes increasingly important as a person develops their career that they can not only accept organizational change but also assist others throughout the processes that are associated with it.
Its extremely important! They are the life blood of the organization and is what will decide if the organizational change with take or not. If the organization as a whole started off as a proper serious work environment, they'll hire people that would be okay or want this kind of atmosphere. If they want to change this culture to a more laid back and less "strict" feel then the employees will not be comfortable with this and be resistant to the change.
The degree of the change does depend on the culture, my example was a bit far-fetched because companies won't make such a drastic change. It would be a pressing matter because as I said before, the employee's are the lifeblood of the organization.
The companies should look for this in employees but that isn't what necessarily happens in the hiring of new workers. Some companies care more about the credentials than the actual person which is kind of counter intuitive. Usually, when they higher people like this organizations can get away with changing things up easier and see less resistance.
The manager's role is to facilitate the changes. Take the manager from Office Space, his job was to move "The Stapler Guy" around! Even though he did a poor unfriendly way of making these changes in his department, other managers should They make sure the changes are made so that upper management's vision of the organization is attained.
A company trying to change its culture around to have a new image is a good idea. Tide laundry detergent started up a campaign that washed the clothes of the victims of Katrina to foster good will to its consumers. Another company that adds value to its product through charity instead of redoing their product line is Tom's Shoes. For every pair of shoes they sell, they send a pair over to a country to put shoes on people in need.
Companies that change their culture to have a new image to convey to their customers and keep customer loyalty is admiral.
I would like to discuss an example where a company went bankrupt because it could not implement organization change at right time. My discussion partly answers Lauren’s question i.e. does the degree of organizational change within an institution depend on the company culture? Yes. It depends.
If you guys remember, FoxMeyer Drug Corporation went bankrupt in 1996. It was nation’s 4th largest pharmaceutical distribution company which went bankrupt because it could not implement organizational change when they were reengineering business processes. FoxMeyer failed because of several reasons like change resistance, employee resentment, faltering commitments and unrealistic goals. At the time of reengineering they lacked communications, maintenance and commitment. Their ERP implementation failed and company went bankrupt.
On the other hand, British airways was successful to handle change in organization. Their chairman through his leadership and communication, directed his company through a difficult time that could have been disastrous without effective change management and change resistance communication.
Change management, OPM3 model, management commitment and communication are some important tools to implement successful organizational change.
In the late 80's / early 90's, Jack Welch, CEO of GE, faced a dilemma. The business environment and consumer tastes were rapidly changing, and he needed to find a way for the company to keep up. A team was formed, and the result was the Change Acceleration Process, or CAP. The substance of this post is not from a website or article, but from my past experience as I was trained in GE’s CAP in 2003 and have successfully consulted on several large scale changes. The change equation in CAP is fairly simple: Q*A=E Q is the quality of the technical implementation of the change, A is acceptance, and E is the total overall effectiveness of the change initiative. As an example, if a technical solution is 100% and acceptance is 50%, the overall effectiveness is only .5. If equal time is spent on Q and A leading to similar results, say 80%, the equation is 80%*80% = .64. CAP is structured around 7 areas that need to be considered when implementing any change, regardless of impact to the organization. These areas have varying levels of importance and effort pre, during, and post implementation or “go-live”. They are Leading Change, Creating a Shared Need [for the change], Shaping a Vision [of the future], Mobilizing Commitment, Making Change Last, Monitoring Progress, and Changing Systems and Structures. CAP states that in order for a change to be successful, the team must succeed with 2 of the first 3, mobilizing commitment, and 2 of the last 3. This concept of managing change is foreign to many managers, and is often neglected. Often companies overlook the importance of the time and resources to gain employee buy-in, touch all bases, and ensure sustainment after the change / project team goes away. If you’re a manager, here’s the takeaway for you: the resources needed are well worth it. It will ensure that your mechanics know how to repair the new multi-million dollar machine, users will operate the new system with acceptable data integrity, and the new business processes dreamed up in the C-suite will be followed.
