Organizational Development

Overcoming Resistance to Change

In the previous post, we deal with the various sources of resistance to change.    In this post we discusses strategies and tactics to  overcome resistance  to organizational  change.

Kotter and Schelsinger (1979) has  identified six general strategies for overcoming resistance to change.

  1. Education and Communication : Resistance can be reduced through  communicating with employees to help them see the logic of a change.  This tactic basically assumes that the source of resistance lies in  misinformation or poor communication. If employees receive the full  facts and get any misunderstanding cleared up, resistance will subside.  Communication can be achieved through one-to-one discussions,  memos, group presentations, or reports.
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Abey Francis

Sources of Resistance to Change

The goal of planned organizational change is to find new or improved  ways of using resources and capabilities in order to increase an organization’s  ability to create value and improve returns to its stakeholders. An organization  in decline may need to restructure its resources to improve its fit with the  environment. At the same time even a thriving organization may need to change  the way it uses its resources so that it can develop new products or find new  markets for its existing products. In the last decade, over half of all Fortune 500  companies have undergone major organizational changes to allow them to  increase their ability to create value.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Unplanned Organizational Change

Not all the forces for organization change are the results of strategic planning. Indeed  organizations often are responsive to unplanned organizational changes — especially  those derived from the factors internal to the organization. Two such forces of unplanned organizational change  are  the changes in the demographic composition of the workforce and performance  gaps.

  1. Changing Employee Demographics : It is easy to see, even within our  own lifetimes, how the composition of the workforce has changed. The  percentage of women in the workforce is greater than ever before. More  and more women with professional qualifications are joining the  organization at the junior and the middle management levels.
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Abey Francis

Change Agents in Organizational Change

Organizations and their managers must recognize that change, in itself, is  not necessarily a problem. The problem often lies in an inability to effectively  manage change : not only can the adopted process be wrong, but also the  conceptual framework may lack vision and understanding. Why is this the case?  Possibly, and many practicing managers would concur, the problem may be  traced to the managers’ growing inability to approximately develop and  reinforce their role and purpose within complex, dynamic and challenging  organizations. Change is now a way of life; organizations, and more importantly  their managers, must recognize the need to adopt strategic approaches when  facing transformation situations.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Levels of Planned Organizational Change

A planned change is a change planned by the organisation, it does not  happen by itself. It is affected by the organisation with the purpose of achieving  something that might otherwise by unattainable or attainable with great  difficulty. Through planned change, an organisation can achieve its goals  rapidly. The basic reasons for planned change are:

  • To improve the means for satisfying economic needs of members.
  • To increase profitability.
  • To promote human work for human beings.
  • To contribute to individual satisfaction and social well being.

Levels of Planned Organizational Change

Planned organizational change is normally targeted at improving  effectiveness at one or more of four different levels : human resources,  functional resources, technological capabilities, and organizational capabilities.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Stimulating Forces for Organizational Change

What makes an organization to think about change? There are a number  of specific, even obvious factors which will necessitate movement from the  status quo. The most obvious of these relate to changes in the external  environment which trigger reaction. An example of this in the last couple of  years is the move by car manufacturers and petroleum organizations towards the  provision of more environmentally friendly forms of ‘produce’. However, to  attribute change entirely to the environment would be a denial of extreme  magnitude. This would imply that organizations were merely ‘bobbing about’ on  a turbulent sea of change, unable to influence or exercise direction.… Read the rest

Abey Francis