Resistance to Planned Organisational Change - Literature review Example

Running Head: Resistance to planned organization change Student’s name Institution Course Professor Date Despite that change is implemented for positive objectives like adapting to volatile economic environment conditions and being competitive, organisation members often react negatively to change and resist change (Boohene & Williams, 2012). Resistance to change is any attitude or behaviour indicating unwillingness to support or make desired change occur (Mullins, 2005: Schermerhorn, Hunt & Osborn, 2005). Kurt Lewin introduced the term resistance to change in his field theory and his work on group dynamics. Resistance may be in form of strikes, reduced organizational commitment, increased hostility towards the implementation of change, absenteeism, sabotage of the organizational systems among other negative change in behaviour by employees (Erwin & Garman, 2010). Resistance to change may be blind resistance, political resistance or ideological resistance (Burke, 2008). Blind resistance occurs when the involved parties are afraid or intolerant of the change due to the unknown results of the change implemented. Political resistance occurs when the organisation members believe they will lose something of value like power, status, position, budget, personal compensation among other things due to change. Ideological resistance on the other hand involves honest intellectual disagreement in terms of genuine feelings, beliefs or philosophies over change implementation, for instance, it is ill timed, not appropriate or will create more harm than good ( Yilmaz and Kilicoglu 2013,p.16). Resistance to change is equivalent to inertia force that wants to maintain the status quo (King and Anderson, 1995). Resistance affects the implementation of planned change process; it delays or slows down its beginning, hinders or obstructs implementation while also increasing the cost of change implementation. For instance, Jick (1993, p. 329) suggests that “resistance is a catch-all phrase; it describes anyone who doesn’t change as fast as we do, as well as people who seemingly refuse to budge.  As such, resistance is considered an obstacle, something to be overcome at all costs."  By Jick starting that resistance is a catch-all phrase implies that it affects all the stakeholders in the organisation that is the organisation members resisting it, change agents and management of the organisation. He also defines resistance to mean individuals who do not cope-up with the base of the change or those who generally do not support it. Resistance hinders smooth implementation of change in the organisation and there is need for all measures available to be put in place to overcome it in order to realise fruitful change implementation. Organisations should take resistance as part of change implementation. They should understand the motives of resistance, effects of resistance and ways of overcoming resistance in order to deal with it effectively. Not all resistance to change in organisation are negative, resistance needs to be critically analysed since it may be a source of information useful in development of successful change process (Piderit, 2000). For clear analysis of resistance in organisations, this essay will discuss the causes of resistance, effects of resistance and the ways of managing it. Causes of resistance to change Various studies have been carried out to determine the causes of resistance in organisations. Some of the common reasons that causes resistance to change in organisations include interference with need fulfilment, inconvenience or loss of freedom, selective perception, fear of the unknown, threats to influence or power, knowledge and skills obsolescence, economic implications, habit and limited resources (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2008; Mullins, 2005; Robbins & Judge, 2009). This is further emphasised by Oreg, (2006) who argues that individuals resist change due to some reason, such as a personal experience, observation or knowledge of fact that eludes management. The possibility of the change causing organisation members to lose or reduce their need fulfilment in terms of either economic, social, esteem or other needs will cause them to resist the change implementation. Thus, people resist changes that lower incomes, job status and social relationships. If the change is intended to reduce pay or other employment benefits individuals will resist it since they want to maintain their status quo. When the change is of threat to status, power or influence of individuals in the organisation they tend to resist it. Some forms of administrative or technological changes may threaten the existing status or power base and may trigger resistance. This is because individuals fear that decision-making, control over resource allocation and information flow will change. Reallocation of such duties will threaten long-term power relations in the organisation. Fear of the unknown happenings causes organisation members to resist change implementation. If the members are uninformed of what will be fallen them after the change implementation, they will become fearful and anxious about change implementation and hence resist it. This is because many people like stability and since they may not clearly understand their stability in the future, they will tend to resist it in order to continue enjoying their current stability. Some forms of change involves introduction of innovative means of performing duties using new technology, skills and knowledge and if the organisation members skills and knowledge are not up to date with the changes being implemented they will in many occasions resist their implementation. New technologies may make their skills and knowledge obsolescence and thus create the need of their dismissal from the organisation. This fear will cause them to resist change in the organisation in order to continue using their current skills and knowledge. Some members may resist change if they see the change as not intellectually viable. Change may be not good in terms of timing, ability to solve existing problems, availability of resources to implement it in the organisation among other reasons. Individuals sometimes do not want to overwork during implementation of change itself or the duties of the company after the implementation of the change this is because the organisation might not be having the necessary resources to carry it out effectively. According to research carried out in the year 1993 and 1997 by Waldersee and Griffiths on factors hindering change among Australian