Organizations consist of relatively well defined goals, a network of formally structured roles and positions, each of which has a set of norms governing the actions of the persons in it. It also consists of members linked by communication channels rather than kinship, geography, or purely emotional ties and members ‘commitment to it partial rather than total. Change should begin with an end in sight knowing what the organization should look like after the change. Changes in an organization are managed by a series of steps. These steps include: Need: Change will occur if the management is dissatisfied with current performance that is, there must be a problem in the need to solve this problem must be felt by the management. Idea: when you need to solve the problem you look for an idea to solve the problem, it may be a new machine, system or a product. This idea may be created within the organization or adopted from outside. Adoption: Adoption occurs when the managers go ahead with the proposed idea. Key members of the organization should be involved. Implementation: Using the new idea is when implementation occurs. Resources: Energy and activity are required to bring about a change.
Types of Organization Change: Organizations typically follow one of the two types of change: Incremental or Radical Change. Incremental change represents a gradual and continuous process which maintains equilibrium of the organization. It usually affects one or few parts of the organization and occurs through the existing structure and management processes .This type of change occurs frequently and is the most common type of change. Conversely, Radical change involves drastic changes to the organization. It changes the previous equilibrium of the relationships with the new organization. This type of change involves creation of new structure and management processes. Radical changes occur rarely but usually have extreme results as opposed to Incremental change. Organizations often use change as part of a strategy, there are four types of strategic change within an organization. Technology: This change involves production process within an organization. This includes work process, workflow and equipment changes. Product & Services: This change involves changing the product and services the organization delivers. Structure& System: This change involves the changes in the supervision and management of an organization. This includes organizational structure, policies, award systems and management information systems. People: This change involves changes in the beliefs, expectations, abilities, skills and behavior of people within an organization. This may include hiring people outside the organization for training existing people for new methods to do their jobs. All the above changes are interdependent meaning changes in one with affect changes in other.
There's no question that any sort of large scale change in an organization will encounter resistance, and that this resistance must be effectively managed for the change to be successful. A study done by Tim Klaus, Stephen Wingreen, and J. Ellis Blanton attempts to divide resistance to change into it's subcategories, effectively describing the different types of resistors and how they can be properly managed. The first type of change resistor is the kind that doesn't resist at all. More of a control group than anything else, these people will openly and happily accept the change being made. The second type of resistor is the active one. This is the group that is so change-averse, that they will go out of their way to actively prevent it, going as far as sabotage. Types three and four are the complainers. They'll go along with the change, sure, but they're not going to be happy about it. The difference between the two types of complainers are actives verses passives. Types five and six are the impatients, and like the complainers they can also be either active or passive. The impatients will go along with the change for a bit, but at the first sign of trouble or challenge, they will throw their hands in the air in frustration The quitters are the seventh group of resistors. The threat of these people actually quitting over change may simply be that, a threat that doesn't come to fruition; but some of the group will make good on it. The last group of change resistors, the passive resistors, are potentially the most insurrective to the change. This is the group that flies under the radar, not drawing attention to their resistance, all the while undermining the efforts of management by not accepting or simply ignoring change. Each of these groups requires a difference mangement strategy to minimize the group's resistance and impact on the change within the organization.
The Engineering company that I most recently worked for, lets call it company A, acquired a large company (B) in 2008. The process for combining offices was very slow and the time it took to integrate the corporate cultures was even slower. There was much resistance from company B which was probably expected, however I feel as if management was not as prepared as they should have been. The fact that company A was public and B was private also made things more difficult. Company B spent more money on holiday parties and corporate events...and in general it seemed a lot more fun. In fact, many of the engineers from B quit the moment they found out that company A was acquiring them because they knew the corporate culture was going to drastically change.
In response to Calvin, I saw most of the 'resistor' types as he described above. It was mostly from the side of company B. I did my best to mesh well and understand where the new employees were coming from. However, I felt as if a lot of the Company A employees did not. It's almost as if they felt that they were better and bc of this, there was definitely segregation in the office between old and new employees.
Management seemed absent most of the time when I feel they should have stepped in more, to facilitate this organizational change. Needless to say I am no longer with company A and happier because of it.
