Change and Change Management

According to Stephen Robbins, Change is concerned with making thing different. At its most basic level, change is a movement out of a current state (how things are today), through a transition state and to a future state (how things will be ). Change happens all around us - at home, in our community and at work. Changes can be internally motivated or externally motivated. The change can be a dramatic departure from what we know or it can be minor. Changes can be anticipated or unexpected.

But in all cases, the fundamental nature of change is a movement from the current state through a transition state to a future state. Change management is an approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to a desired future state.

Importance of Change
Any business in today's fast-moving environment that is looking for the pace of change to slow is likely to be disappointed. In fact, businesses should embrace change. Change is important for any organization because, without change, businesses would likely lose their competitive edge and fail to meet the needs of customers. Customer Needs: As the world evolves, customer needs change and grow, creating new demand for new types of products and services -- and opening up new areas of opportunity for companies to meet those needs.

 The Economy The economy can impact organizations in both positive and negative ways . A strong economy and increasing demand for products and services will mean that companies must consider expansion that might involve the addition of staff and new facilities. A weak economy can create even more problems as companies find themselves needing to make difficult decisions that can impact employees' salaries and benefits and even threaten their jobs. The ability to manage both ends of the spectrum are critical for organizations that want to maintain a strong brand and strong relationships with customers as well as employees. Growth Opportunities Change is important in organizations to allow employees to learn new skills, explore new opportunities and exercise their creativity in ways that ultimately benefit the organization through new ideas and increased commitment.

Forces of Change
External Technological Advancements Customer and Market Changes Social and Political Changes The Need for Change

Change in managerial personnel Deficiency in existing organisation

External Forces Technological changes: When there is a change in technology in the organization's environment and other organizations adopt the new technology, the organization under focus becomes less cost-effective and its competitive position weakens. Therefore, it has to adopt new technology. Customer and market changes: As time changes, there may be changes in customers in terms of their needs, liking-disliking, and income disposal for a product. These changes force the organizations to bring those products which meet buyers requirements. Social changes: In the last 2 decades, there is a very big shift on both the cultural and social opinions and perspective of people that includes greater concern on health and environment lifestyle.

 The environmental concern has had a very big impact on businesses that resulted in expensive plastic bags and other packaging that can be recycled easily. Another major area for social changes is the use of low fat, and fat free diet products and foods. These are used mainly by higher social status and become a part of many multi-million dollar industries. Political changes: For example, Tata Nano project in Singur faced the political backlash when farmers protested against forceful takeover of 400 acres of agricultural land for the project by West Bengal government. Trinamool party supported the farmers, played hardball and Ratan Tata took a decision to shift the project from West Bengal to Gujarat. One states loss was another states gain.

Internal Forces Change in managerial personnel: in an organization old mangers are replaced by new mangers because of retirement, promotion, resignation and transfer. Every manger has its own way of working .The relationships, especially, informal ones are affected or change due to change in managerial personnel. Moreover, changes in the organizations take place when the executives at the top change. No two top executives have the same philosophy and style. The new executive will follow his own style and would like to put into practice his own ideas nad philosophy. Deficiencies in existing structure: Changes are required to overcome the weaknesses present in the existing organizations such as lack of coordination among various departments, obstacles in communication, larger number of managerial levels, unmanageable span of management etc.

Resistance to Change
Resistance to change is the action taken by individuals and groups when they perceive a change that is occurring as a threat to them. Key words here are 'perceive' and 'threat'. The threat need not be real or large for resistance to occur.

Reasons for resistance to Change

1. Individual Resistance

a). Economic Factors The economic reasons for the resistance to change may be the following: Skill Obsolescence: In organization when the development or change in technology takes place, employee resists the change. Employee may fear that the change will lead to technological unemployment. Generally, new technology is associated with reduced proportion of labor intake and therefore they resist the change. Fear of Economic Loss: In organization where pay is tied to productivity individuals usually resists change as they fear that they will not be able to perform new task effectively, thus causing a decline in productivity and a decrease in their income. Workers may fear that they will be demoted if they do not acquire the skills required for the new jobs.

b). Psychological Factors Status Quo: Change in technology brings new method of doing the job and it must be learnt and adopt the new ideas of doing the job. To learn these ideas they need to work hard and they do not want to take the trouble in learning new things. Ego defensiveness: Workers may not like criticism implied in a change that the present method is inadequate and unsuitable. Lack of trust in change agent: The effect of change is perceived in terms of change agent, that is, the person who initiates change. if people have low degree of confidence in change agent, they show resistance to change. e.g. labor unions resist change initiated by management.

