Organization at any given time is a dynamic balance of forces supporting and restraining any change.
Management of Change
Organization at any given time is
a dynamic balance of forces supporting and restraining any change. The
organization system is in a state of relative equilibrium. The current practice
continues until the change is introduced. Change is introduced with in a group
by increasing the supporting forces for it and/or reducing the restraining
forces.
Strategies
to build support to change: Chin and
Benne describe three strategies
managers commonly use in introducing organizational change:
Empirical – Rational Strategy: Managers acting as change agents must subscribe to the belief
that people are rational beings and if they understand that the proposed changes
will benefit them, they tend to accept change.
Normative – Reeducative Strategy: In this strategy, the belief is that people are guided by the
socio-cultural norms they subscribe to. Hence, the change agent and those who
will be influenced by the change should participatively and collaboratively
plan and implement the necessary change.
Power – Coercive strategies: are used by the change agents assuming that people with less power
will accept change brought by people with more power in the system.
Resistance could be to change
itself, to the strategy to implement change, to the change agent or to the
timing of change. Since there is no one best way of dealing with resistance to
change in all situations, the following general approaches are used in handling
resistance.
(i)Education and Communication: where
there is a dearth of information or when inaccurate information is floating
around, the change agent can discuss the change contemplated or apprise the
employees about the logic of change and its attendant benefits. Once the
employees are educated and enlightened about the positive aspects of change,
they accept change.
(ii)Participation: Participation
encourages commitment rather than mere compliance with change. Greater the
participation, lesser the resistance to change. This is illustrated in the
following figure.
(iii)Facilitation and Support: because of fear of inability to readjust, people resist change. To
overcome it, the support in terms of empathic listening and training help the
individuals to deal more effectively with their adjustment problems. (iv)Negotiation and Agreements: individuals and groups may resist change because they will be at a
disadvantage when the proposed change is introduced. In such situations
incentives or special benefits are offered to those resisting change so that
they cannot block change. (v)Coercion: Implicit
and explicit coercion can be used when changes have to be speedily
enforced or when changes are of temporary nature.
(vi)Manipulation and co-optation: Covert attempts (manipulation) such as selective sharing of
information and consciously structuring certain type of events would win the
support for change. Giving key role to those revisiting change in the change
decision is known as cooptation. (vii)Leadership for Change: effective leadership reinforces a climate of psychological support to
change. Change is more likely to be successful if the leader introducing change
has high expectations of success. (viii)Use of Group Forces: The idea is to help the group join with management to encourage
and support desired change. (ix)Working with Unions: Union-management differences lead to conflict over change. Most unions
support change that is carefully planned to protect member interests. (x)Working with the Total System: resistance to change can be reduced by helping employees to
recognize the need for each change, to recognize the need for each change, to
participate in it, and to gain from it.
Tags : Management Concepts & Organisational Behaviour - Organisational Change
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