The transition of a company from its present state to desired or target state leads to organizational change. Organizational change management involves planning and executing the plan to implement change in the organization. The objective of the organizational change management is to minimize the cost and employee resistance while optimizing the effectiveness of the change (Sullivan, Rothwell, & Balasi, 2013).
In this competitive scenario, business environment undergoes rapid change and the business organizations need to synchronize themselves with the change. The major factors inducing changes are globalization and technological advancement. In order to sustain and survive the organizations are responding towards the change. An organization may decide to adopt a change when it is facing some problems or some leaders who recognize future potential and need for change can influence it. Sometimes the organizational change is inhibited by some internal issues or sabotage.
Change is simple fact of our lives and a continuous process as well, that is why it cannot be referred to as a new thing. It has also been stated that it all goes down to the individual personality and that the management can do very little about resistance to change. It is an important issue that the way people adapt to change, some people do achieve well during constant changes but other might face issues regarding the acceptance of change and all these different responses goes down to the individual background and personality. In contrast, resistance to change is also very natural as people become anxious about future. Managers are responsible for handling and minimizing the resistance by motivating them. The organizational change should not be sudden and abrupt. The change must take place gradually involving few stages (Hashim, 2013).
But not always the individual personality is responsible for resisting management changes. According to Garrison Wynn, organizational change expert, the major reasons of resistance are uncertainty about future and lack of knowledge. In order to manage and handle this resistance the important tools will be effective communication and honest approach to influence the workforce (Carnall, 1995).
TECHNIQUES OF EFFECTIVE CHANGE MANGEMENT:
There are few key steps, which need to be followed in order to carry out change in an organization (Hassan, 2013):
- UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT SCENARIO: In the first step, the problems should be identified and those should be given weight according to their importance and relevance. After that all the identified changes are assessed to understand how implementing those changes could solve problems.
- VISUALISING THE DESIRED STATE: In this stage, it needs to visualize the organization after the required changes are implemented. It is important to convey this vision to the employees of the organization. It should not affect the organizational goal or compromise with security and sustainability issues. The positive vision of an organizational change would reduce the resistance.
- IMPLEMNETING CHANGE EFFECTIVELY: At the final stage, it should implement the required changes to achieve the desired future state. The leader should play an important role in implementing the plan. The process should be done in a disciplined and methodical way to avoid any resistance and problems.
Most of the multinational companies and specifically the technology companies have changed their functional structures into matrix structures. This change have been implemented for the sales and marketing activities. For Example, IBM has adopted the matrix structure for its sales and marketing activities. Professional services are oriented by industry and geography in global matrix and are cross-functionally linked to certain solutions sales group.
Conclusion:
The objective of managing change in an organization is to optimize the future adaptability. A company should develop a vision and build a new faith in employees. The managers should be trustworthy ins solving the problems of employees or any other organizational problems. The organization must be flexible for accepting suggestion from its stakeholders. Effective business communication should be practiced and team work should be encouraged in the organization. These will ultimately help an organization to implement the change successfully. If the entire workforce work together for identifying the problem, finding the solution and assessing the alternatives, the organization will grow and positive changes will lead to better sustainability.
References:
Sullivan, R. L., Rothwell, W. J., & Balasi, M. J. (2013). Organization development (OD) and change management (CM): whole system transformation. Development and Learning in Organizations , 27 (3), Emerald Group Publishing, Limited.
Hashim, M. (2013). Change Management. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences , 3 (7), 685 – 694.
Carnall, C. A. (1995). Managing change in organizations (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.
Hassan, G. (2013). TODAY CHANGE MANAGEMENT IS NECESSARY AND REQUIREMENT FOR ORGANIZATIONS. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business , 4 (1).
Leading in Changing world 