Managing Organizational Change, Resistance, and Conflict PDF

**Managing Organizational Change, Resistance and Conflict** Projects are planned organizational change. Planning for organizational change and dealing with resistance and conflict should be addressed and managed at the outset of the project.  **Change management** is an effective management plan a...

**Managing Organizational Change, Resistance and Conflict** Projects are planned organizational change. Planning for organizational change and dealing with resistance and conflict should be addressed and managed at the outset of the project.  **Change management** is an effective management plan and helps smooth the transition an implementation of a new product or system. Resistance and conflict can occur once more than one stakeholder becomes involved in the project. According to Anderson and Anderson: Leadership is an important component for successful change. Traditional change management approaches have focused on solving 2 key problems: 1. How to plan for a more successful implementation 2. How to overcome resistance **Organizational Change and its Impact** IT projects represent change in the organization, individuals in the organization have a natural response to the project of suspicion, fear and/or hostility as their perceived stability is threatened. Most technical people do not enjoy the people side of projects because that is where conflicts and loss of control so often occurs.  Furthermore, many technical people and managers believe that producing a technically proficient system will in and of itself lead to its acceptance from everyone in the organization. It is possible to build an IT system that is a technical success but an organizational failure since the success of a project ultimately rests on its acceptance and full implementation. If people in the organization have not been prepared for the impacts of the new system and buy into its potential benefits, then even though they may comply with the system implementation, the compliance may not last, may lead to them finding ways to work around the new system, or may lead to only a partial acceptance. The result of these responses is a failure to realize the full benefits of the project. Managers and technical people may have false disbelieves such as: People want this change 1. Monday morning we'll turn on the system and they'll use it. 2. A good training program will answer all of their questions and then they'll love it. 3. Our people have been through a lot of change -- what's one more change going to matter? 4. We see the need for helping our people adjust, but we had to cut something. 5. They have two choices. They can change or they can leave. Many technical people and managers naively believe that the users within the organization will gladly embrace a new system if it is built properly. **Assimilation:** the process of adapting to change and determines our ability to handle current and future change. Problem occur when we have to deal with too many changes or when we cannot assimilate change fast enough. Each change adopted by an organization must be assimilated and managed within the change threshold. Just like people, organizations can exhibit dysfunctional behaviors. These behaviors may include an inability to take advantage of new opportunities or solve current problems. Eventually, an organization's inability to assimilate change will be reflected in the organization's ability to make a profit. **Change Management Plan** Important in addressing the human side of change. A change management plan can send a message throughout the organization that management cares about the people in the organization and will listen and take their needs and issues seriously. The change management plan document can be formal or informal. The project team and project sponsor should address and be clear on the following areas: - **Assess, Willingness, Readiness and Ability to Change**: A stakeholder analysis can assess people's willingness, readiness and ability to change. The analysis can also provide who the players or stakeholders involved in the change will be, their roles and how they will interact with each other. Each stakeholder in a change initiative may play the role of the sponsor, change agent, or target. - ***Sponsor***: willingness and power, in terms of authority and making resources available, to support the project.  Although this person or group is often the project sponsor, an initiating sponsor may hand off the project to a sustaining sponsor. More specifically, after making the decision to fund and support the project, the initiating sponsor may become completely removed from the project. Without the support of a sustaining sponsor, the project will eventually lose steam and direction. Therefore, the sustaining sponsor must become the primary sponsor for the project. - ***Change Agents***: An agent may be an individual or group responsible for making the change happen in order to achieve the project's goal and objectives. Their role is to act as a conduit of communication between the sponsor and the targets of change - ***Targets of Change:*** The target is the individual or group that must change. They could be: users of the new system, or those who will use or be directly involved with the final product of the project. Targets play a critical role in the ultimate success of the project as they must understand the real impacts of change, what is over and what is not and whether the rules of success have changed. - ***Develop or Adopt a Strategy for Change*** - ***Rational -- Empirical Approach:*** People follow predictable patterns of behaviour and that people will follow their own self interests. Therefore, a change agent must be persuasive in convincing, explaining, and demonstrating how a particular change will benefit a particular person or group identified as a target of the change. It is important that the individuals affected by the change be provided with consistent and timely information. The change management plan based on this strategy should provide each individual with the purpose, a picture, and a part to play. - ***Normative Re-education Approach:*** This approach takes the basic view that people are social beings, and that human behavior can be changed by changing the social norms of a group. Key principles of this include: - **Capacity for change** which is directly related to a person's participation in a group. By participating in a group, our views and beliefs become interwoven with group members. - **Effective change** requires changing something about the value, and beliefs of the individual and the group. - **Bias and Prejudice** toward guarding ones closely held beliefs and values diminishes ones ability to think rationally. People may not act upon being presented with the facts in a rational way. - ***Power- Coercive Approach:*** gain compliance from the change targets through the exercise of power, authority, rewards, or threat of punishment for non-conformance. People's dependency on an organization largely dictates how effective the power-coercive approach and the use of sanctions can be. If people are highly dependent on the organization; live paycheck to paycheck; have few job alternatives; and are not financially, mentally, or emotionally prepared to walk, you are on relatively safe ground using the power-coercive approach judiciously. The objective is to change the behaviors of the targets so that their new behavior supports the change effort.