 Fear of Unknown: A change may be perceived as entering into an area which is unknown. The change will bring results in future which is always not certain. This lack of certainty creates anxiety and stress in the minds of people and they want to avoid it.

c). Social Factors Desire to maintain existing Social Interaction: Every individual have social needs like friends, belongingness, etc. In organization, while working employee develop social relationship with the other employees. They become members of certain informal group. The change will bring a fear in mind of people because generally people dislike new adjustment, breaking present social relationship . Feeling of outside Interference: A change brought by the change agent is considered to be an interference in the working of the people. This phenomenon is heightened if the change agent belongs to another social class e.g. change initiated by mangers affecting workers. The workers may feel that mangers try to make workers an instrument for higher productivity but the outcome of this productivity will be retained by them.

2. Organizational Resistance Organizational resistance means that the change is resisted at the level of the organization itself. Some organizations are so designed that they resist new ideas, this is specifically true in case of organizations which are conservative in nature. Government agencies want to continue doing what they have been doing for a number of years even though there is need for the change in their services. Reasons for Organisational Resistance Threat to Power. Top management generally considers change as a threat to their power and influence in the organization due to which the change will be resisted by them. The introduction of participative decision making or self-managed work teams is the kind of change which is often seen as threatening by the middle and top level management. Resource constraints: Changes may be resisted by an organization it it lacks some resources which are critical for implementing the change. The organization may have inadequate financial resources for training change agents and for offering rewards to those who support the change.

 Sunk cost: Most of the organizations resist change because huge amount of capital blocked in fixed assets and training costs of human resources may go waste if the change is introduced. Continuing past successes: A major problem before the organizations which have past success stories ,is how to face challenges of the changing environment. Since these organizations have achieved success by following a particular set of management practices ,they become too rigid to change and they hide their failure to change in the guise of past successes.

Methods to Overcome Resistance to change

Effective communication of Change: The management must inform the workers about the type of change, it's reason, its benefits to the organization and workers. Before introducing the change, the reaction of the workers should be analyzed properly and modifications may be introduced whenever necessary. There should be two way communication between management and workers. Consultation with Union leaders: Very often in an organization a change is resisted by the representatives of the workers to protect the workers from the real or perceived threat brought by the change. Under such conditions, it would be suitable for the management to take the labor leaders into confidence before introducing any change. Their objections nad doubts must be removed to win their cooperation.

 Education and training of subordinates: In order to successfully implement the change, subordinates must be taught new skills. They must be given the information they need to understand where they fit into the picture and how they will be expected to operate under the new set-up. The educational process can be aided by training classes, meetings and conferences. Facilitation and Support for change: Easing the change process and providing support for those caught up in it is another way managers can deal with resistance to change. These include listening, providing guidance, providing facilitative and emotional support. Facilitative support means removing physical barriers by providing training, tools, materials. Emotional support is provided by showing personal concern for the subordinates during the period of stress and strain.

 Negotiation or bargaining with Subordinates: Negotiation with those resisting change and offering them incentives may be a useful tactic for overcoming resistance. e.g. promotion of nominees of the union, increased economic benefits to employees etc. Manipulation and Co-Optation: Sometimes, managers keep individuals or groups away from resistance to change by releasing information selectively or by consciously structuring the sequence of events or they may co-opt an individual, who is a key person within a group, by giving him an important role in designing or carrying out the change process. Coercion or Pressure to accept change: Mangers may force people to go along with a change by giving threats involving loss of jobs, denial of promotion etc. They may also dismiss or transfer employees who stand in the way of change.

Process of Planned Change

Unfreezing Involves finding a method of making it possible for people to let go of an old pattern. It involves unlearning of old things to learn new ones. At this stage, the change agent tries to explain to the change targets about the problems with the present state of affairs,the need for change. He clears all the doubts of the people about the proposed change. The steps that can be adopted to motivate employees for unfreezing can be: a) Demeaning and humiliating experiences to help individuals to see their old patterns or behaviour as unworthy and think to be motivated to change.