companies, concluded that resistance is the main factor. This was because of failures on the part of change management leadership. The research showed the management lacked skills, knowledge and attitude necessary for change management. There was poor communication, lack of involvement of all stakeholders including employees and lack of commitment. Effects of resistance to change implementation Resistance to change have both negative and positive impacts to change implementation in the organisation. However, there are more negative effects of resistance to change that has made many people to overlook the positive effects of resistance and come up with the conclusion that resistance to change is generally bad. Resistance to change may cause change not being implemented successfully or failing to attempting it. It creates lack of animosity among some parties in the organisation, lack of implementation commitment and competition among people for and against change in the organisation. Resistance causes low morale to both the organisation members and those implementing the change. Organisation members are fearful about what will happen next and thus have no morale of supporting the company’s objectives and goals. This results mainly if there is insufficient communication regarding the nature of the change and its impacts to the organisation; this gives room to a wide speculation in the organisation that makes members not have clear picture of the intended change. Resistance makes change agents and mangers lose their morale since they find it hard to control the change while at the same time overcoming resistance. Resistance to change lowers the production efficiency in the organisation. Resistance to change occurs in forms of strikes, demonstrations, sabotage, lack of cooperation, absenteeism, among other negative activities. The actions of workers during the resistance period usually affects the productivity cycle of the organisation negatively. There may be lower production, low quality production or service delivery, more breakages and lower sales among other negative performance in the company. Resistance generally lowers the efficiency of the organisation and hence may reduce its productivity. Resistance lowers the pace and increases cost of change implementation (Ashton Acton, 2013). Resistance to change makes change agents to spend more time in carrying out the intended change that are implementable within a shorter time if there is no resistance. Change agents spend more time in dealing with the resistance that could be dedicated in change implementation. At times change implementation is stop mid-way completely or for sometime in order to come up with a compromise with the organisation members. Resources used in implementing the change increases as the change inquires more resistance. Change agents channel some funds to activities and actions that deal with elimination of resistance. Lack of cooperation by the organisation members increases cost of change implementation since more funds will be required in hiring some more change implementers. Increase in time required in change implementation also increases the costs of implementing it. Positive impacts of resistance include the possibility of rejection or not implementing inappropriate change. Some intended change in the organisation might not be for the benefit of the organisation and by members resisting the possibility of implementing goes down. This aids the organisation and change agents not to carry out change that is not of much benefit to the organisation. Piderit (2000) argues that resistance should be looked as force to overcome any risk or negative aspect of change identified by detractors. This is possible mainly in intellectual or ideological resistance to change. Resistance to change helps the organisation to plan well future change implementation. Mistakes done that result to resistance to the change implementation can be noticed and these help change agents to put in place necessary steps in future to avoid its occurrence. For instance, they will learn on how to gain the collective support of the organisation members in order to carry out a successful planned change implementation. Ways of overcoming resistance Resistance to change has wide negative effects to the organisation and thus must be overcomed. According to (Jick 1993, p.329) resistance is an obstacle, something to be overcome at all costs. Having known the causes of resistance and its negative impacts to change implementation change agents must put in place means of overcoming it to avoid derailing change. Effective change management requires good skills, knowledge and personality qualities to overcome its challenges (Waddell, Cummings and Worley, 2007). Such means needs be before and during change implementation. Effective management of change largely depends on the understanding of human behaviour in the organisation. Neglecting employees perceptions towards change lead to failure of the initiatives (Devos, Buelens & Bouckenooghe 2007). For successful change to be realized it is important to take into consideration the psychological transition of the organisation members (Martin, Jones & Callan, 2005). Some of the methods used to deal with resistance in the organisation include the following: Provision of sufficient education and communication- Absence of enough information concerning the nature of change most of the times causes organisation members to have wide speculations that may make them to resist change. Stanley, Meyer, and Topolnytsky (2005) recommend a teaching and learning approach to confronting individual resistance to organizational change. The change agents should educate members on the impacts, advantages and disadvantages of the change for them to get enough information to avoid the possibility of them having negative thoughts about the change that might not be correct. Measures should be put in place where all the workers questions are tackled and all the necessary communication made before, during and after change implementation. Communication about change should be sincere, clear, honest, truthful and straightforward. They should communicate the vision, the strategy and communicate through training and development in order for all parties to understand the intended change (Michelman, 2007). Sufficient education and communication about change in the organisation will make all members to realise the need for change, importance of change and hence avoid negative speculations about its impacts. This hence will avoid resistance to it while promoting support from the members. Participation and involvement