I think one of the most important things that must be done in order to successfully implement change in an organization is follow through and communication from management. I currently work in the restaurant business and the company I work for has had an extremely difficult time implementing change. Anytime that a change is made, it will stick for maybe a month or so and then things go right back to they way they were. I believe that the reason for that is the lack of communication between all of the managers.
When a new rule or guideline is enforced, only part of the staff jumps on board, while the rest try to ignore it. This creates problems because the entire culture and organization of the company changes depending on which manager is currently on duty. When this happens the employees tend to get confused on which rules are supposed to be enforced and which rules are no longer important.
With this said, do you think that communication between management is one of the most important steps during organizational change?
Yes, I do believe that communication is one of the most important steps to organizational change.
When you are talking about communicating change one thing that I think is very important is who communicates the change. For instance, if a manager has a reputation for being dishonest with his employees when he tells them they need to change will they want to trust him that things really need to be changed? Employees may half heartedly go along with the change in order to stay out of trouble, but they may not really try to implement the change the way it needs to be implemented. On the other hand if the manager is someone you trust and respect then you will be more likely to trust them that the change really needs to be made. The result is that you will most likely implement the same change, but with greater effort and are more likely to contribute to the long term success of the change.
I have also seen a situation where officers of an organization felt that they needed to take a 2 hour flight to share some change information they felt was important and then fly back a couple of hours later. While it may be an extra cost to the company in the short term, it was easy to respect what the officers had to say because they felt we should hear it from them face to face. In other cases I have just gotten an e-mail in my inbox that probably got deleted by many employees affected by the change.
Change may be driven by technology, market forces, etc., but it is implemented by people so communication is extremely vital.
Erin- I think communication is a very important aspect of successful organizational change, but to say that it is the most important will depend on what change is being made. My group did an extensive study on ERP implementation and ways to avoid ERP failure. We found that the majority of ERP failures were directly correlated to employees resisting the new software and procedures. Employees often resist change for the fear that they might be replaced with new technology or they may not be able to operate the newly implemented software. Methods that can reduce the resistance of employees include: inquiring what features in the software could make the staffs job easier, insuring them that the new technology will not make their job obsolete, and designing the ERP system with the people using it in mind rather than solely around management’s ideas.
So yes in this scenario communication would be the most effective fix to the problem. Another case we studied described an ERP implementation on a college campus. Everyone was happy and excited to join their network of separate programs together into one. Untimely progression and poor management on the builders side made the program a nightmare to use. Everyone wanted it to work and was more than willing to give ideas to help make it better, but the overall design was faulty to began with. Management at the school thought they knew the needs of their staff better than the staff knew it, turns out they were wrong. They had to scrap the entire program and hire a new builder to build what they really needed.
Charles - as I read your blog I am just chuckling to myself thinking we must work with same people and use the same builders.
My organization completely changed databases, having used the former one for over 10 yrs, people were complaining about how archaic it was, how it limited production because it was serve based and how we had to have separate database for each campus. This new database was going to change everything - NOT...really.
What was missing was TRUE communication. I say true because the database was purchased because of one primary function that benefited on particular department. This did not surface until everything that was "promised" to the the remaining 10-15 departments went bust. This database did not solve all of our problems, it actually created a new one. Gone was the fact the we had 13 separate databases and the fact that it was a web based application, but it totally changed almost every procedure we had for the past 10 years. Implementation rolled out with no structured pre-training or testing and it caused much confusion and resulted in us still trying to create procedures and clean the database 2 years later. I believe that it took management 7 months to realize that it was a mess, to slow down the roll out and listen to what the users were saying. After all, most upper management had only logged into the system and read portions of a manual.
If communication had been true and left the end users well informed, it's possible that there wouldn't be animosity towards the new database and people would be more flexible in adjusting. Most felt that their department's best interest was not a factor so why bother.
Communication not only informs, it can successfully forewarn. It's frustrating to be told one thing only to find out it was something different.
What is organizational change? Are events like: Larry Page taking the reins of Google from Eric Schmidt, or Yahoo laying off 1% of its work force, examples of Organizational change? Sure they are. Re-engineering, right-sizing, restructuring, cultural change, turning around a company, change in leadership, outsourcing, spin offs, merger and acquisition are all examples of Organizational change.
