Rationale for Change - Assignment Example

Running header: Rationale for Change Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Subject code: Date of submission: RATIONALE FOR CHANGE Rationale for change in business is the employee’s attitude and reaction towards the organizational or management changes in the business. Most people are nervous towards the changes and others even resist it, consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes the resistance is justified especially in the cases when the changes affect them negatively, e.g. If the change affects their livelihood i.e. salaries, working hours. As a business management consultant, you should be able to make the people understand that change is good for them and that it’s for the business benefit if they embrace the change. As a leader u should give the people the chance to think about the change and to make a decision on what to do about it. When planning for a major change in an organization, management should be ready for resistant and understanding the most common reasons people object change gives us the opportunity to plan a change strategy to address these factors. People might resist change because of various reasons. One of the reasons might be due to misunderstanding about the need for change. This is when the reasons for the change is unclear to the people, especially when they believe that the current way of doing things is the correct one since it has been done this way for years. People might resist because of fear of the unknown. People might be afraid of the changes because they do not know the consequences of the changes and might be afraid of taking the risks. Lack of competences is another reason why people resist change. Change in organization necessarily changes the skills and some people will feel that they won’t be able to make the transition. People might resist change if they are completely connected to the old way, people have already gotten used to the old ways of doing things and making them do things in a new way might be a bit hard and tough for them. When there is Low trust, people do not believe that they or the company can manage the changes and they might resist changes that are taking place Temporary fad is another reason why people resist change. This is when people don’t believe that the change is permanent. Not being consulted because people to be against changes, it happens when people are not included in the change decisions. They might feel left out and insignificant and decide to resist the changes. Poor communication in an organization might causes people to resist changes. The management should be able to communicate about the change to the people properly. Change to routines can be another factor leading to resist the change. This is interfering with peoples previous comfort zones and making them adopt new ones. Exhaustion or saturation, this is when people don’t like the change but they just go with the flow. They are there physically but the hearts are not there. This can contribute to resistance of changes. Change in the status quo is another reason for change resistance, the people might support the change if they believe that the change will likely favor a group or an individual and others might object if it does not benefit them directly. Benefits and rewards might cause might also encourage resistance to change, people might object the changes if the rewards and benefits for making the changes are not seen as adequate for the trouble involved. Task. 1. What is organizational change? Organizational change is an operation concerned with winning the hearts and the minds of the people and the target population to bring about change behavior and culture. In organizational design, the roles, skills, job descriptions, and structure of the workforce may be re-designed. It might be a specific objective of the project, e.g. where there is to be a reduction in the workforce. There are some appropriate change styles in an organization; Collaborative; this is where the target population is engaged in the change process. They will be kept up to date on the issues. Their views will be considered and acted upon. Consultative; Here, the views of the target population is sorted out and considered. Directive; the workforce is just informed about the changes and why those changes are important. There are not involved in the changes since their views are not considered. Coercive; the workforce is just told that they must obey the new instructions. As we can understand from above, each change style gives a different reaction from the people. In both collaborative and consultative change style, the workforce is supportive of the changes taking place since they are involved in the change. The management asks for the views of the workforce on the changes and they consider them, but in both directive and coercive change styles, there is a resistant workforce towards change since the workforce is just forced to accept the changes and their views and opinions are not put into consideration. Communication is a very important element of change. This is because it conveys important information that the audience needs to know and it promotes the organizational change. The benefits of consulting/utilizing a change specialist; Organizational change specialist or experts have many tools to do various functions, e.g. Identifying a population, assess the population’s capabilities, attitude, behavior, culture, Define the change goals, and, Determine what is required to bring about change. A change specialist is important in doing the above activities because they are very important in the organizational change. Identifying a population is crucial to the change because it’s important to know the target group i.e. the people who will be mainly affected by the changes. This is because they have to be informed so that they can be ready and prepared for the change, otherwise they might object the changes and not corporate thus rendering the change unsuccessful. The specialist should also assess the population’s capabilities, attitudes, behavior and culture. This is important in predicting the population’s reaction towards change. If change involves the workforce, i.e. the working techniques, duties and responsibility, then the specialist should first make sure that the population can handle the intended change. The workforce should also have a positive attitude towards the change and they should be comfortable taking up the changes, i.e. their culture should not prohibit them. The specialist should also define the goals for the changes. This is to make sure that everyone understands the importance of the changes and the priorities of the changes. The specialist should communicate this to the population and make sure that they understand. This helps a big deal in curbing change resistance. The goals defined are like guidelines for achieving a successful and fruitful change in an organization. The other important function of a change specialist is to determine what is required to bring about change. Change may be brought about maybe by increasing workforce, change of management, change of technology, and this must be determined way before change has started so that they can be ready for the change and to ensure its success. Questions for the organization to consider when identifying the need for strategic