Viewpoints and Techniques for Managing Change within an Organization - Essay Example

The paper "Viewpoints and Techniques for Managing Change within an Organization" is an outstanding example of an essay on management. The paper is an attempt to explore the three important principles concerning managing change and specific techniques, which are in line with these principles. 

First, managing change king people and stakeholders onboard about the change. Only short-term changes under dictatorial regimes can be imposed on people without their will but even those changes can be very violated. No change can be effective until and unless people want to change themselves. Rather than spending resources on forcing people to accept change, it is much better to create mechanisms with which the subjects of change could themselves become change agents and champion the change management process. This allows people to develop a stake in the process and when people start owing to the change, they are more likely to go out of the way for protecting the change (Cameron & Green, 2009).

Second, having a clear, well-defined, and moving vision is also a key principle of change management. If the leaders of executors of change have no clear sense of direction then it is highly unlikely that people would embrace change or the process would be successful. With a vision, managing change is like managing a ship without a rudder, moving in circles. It is almost impossible for people to embrace change in the absence of a strong vision, which benefits all the stakeholders (Paton, Paton & McCalman, 2008).
Third, intrinsic rewards are more likely to play their part as compared to extrinsic rewards, during a change management process. If the change itself or the change management process can provide the people with intrinsic rewards such as acceptance, social contact, freedom, appreciation, and others, then it is highly likely that subjects of the change would feel more motivated during the process (Hughes, 2010).

There are several techniques for managing change. First, change management could start and extensively focus on the training and development of the subjects of change. Quite understandably, any significant change is likely to create “people issues”. Therefore, the proactive approach would be to prepare people so that they could confront those issues. Prior and proper training of change subjects allows them to prepare themselves mentally for the change and equip themselves for tools and techniques to make their way through change management. More importantly, training for change allows the management to take the “people on board for the change” so that they could feel that this change is less of an imposition and more of a mutual decision (Hughes, 2010).

Second, recently, much literature has appeared on the scene regarding change champions. Without any doubt, the management, administration, and executors of change have to champion the change but the best way is to provide this job to the people in the crowd of people who would be subjected to change. Quite understandably, those people are closer to their colleagues and friends, thus increasing the chances of other embracing change as well. This would allow the employees to come closer to the management, communicate their feedback and increase their participation in the process. More importantly, it would create an intrinsic reward of satisfaction, achievement, and success for the change agents (Paton, Paton & McCalman, 2008).

Third, another technique is to put all possible resources and energies in visualizing and communicating the change to the people in such a way that they start developing a sense of motivation. Leaders usually energize their followers by helping them think of the better future that they are trying to develop. The best example in this regard would be the moving “I have a dream” speech of Martin Luther King. Quite understandably, the same is not possible in the absence of a clear and well-defined vision (Cameron & Green, 2009). Read More