ReplyDelete“Only Change is permanent”, one of Buddha’s teachings holds so true today. The world we live in is perpetually changing and evolving. The world that we conduct business in today will be vastly different tomorrow. So, it’s only a natural eventuality that Organizations change themselves to adapt to their changing eco-system.
Why do we need Organizational change, and what can we achieve through Organizational change? Better align with Organizational goal. Reenergize. Bring about cultural changes for more effective market positioning. Be more profitable – the list is endless.
How to figure out what needs to be changed in the organization? Understand the goals and challenges; rethink business model; observe the market – competitors, customers, and the eco system of the business. Then, figure out what should be changed to overcome the obstacles in the way of achieving organization’s goals, or to adapt to changes and prepare for anticipated changes in the eco system.
Minor and incremental changes are easy to implement and succeed. Major organizational changes that affect people in non-trivial ways are the changes that prove to be really challenging to implement and succeed.
Forces that resist organizational change: Fear of the unknown, Cost, Unwillingness to break routine, incongruent teams and goals.
Solution? John Kotter prescribes a recipe for successful organizational change:
>Create a sense of Urgency
>Create a Guiding Coalition – Political willingness
>Develop the vision and strategy
>Convey the vision
> Empower People to implement and overcome obstacles
>Secure some early wins
>Anchor change to avoid reversal.
A few questions:
ReplyDelete1. What does a company who thrives on change do when they have individuals who are a part of their organization, and do not want to change?
2. What are the modern principles of organizational change in organizations? Would employee training cause those individuals to adapt more easily, or have no affect?
3. Does an organization facilitate learning, or train their employees?
I agree that you are on the right track when you say companies implement change for some of the reasons you mentioned above, but should it be out of force, or out of right/wiliness to improve - giving them choice?
I believe in today's dynamic business environment it becomes imperative that companies ingrain "openness to change" attitude into their organizational culture.
ReplyDeletePeople do not want to accept change because of their fear of unknown. Even though people may be aware that their current position is not exactly satisfying, they may not know how to make their condition better. So, you have to explain and show how the proposed change can make their condition better.
Also, why would people want to accept change if everything is honky dory in their life? The organization's management may have some very passionate and compelling reasons behind the proposed change. However, the same reasons need to be translated into personal reasons of the employees for the change to accepted. Each of us look for "what's in it for me?" in the change. It's the change leader's job to show the employees "what's in it for them" in the change.
In my opinion John Kotter's 7 phases of change provide a good frame work for organizational change.
Typically training is part of the change implementation strategy. Training can not only be used to convey the vision but also to empower people to overcome obstacles in the path of change.
Typically, individuals don't resist change; they resist being changed. Meaning - people resist when they feel that change is being forced upon them. On the other hand, when people feel that they are in control and they have the choice, then they embrace the change more willingly and there is less resistance.
How can we say that the fear of the unknown is why people do not want to change? How do we know?
ReplyDeleteWhat if they do not want to change, because their methods and behaviors are what work, and there is no way to improve?
Example: COKE - Do we think the taste of COKE will 'change' because they want it to, or because the companies' culture has instilled 'openness to change?"
Just curious...
The point I wanted to make is that fear of unknown is just one of the possible reasons why people may not want change. It's only natural for human beings to be afraid of unknown. If I ask you to jump off a cliff without telling you whether it’s a 5ft or a 50ft jump then would you not be afraid of the jump?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you say that they don't want to change because there is no way to improve? How did they come to that conclusion? Is their conclusion based on past experiences of failed attempts to change? Is it based on scientific research and reasoning? If so, then change is probably not what you want.
ReplyDeleteRemember, change should have a purpose. Change just for the sake of change may not be worth while.
The success of changing a product doesn't depend on the employees of the company; rather it depends on the customers. Coca Cola made unsuccessful attempts in the past to change Coke's taste. I don't see taste of COKE changing because people at Coca-Cola want it to, or because the company's culture has instilled 'openness to change?". Rather, I can see Coca-Cola launching a new soda drink because of the above reasons.