change. Destination; where do we want to go? This should be for the performers of the organization. It should be answered by the objectives and the goals of the changes. Requirements; how ready are we to get started? This is checking what is needed to make the strategic change successful. The organization should ensure that all that is required for a successful change to take place, e.g. extra funds is available at the time that it’s needed. Procedures; what practical steps to take? For a strategic change to work there must be some important steps to follow otherwise the change might not take place. Change management should list down all the major and important steps to be taken for a successful a strategic change. Achievement; How do we manage the journey? This is identifying the elements that will lead to the achievement of the strategic change. E.g. the corporation of the workforce, enough resources .e.t.c. Motivation; how do we keep moving forward? This is ensuring that even after strategic change has happened, the organization continues to be successful in its activities. It is to remind the management that the performance of the goals is not the end of the road should plan a transit period of continuous improvement. Risk management/cost benefit analysis for change. A cost-benefit analysis is a process of identifying and listing out the potential costs of the change and the expected benefits of the change. Costs of strategic change; Dedicated resources; this are the resources expected to be used during the strategic change. Purchase of source materials, for use by managers and the supervisors in their coaching exercises. Procurement of methodology and tool, for use by change management resources. Training time and costs, for everyone involved in the change process Benefits of strategic change; three people side: faster speed for adoption, higher ultimate utilization and higher proficiency. Cost avoidance; change management is a cost avoidance tactic. Risk mitigation; change management is a tool to mitigate risks. Benefits realization insurance; considers how much of the value of the project ultimately depends on people doing their jobs differently. Probability of meeting objectives; projects with effective change management in place are more likely to meet the objectives, stay on schedule and stay on the budget. The planning process to introduce and facilitate a change program. Assessing the readiness of the organization to participate in the strategic change. This should be done by checking the quantitative information from internal and external staff and consultants. This is to make sure nothing hinders the change planned. Turn the change vision into the overall plan and timeline. In other words this should be the guidelines for the strategic change. Gather information about change and determine the ways to communicate the reasons for change to the target population. Assess the risks associated with the strategic change. Plan the communication channel for change to help understand the change and its importance. Determine the WIIFF [what’s in it for me] of the change of each individual in the organization. Be honest and trustworthy. Task 2 Describe the change in this case. There are four types of changes. Prospector change; this change is driven by the company urge to exploit new opportunities to develop new products/services and to create new markets. Analyzer change; in this change, a company avoids excessive risks but excels in the delivery of new products /services. Reactor; here, accompany has very little control over their external environment, lacking the ability to adapt to external completion and lacking in effective internal control mechanisms. In our case the change is a reactor change. This is because the company has no control over global financial crisis and neither does it have control over the tough competition building upon in the market. The nature of change in an organization can be incremental or big bang. Incremental change is built on skills, routines and beliefs for bringing in efficiency, while big bang approach to change is needed when the organization is facing crisis or needs to change its direction. The big bang approach applies in our case since the organization is dealing with global financial crisis. Reasons to the need for the strategic change. An organization can change due to various reasons, either internal or environmental reasons. Internal reasons are situations where the organization is growing beyond its bounds or perhaps due to poor overall performance, while environmental factors include the demographics of the changing workplace, available technology and the available demographics of the customer base. In our case it’s an environmental factor that is causing the strategic change. The change is meant to deal with the change in the economy. The global financial crisis is causing the change so that the business can adopt and manage to survive against its competitors. A SWOT analysis on the organization. This is a strategic plan that looks at; internal strengths, internal weaknesses, Opportunities in the external environment, Threats in the external environment. SWOT is meant to discover a couple of things as explained below; What the business does better than the competition; the business develops new policies and strategies, purchases a new IT system What the competition does better than the business; the competitors have a sophisticated client system and the marketing department has secured an enormous new client worth $ 1M alone. Whether the business is making the most of the opportunities available; it does these by using older personnel working with the organization in those key SAS implementation area. How a business should respond to changes in its external environment; it adopts by taking measures of funding different policies and IT system that will help the organization to go through the global financial crisis without much trouble. Barriers of changes and a minimization strategy for each barrier; the following are some of the reasons why change in an organization can be a very tough task. Undefined goals and objectives is one of the barriers; an organization should clearly state its objectives and goals. When this is well done, then the people will not give the excuse of not understanding been the reason they are resisting change. Financial and environmental can also be a barrier; lack of capital in an organization might inhabit change. This might prevent the organization from staying ahead of competitors or to merely survive in business. To prevent this, there should be a specific department given the duty of allocating the resources. Lack of resources and bad allocation of resources can also be in the way of change in an organization; for successful change to occur there must be enough resources to see through the change. To minimize this barrier, there should proper planning of change before it starts taking place in order to prevent running out of resources in the middle of the change. Structural of an organization can also be a barrier to changes. This is how an organization is run. An organization that follows the traditional hierarchical structure tends to resist change more than a flat structured organization. To avoid this barrier, the management should establish the structure of the organization before planning of the strategic