of the workers in change implementation- Change should not be forced to the workers. All the members in the organisation should be involved in change implementation process to avoid resistance; this creates both transformative and transactional change (Anderson and Anderson, 2001). Management of the change must focus energy onto the processes of providing feedback, involvement of others, listening and encouraging employee ownership of the process (Geller, 2002). Change agents should take into consideration the views and suggestions of other stakeholders in order for them to be part of the change process. All the people should be involved in planning, designing and the real implementation of the change. Participation of all the organisation members will also assist in getting a wide pool of skills and knowledge together that aid in coming up with quality decisions concerning change implementation. In most cases, it is very difficult for individuals to resist change implementation when they had already participated in nearly all stages of decision making in one way or another. Thus, participation and involvement of members creates a sense of commitment to change implementation hence reducing resistance that is a big obstacle in realisation of success. Facilitation and support- Change agents should offer the organisation members material and emotional help before and during change implementation. People may fear to experience hardships during the change. The organisation should put in place various supportive measures to overcome various hardships that might occur to the members. Material support provision creates conducive change climate in the organisation. If for instance members think they do not have sufficient skill, knowledge or attitude to cope with the change, the change agents should start training and workers development programs to deal with their fears. Emotional support is given through listening to their ideas, problems and complaints and providing them the necessary guidance and counselling. Supportive behaviour makes change climate pleasant and enjoyable thus avoiding resistance. Axelrod (2002), states that supportive initiatives create commitment in the organisation by building connectivity among employees. Negotiation with those opposing change- During change implementation the change agents can negotiate with those causing the resistance in order to end it. Change leadership should be an engaging process (Axelrod, 2002). They should democratically and friendly campaign for the change during negotiations. During such negotiations, they should consider giving incentives in terms of trade-offs to the resistors to drop their agendas. This is mainly practical if the change causes a great loss to some part of the organisation members and thus their losses must be taken into consideration during change process. Negotiations may end up into fruitful agreements between the change agents and the organisation members therefore reducing the chances of resistance occurrence. Manipulation and co-option- In some cases negotiations, education and sufficient communication cannot help in avoidance of resistance and there may be the need of using manipulation and co-option to implement change. According to (Kotter and Cohen, 2002) as soon as the change proposal is finalized, the management of the change process must generate support or buy-in from the employees. When they cannot generate support using other strategies, change agents should consider using manipulation and co-option. This involves twisting facts to make the change attractive to organisation members. At this stage, they should withhold the negative information about it and use false rumours to make members accept it. They should consider buying off key resistance leaders by giving them some roles to play in the change process in order to weaken the resistance. Manipulation and co-option is a good method of reducing resistance when the other methods are unfruitful. Using Coercion- Since resistance must be avoided by all costs; change agents may use force and threats on the resisters of change. This is necessary if the change is too crucial for the success of the business but it is receiving some resistance. Threats like negative performance appraisals, poor letter of recommendation, transfers and demotions may be used. Use of threats enables quick implementation of change in the organisation. Even though it reduces resistance, use of threats have negative impacts to the organisation like creating frustration, fear, alienation, revenge that may result to negative performance, low turnover and dissatisfaction. Conclusion Resistance is a create obstacle towards effective and efficient change process. It is a crucial factor to be looked-into in any change implementation process; this is because proper resistance management is a key factor in the realisation of change success. Resistance is generally any factors that tend to hinder change beginning or development, with the aim of maintaining the status quo. A wide range of factors causes resistance by organisation members towards change. Many of this factors are behavioural, economic and idea logical factors inherent in the organisation members. Change agents should understand causes of change resistance in order to know how to deal with it. Resistance causes many negative effects to change implementation like increasing costs of change, stopping or slowing change implementation among other effects. To avoid the negative effects change agents should analyse the change environment and be able to come up with remedial measures to resistance. Some of the measures that they can use in dealing with it include involvement of all members in change, provision of support mechanisms, manipulation, negotiations, effective communication and education among others. Change leaders should take into consideration followers’ perceptions, beliefs and suggestions in order for the change to gain required support and commitment from organisation members. Putting in place effective measures will ensure the avoidance of resistance. They should look for suitable strategies and ensure they have the necessary skills. Knowledge and personality attributes necessary for effective change management and leadership. Good change leadership will ensure resistance is overcome with all costs thus successful change implementation. Reference Anderson, D., & Ackerman-Anderson, L. S. (2001). Beyond change management: Advanced strategies for today’s transformational leaders. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. . 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