ReplyDeleteIndividual act towards Organizational change:
ReplyDeleteIndividual adoption of the new initiative may be either substantive or symbolic.Individual attributes, while important, are conditioned by the local work environment. In terms of personal attributes, individuals are more likely to participate if they trained at institutions that had accepted the new initiative and been active in technology transfer. The longer the time that had elapsed since graduate training, the less likely the individual was to actively embrace the new commercialization norm. Considering the localized social environment, when the chair of the department is active in technology transfer, other members of the department are also likely to participate, if only for symbolic reasons. Technology transfer behavior is calibrated by the experience of those in the relevant cohort. If an individual can observe others with whom they identify engaging in the new initiative, then they are more likely to follow with substantive compliance. Finally, when individuals face dissonance, a situation where their individual training norms are not congruent with the localized social norms in their work environment, they will conform to the local norms, rather than adhering to the norms from their prior experience
Organizational change can also be due to the technology change in the company. When the organization needs change in its structure it needs to also take into account the several organizational elements in to consideration. The organizational elements could be organizational routines, roles, and data.
ReplyDeleteWhen does organization change occur?
ReplyDeleteOrganizational change occurred only after some event altered the accustomed daily rhythms of work, and thus changed the way people experienced time. The temporal shifts—changes in a collective’s experience of time—can help to facilitate organizational change. The temporal shifts enable change in four ways: (1) by creating a trigger for change, (2) by providing resources needed for change, (3) by acting as a coordinating mechanism, and (4) by serving as a credible symbol of the need to change.
Temporal Shifts as Triggers
Temporal shifts helped to trigger reevaluation of the current situation and enabled people to entertain the possibility of change. Established temporal boundaries, such as normal schedules or project deadlines, were generally treated as inviolable in ways that prevented change. But this assumption of inviolability fell away when temporal shifts occurred. People suddenly found themselves cut loose from regular temporal routines, and thus were more open to change.
Temporal Shifts as Resources
Temporal shifts also provided time as a resource. One reason why well-recognized problems went unresolved for so long was that people felt they were simply too busy to address them. But a change in normal rhythms, and the resulting shift in people’s sense of time, created a rare opportunity to focus on problems and pursue a change agenda.
Temporal Shifts as Coordinating Mechanisms
One of the reasons organizational change is difficult is that people and groups are usually so busy doing their
own tasks that they do not have time to come together to implement change collectively. Yet, most kinds of change in complex organizations must be a concerted effort on multiple fronts. The temporal shifts we observed served to reconnect disparate actors and create a synchronized readiness for change among all those who needed to be involved. Thus, temporal shifts helped teams to undertake change activities in a coordinated way. By contrast, without some temporal shift it was often hard to capture the attention of the critical mass of people necessary to accomplish real change.
Temporal Shifts as Symbols of the Importance
of Change
Changes in rhythm held high symbolic value. This symbolic role of rhythm changes further reinforced their role as a trigger, a resource, and a coordinating mechanism. Because managers typically focused on maximizing speed to market or meeting tight production schedules, events that inserted real or perceived “time-outs” from relentless schedules had considerable power to demonstrate the importance of change.
I want to pose two pressing questions about organizational change. How important is employee personality and traits in organizational change? Also, does the degree of organizational change within an institution depend on the company culture? If so, wouldn’t it be a pressing matter that the employees’ characteristics match that of the company culture? Do companies that expect and welcome change openly look for employees that show qualities of flexibility, contingency planning, adaptability, etc? If so why do so many firms often face resistance from employees during organization change when they exhibit these characteristics in their day to day job?
ReplyDeleteAs a similar note, what is a manager’s role in organizational change? I think it is important to remember that the term “organizational change” is an all-encompassing term. Organization change happens every day within firms. It can range from something as simple as office relocation or altering an area of responsibility to more complex situations including restructuring of company reporting or mergers/acquisitions. Regardless of the type of company an employee works in, he/she will be faced with organizational change throughout their career. It becomes increasingly important as a person develops their career that they can not only accept organizational change but also assist others throughout the processes that are associated with it.
