Organizational Change Management

Change Agents and Approaches to Change

• A Change Agent is anyone who has the skill and power to stimulate, facilitate, and coordinate the change effort.
• Types of Change Agents:
  • External Change Agents: outside consultants who are temporarily employed to remain engaged only for the duration of the change process.
  • Internal Change Agents: individuals working for the organization who know something about the problems and have experience of improving the situation in the same organization.
  • External-Internal Change Agents: individuals or small groups within the organization designed to serve with external change agents to implement interventions effectively.

How Change Agents Facilitate Change

• Boosting employee morale and motivation to reduce absenteeism, turnover, and improve the quality of work.
• Changing the organizational structure to improve team effectiveness and efficiency.
• Improving internal processes such as intergroup relations, communication, and decision making.
• Conducting sensitivity training, team building, and employee surveys.

Organizational Culture

• Is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that govern how people behave in organizations.
• Influences how people dress, act, and perform their jobs.
• Can be observed through:
  • The way the organization conducts its business, treats its employees, customers, and the wider community.
  • The extent to which freedom is allowed in decision making, developing new ideas, and personal expression.
  • How power and information flow through its hierarchy.
  • How committed employees are towards collective objectives.

Stages of Change

• Pre-contemplation: individuals fail to see their behavior as an issue and have no intention of making a change.
• Contemplation: individuals become aware of the problem, but are ambivalent about making a change.
• Preparation: individuals intend to take action, but have not started to make changes.
• Action: individuals modify their problem behavior and make the change.
• Maintenance: individuals sustain their behavioral change indefinitely.

Becoming a Change Agent

• The Process for "Making Change":
  1. Identifying the issue
  2. Pinpointing the actual problem
  3. Determining what can be done
  4. Establishing the team
  5. Creating the action plan
  6. Monitoring accountability
  7. Making an impact

Overcoming Resistance to Change

• Approaches:
  • Education & Communication
  • Participation & Involvement
  • Facilitation & Support
  • Negotiation & Agreement
  • Manipulation & Co-option
  • Explicit & Implicit Coercion
• Strategies:
  • Seek areas of agreement
  • Explore "knock-on" effects
  • Support key opinion leaders
  • Identify resistance
  • Show potential benefits

Change Management

• Is the ongoing adjustment of corporate strategies and structures to cope with changing organization objectives.
• Involves the process, tools, and techniques to manage the people side of change to achieve required business outcomes.
• Incorporates organizational tools to help individuals make successful personal transitions resulting in the adoption and realization of change.

Types of Change

• Planned Change: a result of conscious reasoning and actions, e.g., introducing employee welfare measures, changes in incentive systems, and organizational restructuring.
• Unplanned Change: imposed on the organization, unforeseen, and often unpredictable, e.g., senior executive suddenly leaving the organization.
• Emergent Change: based on the assumption that change is continuous, open-ended, and unpredictable, e.g., ongoing accommodations, adaptations, and alterations that produce fundamental change.

Change Models

• Lewin's Model: Unfreeze - Change - Refreeze

• Kotter's Model:

  1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
  2. Creating the Guiding Coalition
  3. Developing a Vision and Strategy
  4. Communicating the Change Vision
  5. Getting rid of obstacles
  6. Create Short-Term Wins
  7. Consolidating and Building on Gains
  8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

• Quinn Model: Competing Value Framework (CVF), with two dimensions (organizational focus and preference for structure) that form four quadrants: Clan Culture, Adhocracy Culture, Hierarchy Culture, and Market Culture.### Organizational Culture

• Firstborn is important in this culture for business continuity and competitive market.

• There are four types of organizational cultures: Clan, Adhocracy, Hierarchy, and Market.

Clan Culture

• Focuses on collaboration and teamwork.
• Leaders act as facilitators or mentors.
• Values commitment to the group, employee development, and advancement.
• Negatives: hiring people similar to themselves, lack of diverse ideas, and employee involvement in wrong decisions.

Adhocracy Culture

• Focuses on creation and innovation.
• Leaders act as innovators or entrepreneurs.
• Values being innovative, agile, and taking risks.
• Negatives: lack of established policies, risk management issues, and weak hierarchy.

Hierarchy Culture

• Focuses on control and efficiency.
• Leaders act as monitors and coordinators.
• Values clear authority structure, proven processes, and consistency.
• Negatives: lack of innovation, collaboration, and bureaucratic operation.

Market Culture

• Focuses on competition and profitability.
• Leaders act as drivers and producers.
• Values market share, goal achievement, and profitability.
• Negatives: corporate perceptions, focus on profits over sustainability, and slow adaptation to changes.

Organizational Evolution

• A normal progression where the organization and its leaders develop trust, transparency, and systematic thinking.
• Evolutionary change is incremental, gradual, and reversible, often prompted by outside pressure.
• Revolutionary change is profound, radical, and irreversible, reshaping strategic goals and leading to breakthroughs in beliefs or behaviors.

Examples of Organizational Failures

• A large bank's rigid structure holds back expansion, leading to a decline in profits.
• A retail store chain's failure to adapt to change leads to bankruptcy.