 The consistent linking of reward with willingness to change and of punishment with unwilling to change.

Moving to a new level or Changing

Once the change targets become receptive to change, the change agent should introduce the change in a systematic manner. It involves two steps: Identification: Change is presented through role models from whom individuals can learn new behaviour patterns by identifying them and trying to become like them. Internalisation: The individuals are placed in a situation in which new behaviour patterns are demanded of them if they are to succeed in that situation.

Refreezing
Is establishing the change as a new habit, so that it now becomes the standard operating procedure. Without this stage of refreezing, it is easy to backslide into the old ways. At this stage, the individuals internalize the new beliefs, feelings, and behaviour learned during the changing phase They adopt these changes as the permanent part of their behaviour. Generally, after sometime the people revert back to their old behaviour in absence of suitable reinforcement. Therefore, reinforcement is necessary for the internalization of new behaviour.

Organizational Development
Organization Development is an effort (1) planned, (2) organization-wide, and (3) managed from top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in organizations processes, using behavioralscience knowledge. Organization Development is a systematic application of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organizational strategies, structures, and processes for improving an organizations effectiveness.

Objectives of OD Its objectives include higher quality of work life, productivity, adaptability and effectiveness. It seeks to use behavioral knowledge to change beliefs, attitudes, values, strategies, structures and practices so that the organization can better adapt to competitive actions, technological advances, and the fast pace of other changes in the environment.

 Why is OD Important? Organizations are increasingly challenged by change. The world is moving faster and faster. Competitive pressures are becoming more and more demanding. Rapid technological change and the globalizing economy both confuse us and open new doors. In the midst of this, employees seek more satisfaction and meaning from their work lives, and more balance in their lives as a whole. Whether the organizations are private, public or non-profit, they must adapt to this new world if they are to survive and thrive. They need to become more nimble, more customer-driven, more innovative, more effective. They need to attract and retain competent and committed employees. This will require more flexible organizational structures, new types of leadership, and new ways of managing. OD can help organizations navigate this difficult terrain.

 The characteristics of OD are: 1. It is a planned strategy to bring about organizational change 2. OD always involves a collaborative approach to change. It includes involvement and participation of all the organization members in the process of implementing change. 3. OD programmes include an emphasis an ways to improve & enhance performance. 4. OD relies on a set of humanistic values about people & organisation. It is based on positive beliefs about the potential and desire for growth among employees. 5. OD represents a system approach. It considers the interrelationship of divisions, departments, groups, and individuals as interdependent subsystems of the total organization.

PROCESS OF OD
The OD Process is based on the action research model which begins with an identified problem or need for change. The process proceeds through assessment, planning of an intervention, implementing the intervention, gathering data to evaluate the intervention, and determining if satisfactory progress has been made or if there is need for further intervention. The process is cyclical and ends when the desired developmental result is obtained. The OD process begins when an organization recognizes that a problem exists which impacts the mission or health of the organization and change is desired. It can also begin when leadership has a vision of a better way and wants to improve the organization. An organization does not always have to be in trouble to implement organization development activities.

 Once the decision is made to change the situation, the next step is to assess the situation to fully understand it. This assessment can be conducted in many ways including documentation review, organizational sensing, focus groups, interviewing, or surveying. The assessment could be conducted by outside experts or by members of the organization. After the situation is assessed, defined, and understood, the next step is to plan an intervention. The type of change desired would determine the nature of the intervention. Interventions could include training and development, team interventions such as team building for management or employees or the establishment of change teams, structural interventions, or individual interventions. Once the intervention is planned, it is implemented.

 During and after the implementation of the intervention, relevant data is gathered. The data gathered would be determined by the change goals. For example, if the intervention were training and development for individual employees or for work groups, data to be gathered would measure changes in knowledge and competencies. This data is used to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. It is reported to the organizations decisionmakers. The decision-makers determine if the intervention met its goals. If the intervention met its goals, the process can end, which is depicted by the raising of the development bar. If it did not, the decision is made whether to continue the cycle and to plan and carry out another intervention or to end it.