Its extremely important! They are the life blood of the organization and is what will decide if the organizational change with take or not. If the organization as a whole started off as a proper serious work environment, they'll hire people that would be okay or want this kind of atmosphere. If they want to change this culture to a more laid back and less "strict" feel then the employees will not be comfortable with this and be resistant to the change.
ReplyDeleteThe degree of the change does depend on the culture, my example was a bit far-fetched because companies won't make such a drastic change. It would be a pressing matter because as I said before, the employee's are the lifeblood of the organization.
The companies should look for this in employees but that isn't what necessarily happens in the hiring of new workers. Some companies care more about the credentials than the actual person which is kind of counter intuitive. Usually, when they higher people like this organizations can get away with changing things up easier and see less resistance.
The manager's role is to facilitate the changes. Take the manager from Office Space, his job was to move "The Stapler Guy" around! Even though he did a poor unfriendly way of making these changes in his department, other managers should They make sure the changes are made so that upper management's vision of the organization is attained.
A company trying to change its culture around to have a new image is a good idea. Tide laundry detergent started up a campaign that washed the clothes of the victims of Katrina to foster good will to its consumers. Another company that adds value to its product through charity instead of redoing their product line is Tom's Shoes. For every pair of shoes they sell, they send a pair over to a country to put shoes on people in need.
Companies that change their culture to have a new image to convey to their customers and keep customer loyalty is admiral.
I would like to discuss an example where a company went bankrupt because it could not implement organization change at right time. My discussion partly answers Lauren’s question i.e. does the degree of organizational change within an institution depend on the company culture? Yes. It depends.
ReplyDeleteIf you guys remember, FoxMeyer Drug Corporation went bankrupt in 1996. It was nation’s 4th largest pharmaceutical distribution company which went bankrupt because it could not implement organizational change when they were reengineering business processes. FoxMeyer failed because of several reasons like change resistance, employee resentment, faltering commitments and unrealistic goals. At the time of reengineering they lacked communications, maintenance and commitment. Their ERP implementation failed and company went bankrupt.
On the other hand, British airways was successful to handle change in organization. Their chairman through his leadership and communication, directed his company through a difficult time that could have been disastrous without effective change management and change resistance communication.
Change management, OPM3 model, management commitment and communication are some important tools to implement successful organizational change.
Please can everyone take this survey about online social networking
ReplyDeletehttp://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YMGZKJJ
thanks
In the late 80's / early 90's, Jack Welch, CEO of GE, faced a dilemma. The business environment and consumer tastes were rapidly changing, and he needed to find a way for the company to keep up. A team was formed, and the result was the Change Acceleration Process, or CAP.
ReplyDeleteThe substance of this post is not from a website or article, but from my past experience as I was trained in GE’s CAP in 2003 and have successfully consulted on several large scale changes.
The change equation in CAP is fairly simple: Q*A=E
Q is the quality of the technical implementation of the change, A is acceptance, and E is the total overall effectiveness of the change initiative. As an example, if a technical solution is 100% and acceptance is 50%, the overall effectiveness is only .5. If equal time is spent on Q and A leading to similar results, say 80%, the equation is 80%*80% = .64.
CAP is structured around 7 areas that need to be considered when implementing any change, regardless of impact to the organization. These areas have varying levels of importance and effort pre, during, and post implementation or “go-live”. They are Leading Change, Creating a Shared Need [for the change], Shaping a Vision [of the future], Mobilizing Commitment, Making Change Last, Monitoring Progress, and Changing Systems and Structures. CAP states that in order for a change to be successful, the team must succeed with 2 of the first 3, mobilizing commitment, and 2 of the last 3.
This concept of managing change is foreign to many managers, and is often neglected. Often companies overlook the importance of the time and resources to gain employee buy-in, touch all bases, and ensure sustainment after the change / project team goes away.
If you’re a manager, here’s the takeaway for you: the resources needed are well worth it. It will ensure that your mechanics know how to repair the new multi-million dollar machine, users will operate the new system with acceptable data integrity, and the new business processes dreamed up in the C-suite will be followed.