*** *** - ***Environmental -- Adaptive Approach:*** although people avoid disruption and loss, they can still adapt to change. Following this approach, the change agent attempts to make the change permanent by abolishing the old ways and instituting the new structure as soon as possible. - **Implement the Change Management Plan and Track Progress**: Tracking progress should be implemented into the whole project plan and monitored using project tools like the Gantt chart, PERT chart and so forth. Milestones and other significant events should be identified and used to gauge how well the organization is adapting to the change. - **Evaluate Experiences, Develop Lessons Learned, and Communicate Best Practices**: As the project team carries out the change management plan, they will, no doubt, learn from their experiences. These experiences should be documented and made available to other team members and other projects so that experiences can be shared, and best practices can be identified. At the end of the project, it is important that the overall success of the change management plan be evaluated. This evaluation may help determine the effectiveness of the different players or a particular change management strategy. **Resistance and Conflict Management** The concept of conflict here can be brought about due to conflicts in the project team as well as external conflicts brought about by the change effort. **Resistance:** Should be anticipated from the outset of the project. I can be overt (memos, meetings) or covert (sabotage, politicking) where the change can cause management and the project team to lose credibility. As a result, the organization can become resistant to all future changes. ***Reasons for Resistance to Arise:*** - Response time of a systems features and functionalities is too slow - Cultural and behavioural resistance keeping a project from reaching its goal ***Why Do people Resist change?*** - Some people perceive the change as requiring more time and energy than they are willing to invest. - Sometimes people feel that that a change will mean giving up something that is familiar, comfortable, and predictable. - People may be annoyed with the disruption caused by the change, even if they know that it will be beneficial in the long run. - People may believe that the change is being imposed on them externally, and their egos will not tolerate being told what to do. - In addition, people may resist because of the way the decision to change was announced or because it was forced upon them. **Conflict:** Arises when people perceive that their interests and values are challenged or not being met. It is important to identify conflicts as early as possible so that the conflict can be addressed. Conflict can be positive or negative: ***Positive:*** form new ideas, establish commitment ***Negative:*** can damage relationships, mistrust, unresolved issues, stress, dysfunctional behaviour, low productivity and morale. According to Verma: the best way to reduce conflict is to control it **Some main types of conflicts are below:** ***Traditional View:*** considers conflict in a negative light and suggests conflict should be avoided. According to this view conflict leads to poor performance, aggression and devastation if left to escalate. It is important to manage conflict by suppressing it and before it occurs or eliminating it as soon as possible. ***Contemporary View:*** Conflict is inevitable and natural and can be either positive or negative depending on how it is handled. Positive conflict can help stimulate ideas and creativity. Negative conflict can have damaging effects if left unresolved. ***Interactionist View:*** Conflict is an important and necessary ingredient for performance. Embraces conflict because teams can become stagnant, and complacent if too harmonious and tranquil. The proper manager should also "stir the pot" in order to encourage conflict to an appropriate level so that people engage in positive conflict. **Approaches to Conflict** Below is 5 approaches to dealing with conflict: 1. ***Avoidance:*** retreating, withdrawing or ignoring conflict. Avoidance may offer a "cool off" period. May not be useful when you can't win, the stakes are low, or gaining time is important. 2. ***Accommodation:*** Appeases the various parties in conflict. Useful when trying to reach an overall goal, when the goal is more important than personal interest. Effective when dealing with an issue that is low risk and low return or when there is a no-win situation. Tends to work in the short run so conflicts may re-appear. 3. ***Forcing:*** A person uses their dominant authority to resolve the conflict. Often resulting in a one sides win-lose situation where one-party gains at the others expense. Effective when no common ground exits, when you are sure you are right, when there's an emergency or when time is of the essence. Forcing resolution may cause the conflict to re-develop. 4. ***Compromise:*** Includes forcing and accommodation aspects. It gives up more than forcing and less than accommodation. Essentially it is bargaining where one gives something up in exchange for gaining something else. No party wins or loses. So some satisfaction is gained form resolution of the conflict. Useful when you need to resolve conflicts that need to be settled in a short time when risks and rewards are moderately high. But important aspects of a project could be compromised in order to achieve short-term results. 5. ***Collaboration:*** When the risks and benefits are high, collaboration may be the best approach for dealing with conflict. This approach requires confronting and attempting to solve the problem by incorporating different ideas, viewpoints, and perspectives. The focus of collaboration is learning from others and gaining commitment, trust, respect, and confidence from the various parties involved. Collaboration takes time and requires a sincere desire to work out a mutually acceptable solution. In addition, it requires a willingness to engage in a good-faith problem-solving process that facilitates open and honest communication.