Managing Change

Managing Change

Principles of Management

James Dodge

                                                 Maranatha Baptist University

        2 December 2015        

Introduction

The Present world that we live in is one of fierce competition and within the industrial field, changes that take place within an organization are unavoidable. These changes that take place and the way they happen can either lead to a company’s success or their downfall. In order for a company to gain a competitive advantage in the market and sustain it, they need to adapt to the requirements of the market. Take Apple for example, once they changed the style of their organization and started producing innovative products like the iPod, iPhone, and other products that would become huge hits in the market, it was then that their company was reborn. An originations leader needs always be aware of these changes and be able to communicate them with their employees, and staff so that the whole team can know how to formulate a good vision and be able to foresee possible mistakes that could lead to failure.

No matter how big or small an organizational change is it will always come with questions, concerns, and present challenges and demands on the organizations precious time and resources. Sometimes an organization’s efforts to implement a change will falter or even crash and burn altogether because managements failed to foresee or properly identify and address the challenges, and questions that arise among those involved. Managers in today’s workplace have a growing margin for error when attempting to manage and implement change. One of the difficulties of managing change is the fact that sometimes employees who work together aren’t always in the same continent or time zone is. Every time a new idea collapses employee’s reaction to the next challenge will be harder. And there is wasted time and resource with every missed opportunity. Some managers do recognize that change is needed but don’t have the proper knowledge and resources to effectively manage putting that change into motion.

Literature Review

In order to have effective management leaders within an organization need to clear about process and purpose that’s required to produce the desired change. They need to be able to seek out opinions and information from anyone the changes might affect. In (Lotich, 2014) the author talks about how important it is for managers to be in communication with their employees about what the change entails and what can be expected during the implementation process. I also believe that managers need to be able to provide the necessary resources to ensure needs are met on a day-to-day basis. Managers need to be able to communicate with staff appropriately to ensure there is proper training, resources, and planning to make any substantial change effective. And managers need to not only have the support of those employees that are directly affected by the change but also the support of the upper management as initiating change can generate a number of questions, issues, and concerns. There will always be a constant need for persuading, planning, and discussing.

One of the biggest challenges that managers can face while trying to implement change is how their employees might react to the change. According to (Travis) usually employees will react to change in three ways; Fear or anger, enthusiasm, ambivalence. Those who fear or have anger towards the change are the most negative of the three, they are the type of employees who that is constantly worrying about how this new change will impact them in a negative way. I believe that it is not very uncommon for change to be met with negative feeling or resistance some of it may just come from stress the employees are facing. I believe Managers can work with this type of employee by acknowledging with them that change doesn’t come quickly and won’t happen immediately and it a process that requires time and training and try to help them understand how this change will help the organization in a positive way.  The second type of employees is the enthusiastic employee; these are the types of employees that have been pushing for change within the organization. They can be valuable to the implementation of the change and should be given important roles and tasks. The last type of employee is the ambivalent; these are the types of that will just agree and go along with whatever is proposed, but will not take a very active role of participation in the process of implementation. Managers can work with this type of employee by trying to engage them in the decision making process, try to get some feedback from them, and take whatever ideas they may propose seriously.

There are also several mistakes that managers tend to make that when trying to implement change in their organization that will ultimately cause them to fail.  In the source (Jacoby, 2012) the author describes the some major mistakes that are made by management during change implementation. The first mistake the author talks about is short-cutting the process of change. For instance sending out a memo regarding the change and then immediately moving to implement the change without giving the employees a transition period where they could ask question or give feedback, by short cutting to the implementation the process the manager is making the beginning stage too harsh immediately moving to reorganize and implement change might lead to employees “digging their heels in deeper” and resisting the change (Kettenhofenthus, 2013) thus the change may not be as effective as it could have potentially been due to poor communication. It’s because of examples like this that I believe it’s important to have employee involvement in the decision process even though it may take longer to implement the change, in the long run everyone will be onboard and on the same page making the process smooth and effective.

The second mistake mentioned by the author that manager’s make is “executive delegating change leadership responsibility” a lot of times an initiative for change is brought forth and discussed and then fizzles out and is never heard from again because sponsors were uninformed of the progress that was taking place and did not know what their role in the initiative was. The author suggest that there should always be at least one senior executive who oversees and is accountable for the change initiative, and should provide active support to the project by removing obstacles, sharing their visions and ideas for the organizations future in a way that is motivating and compelling, making sure everyone involved is aware how the change will positively benefit the organization, and making sure he they have the support of senior executives. (Jacoby, 2012).  I think that no matter how motivated, dedicated, or enthusiastic managers are when implementing a change initiative without strong support from senior executives it will not prove to be very successful. In order for a manager to be successful in their efforts they need to have strong support and put together a strong team. Susan M. Heathfield (Heathfield, 2013) in her article about having executive support in change, talks about the senior executive’s role in organizational change. Senior leaders can provide many areas of help during change such as making sure there is a clear vision for change they can “paint a picture” of where they envision the organization being at the end of the change process, while also making sure the vison is realistically possible for the organization to achieve and not just what they believe the employees would like to see happen within the organization. I think helping employees understand the vision is an important factor in promoting change as it can help direct, and inspire the employees to achieve the end goal, because without a good vision the initiative could fall apart and time and energy would have been wasted. If employees do not understand the change or are simply showing a lack of interest than perhaps the managers and senior executives should reevaluate the vision and make it more clear to everyone who is involved.