Organizations consist of relatively well defined goals, a network of formally structured roles and positions, each of which has a set of norms governing the actions of the persons in it. It also consists of members linked by communication channels rather than kinship, geography, or purely emotional ties and members ‘commitment to it partial rather than total.
ReplyDeleteChange should begin with an end in sight knowing what the organization should look like after the change. Changes in an organization are managed by a series of steps. These steps include:
Need: Change will occur if the management is dissatisfied with current performance that is, there must be a problem in the need to solve this problem must be felt by the management.
Idea: when you need to solve the problem you look for an idea to solve the problem, it may be a new machine, system or a product. This idea may be created within the organization or adopted from outside.
Adoption: Adoption occurs when the managers go ahead with the proposed idea. Key members of the organization should be involved.
Implementation: Using the new idea is when implementation occurs.
Resources: Energy and activity are required to bring about a change.
Types of Organization Change:
ReplyDeleteOrganizations typically follow one of the two types of change: Incremental or Radical Change.
Incremental change represents a gradual and continuous process which maintains equilibrium of the organization. It usually affects one or few parts of the organization and occurs through the existing structure and management processes .This type of change occurs frequently and is the most common type of change.
Conversely, Radical change involves drastic changes to the organization. It changes the previous equilibrium of the relationships with the new organization. This type of change involves creation of new structure and management processes. Radical changes occur rarely but usually have extreme results as opposed to Incremental change.
Organizations often use change as part of a strategy, there are four types of strategic change within an organization.
Technology: This change involves production process within an organization. This includes work process, workflow and equipment changes.
Product & Services: This change involves changing the product and services the organization delivers.
Structure& System: This change involves the changes in the supervision and management of an organization. This includes organizational structure, policies, award systems and management information systems.
People: This change involves changes in the beliefs, expectations, abilities, skills and behavior of people within an organization. This may include hiring people outside the organization for training existing people for new methods to do their jobs.
All the above changes are interdependent meaning changes in one with affect changes in other.
There's no question that any sort of large scale change in an organization will encounter resistance, and that this resistance must be effectively managed for the change to be successful. A study done by Tim Klaus, Stephen Wingreen, and J. Ellis Blanton attempts to divide resistance to change into it's subcategories, effectively describing the different types of resistors and how they can be properly managed.
ReplyDeleteThe first type of change resistor is the kind that doesn't resist at all. More of a control group than anything else, these people will openly and happily accept the change being made.
The second type of resistor is the active one. This is the group that is so change-averse, that they will go out of their way to actively prevent it, going as far as sabotage.
Types three and four are the complainers. They'll go along with the change, sure, but they're not going to be happy about it. The difference between the two types of complainers are actives verses passives.
Types five and six are the impatients, and like the complainers they can also be either active or passive. The impatients will go along with the change for a bit, but at the first sign of trouble or challenge, they will throw their hands in the air in frustration
The quitters are the seventh group of resistors. The threat of these people actually quitting over change may simply be that, a threat that doesn't come to fruition; but some of the group will make good on it.
The last group of change resistors, the passive resistors, are potentially the most insurrective to the change. This is the group that flies under the radar, not drawing attention to their resistance, all the while undermining the efforts of management by not accepting or simply ignoring change.
Each of these groups requires a difference mangement strategy to minimize the group's resistance and impact on the change within the organization.
The Engineering company that I most recently worked for, lets call it company A, acquired a large company (B) in 2008. The process for combining offices was very slow and the time it took to integrate the corporate cultures was even slower. There was much resistance from company B which was probably expected, however I feel as if management was not as prepared as they should have been. The fact that company A was public and B was private also made things more difficult. Company B spent more money on holiday parties and corporate events...and in general it seemed a lot more fun. In fact, many of the engineers from B quit the moment they found out that company A was acquiring them because they knew the corporate culture was going to drastically change.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Calvin, I saw most of the 'resistor' types as he described above. It was mostly from the side of company B. I did my best to mesh well and understand where the new employees were coming from. However, I felt as if a lot of the Company A employees did not. It's almost as if they felt that they were better and bc of this, there was definitely segregation in the office between old and new employees.