change. Insufficient communication is another barrier; for change to be successful, management should communicate adequately with the people involved in the organization. If there is no good communication, the people will resist the change. To avoid this, the management should implement branches and channels of communication in the organization. Lack of leadership or bad leadership is another barrier; for successful change, great and strong leadership is needed. Bad leaders might not inspire the workers enough. To prevent this barrier, management leaders should be appointed before the strategic change. The leaders should be well qualified. Lack for preparation for new roles s another barrier; failing to prepare the new roles that will need to be satisfied when change is implemented; shall give rise to resistance. To prevent resistance associated with these there should be adequate planning of the strategic change before proceeding Cultural issue; the culture of the organization can strongly resist change as employees became too familiar with current way of doing things. This can be avoided by training the employees to handled and perform different activities. Fear; new change can cause fear among the employees since they might be afraid of not fulfilling their new responsibilities and therefore might cause resistance towards change. This can be avoided by talking to the employees and assuring the employees. Lack of input into the change; individuals resist change if they are not included in the change. The idea of not knowing the change might cause a rift between the employees and management. This can be avoided if the management inform and the change with the employees. Minimization strategy of each barrier; Overcoming undefined goals and objectives .This is fulfilled by making sure that goals and objectives are frequently redefined and relayed to all employees to avoid resistance. Overcoming financial and environmental issues this is done by ensuring that the organization should set aside a contingency fund to cater for changes. They can also get the funding through the banks by getting loans. Overcoming structural problems and insufficient communication, these might be done by appointing spokes person who can act as a collective voice to air potential barriers directly to management. Overcoming lack of leaders or bad leaders; leaders are to be followed, they must lead the way for others to follow. They should set an example to the others and must take an active role in the change. Overcoming lack of preparation for new roles; proper planning should be done. The new roles should be concisely explained to the respective employee prior to implementing change, to remove any doubted created in peoples mind. Overcoming cultural issues; this is done by identifying the cultural characteristics and evolved into a non-blame culture. After this, the employees have the freedom to evolve and any innovative ways of doing their jobs without the fear of being penalized for mistakes. Benefits of the change to the organization. Change ensures that the organization can respond faster to customer demands. Changes also help the organization to align existing resources within the organization. Change management allows the organization to assess the overall impact of a change. Change can be implemented without negatively affecting the day to day running of business. Organizational effectiveness and efficiency is maintained or even improved by acknowledge the concerns of staff. The time needed to implement change is reduced. The possibility of unsuccessful change is reduced. Employee performance increases when staffs feel supported and understand the change process. Change in an organization cause an increased customer service and effective services to clients from confident and knowledgeable employees. Change management provides a way to participate challenges and respond to these efficiently. Change can also effectively change management process. It also lowers the risk associated with change. Managed costs of change; change management helps to contain costs associated with the change. Increased return on investment is assured by change in an organization. It also creates an opportunity for the development for the best practices leadership development, and team development. Communication/educational planning and activities Factors to consider during communication and education; the audience: analyze the audience. Each audience has particular needs for information based on their role in the implementation of the change. What is said is another factor 2 consider, whatever is said should be relevant to the change and the people involved in the change. The information should be helpful to change and should contribute to successful strategic change. When it is said is another factor, information should be said when all the people involved are all available and are present. They should be around to listen and understand the content and importance. Implementing change effectively Plan to promote the benefits of the change to the organization Identifying the changes required [a role for SWOT and pest] this is planning for change and prioritizing the deep issues affecting the organization. The other step is to determine the major issues; this is to ensure the delicate issues are taken care of first. After this, Identifying and assess the key stakeholders is the next thing, there should be communication to then regarding the strategic change. Win the support of key individuals is the next thing. This should be followed by identify the obstacles, after these the organization should implement policies and procedures to deal with them. Determining the degree of risk and the cost of change should be the next thing, this is to ensure that the organization is prepared to handle any kind of risks that it would came across during the change. Understanding why change will be resisted and how it can be managed. This is to ensure that change is successful and effective. Tools/components of change management-activities to deliver communication plan and create opportunities towards the change process. Change management process. This is to make sure that the change is successful and effective. Readiness assessments, this is been properly prepared for the change. Communication planning, it involves coming up with a system of communicating with people in the organization about the change. Coaching and manager training for change management, this involves training people to adapt to the change in the organization. Training and employee training development. Sponsor activities and sponsor, this is looking for people who are financial able to support and promote the change program me. Resistance management, this is a programme meant to deal with people who resist change. Data collection, feedback analysis and corrective action, is the collecting of information on the progress of the change happening in the organization. Celebrating and recognizing success. This is the review of the change that happened; it states how the change happens ad what it takes for the change to take place. REFERENCES Management and organizational behavior (sixth edition), Pearson education limited pages 812- 830 Laurie j Mullins (2002) Management communication strategy for change, Stuart M. Klein (2005) Business risk management, Craig john frank (2007) Read More