Management seemed absent most of the time when I feel they should have stepped in more, to facilitate this organizational change. Needless to say I am no longer with company A and happier because of it.
I think one of the most important things that must be done in order to successfully implement change in an organization is follow through and communication from management. I currently work in the restaurant business and the company I work for has had an extremely difficult time implementing change. Anytime that a change is made, it will stick for maybe a month or so and then things go right back to they way they were. I believe that the reason for that is the lack of communication between all of the managers.
ReplyDeleteWhen a new rule or guideline is enforced, only part of the staff jumps on board, while the rest try to ignore it. This creates problems because the entire culture and organization of the company changes depending on which manager is currently on duty. When this happens the employees tend to get confused on which rules are supposed to be enforced and which rules are no longer important.
With this said, do you think that communication between management is one of the most important steps during organizational change?
Yes, I do believe that communication is one of the most important steps to organizational change.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are talking about communicating change one thing that I think is very important is who communicates the change. For instance, if a manager has a reputation for being dishonest with his employees when he tells them they need to change will they want to trust him that things really need to be changed? Employees may half heartedly go along with the change in order to stay out of trouble, but they may not really try to implement the change the way it needs to be implemented. On the other hand if the manager is someone you trust and respect then you will be more likely to trust them that the change really needs to be made. The result is that you will most likely implement the same change, but with greater effort and are more likely to contribute to the long term success of the change.
I have also seen a situation where officers of an organization felt that they needed to take a 2 hour flight to share some change information they felt was important and then fly back a couple of hours later. While it may be an extra cost to the company in the short term, it was easy to respect what the officers had to say because they felt we should hear it from them face to face. In other cases I have just gotten an e-mail in my inbox that probably got deleted by many employees affected by the change.
Change may be driven by technology, market forces, etc., but it is implemented by people so communication is extremely vital.
Erin- I think communication is a very important aspect of successful organizational change, but to say that it is the most important will depend on what change is being made. My group did an extensive study on ERP implementation and ways to avoid ERP failure. We found that the majority of ERP failures were directly correlated to employees resisting the new software and procedures. Employees often resist change for the fear that they might be replaced with new technology or they may not be able to operate the newly implemented software. Methods that can reduce the resistance of employees include: inquiring what features in the software could make the staffs job easier, insuring them that the new technology will not make their job obsolete, and designing the ERP system with the people using it in mind rather than solely around management’s ideas.
ReplyDeleteSo yes in this scenario communication would be the most effective fix to the problem. Another case we studied described an ERP implementation on a college campus. Everyone was happy and excited to join their network of separate programs together into one. Untimely progression and poor management on the builders side made the program a nightmare to use. Everyone wanted it to work and was more than willing to give ideas to help make it better, but the overall design was faulty to began with. Management at the school thought they knew the needs of their staff better than the staff knew it, turns out they were wrong. They had to scrap the entire program and hire a new builder to build what they really needed.
Charles - as I read your blog I am just chuckling to myself thinking we must work with same people and use the same builders.
ReplyDeleteMy organization completely changed databases, having used the former one for over 10 yrs, people were complaining about how archaic it was, how it limited production because it was serve based and how we had to have separate database for each campus. This new database was going to change everything - NOT...really.
What was missing was TRUE communication. I say true because the database was purchased because of one primary function that benefited on particular department. This did not surface until everything that was "promised" to the the remaining 10-15 departments went bust. This database did not solve all of our problems, it actually created a new one. Gone was the fact the we had 13 separate databases and the fact that it was a web based application, but it totally changed almost every procedure we had for the past 10 years. Implementation rolled out with no structured pre-training or testing and it caused much confusion and resulted in us still trying to create procedures and clean the database 2 years later. I believe that it took management 7 months to realize that it was a mess, to slow down the roll out and listen to what the users were saying. After all, most upper management had only logged into the system and read portions of a manual.
If communication had been true and left the end users well informed, it's possible that there wouldn't be animosity towards the new database and people would be more flexible in adjusting. Most felt that their department's best interest was not a factor so why bother.
Communication not only informs, it can successfully forewarn. It's frustrating to be told one thing only to find out it was something different.