Definition of organizational changes

The successful management of transformations or positive changes within an organisation is very crucial for the development of that organisation. This will help the organization to survive in the extremely competitive and continuously evolving business environment of world market. The purpose of this study is to analyse five different article and books which focuses on the definition of organisational changes, importance of the management of the changes occurred within an organisation, the procedure for the effective management of organisational changes, various kinds of barriers to organisational change, the methods obtained by several organisations to overcome. Finally, this study attempts to provide a literature review and find out the different views of five different authors.

According to the definition provided by Lozano in the article – “Are companies planning their organizational changes for corporate sustainability? An analysis of three case studies on resistance to change and their strategies to overcome it.”, change management refers to the method of continually transforming the direction of an organization and its structure, in order to enhance capabilities and serve internal as well as external customers better (Advice.writing.utoronto.ca, 2019). According to Chathoth’s “Barriers affecting organizational adoption of higher order customer engagement in tourism service interactions. Tourism Management”, change is considered to be a common feature of organisational life, from the operational as well as strategic viewpoints. Therefore, there should be no chances of ambiguity regarding the necessity of ‘change’ for any organisation.  It is the ability of an organisation to identify its loopholes with reference to its targets and future goals, that induces the organisation to bring the required transformation in its framework and operations. Due to the vitality of the ‘change’ in the corporate structure and performance, the management of the ‘changes’ has become a highly recommended managerial skill.

According to Najda-Janoszka’s “Exploring barriers to innovation in tourism industry–the case of southern region of Poland. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences”, an effective framework is required by directors as well as senior executives of a company to ensure the correct projects and programs are completed following a correct process. In this context, Directing Change – a guide to the governance of project management, the publication of APM, is written by senior managers in order to guide the managing persons engaged in the management of organisational change. This guide attempts to provide a clear concept to the governing body of an organisation as well as its senior executives about their responsibilities in the management of the transformation of the system of the organisation and assist to choose the right projects. Project sponsorship, project management capability and disclosure and reporting17. However, in the cases in which, a smart business is aligned with the project that is the part of the strategies adopted by the company for the management of the changes within the organisation proper communication with all the levels of the employee will properly lead to the sustainability of the necessary transformations. Again, proper management of the transformation in turn, depends on the management as well as the allocation of the resources properly. Failure in the management of the necessary changes within the organisation may happen if the power of culture is ignored. In this case, Culture refers to the process of conducting business in a profitable as well as ethical ways. This is again depends on the right attitudes and effective strategies to fulfil the expectations and handling of the internal as well as external relationships within the company (wikiHow, 2019). 

Importance of managing changes

There are times, in which employees are able to maintain the work culture in the organisation, but, consequently they are resistance to the necessary changes for the improvement of the work culture of the same organisation. This is because, if such changes happens, employees have to get out of their comfort zone and meet difficult challenges. In such cases welcoming and managing the changes depends on the employee motivation programs and incentives or bonus to the employees so that they think that they are not loosing much rather they are gaining many things by getting out f their comfort zones and meeting a bit difficult challenges. In this way the transformations within an organisation can be managed.

Three stages may be found for the sustainability as well as the successful management of the change of the changes within an organisation. Those stages are based on the cognitive as well as learning theories and practice related to the management of the changes within an organisation (Library.concordia.ca, 2019).

An investigation should be conducted in order to check the loopholes in the organizational settings. Such investigation contains a three-stage process of unfreezing, change and refreezing. The first stage is called the Unfreezing stage. it consists of analysis of the past behaviour. The change procedure starts when a company experiences disconfirmation. Disconfirmation can be experienced through the process of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is actually a notion related to human psychology that implies to the impatience and incompatibility between two or more decisions or attitudes. Inconsistencies gained from an uncomfortable situation can be considered as cognitive dissonance. In the course of management of the transformations within the structure as well as the performance of a company, the managers as well as the employees may face disconfirmations or cognitive dissonance (Pollack & Pollack, 2015). This situation may occur due to the external pressures, collection of convincing data from within the organization. Occurrence of such external pressure may be attributed to the obligation or compulsion applied to the management by stakeholders and shareholders to enhance the rates of return on investment. Thus, due to an internal benchmarking a dissonance can be spread (Library.macewan.ca, 2019). Such dissonance casts upon a positive impact on the management of organisational change by pointing out the loopholes as well as the areas, which are need to be focused during the transformation process.

Seeing Change as a Threat Instead of an Opportunity

Effective procedures for management

Resistance is one of the greatest barriers to organizational change. The first step to mitigating resistance is identifying what is causing it (Chathoth, 2014).

Often, the issue that belies resistance is not understanding why change is necessary. When the benefits of a proposed change are not clear, employees are more likely to believe it will impose undue stress in their workflow or threaten their productivity.

In some cases, the need for change is clear. For example, if a department’s performance has declined, most people will agree some sort of course correction is in order. But in other scenarios, it’s more difficult for staff to recognize the need to change. Perhaps they don’t notice that a long-held process is actually hindering efficiency, or a policy has become outdated. In these situations, employees might see a proposed change as superfluous and burdensome (Doppelt, 2017).

Change managers can avoid resistance by clearly explaining how the change will benefit employees. Be specific — humans are self serving creatures. They not only want to know how a change will benefit the company, they want to know how it will make their individual jobs easier. As soon as employees see a proposed change as an opportunity to succeed, they will not only stop resisting, they will advocate for it. 

Communication is always an essential leadership trait, but it’s even more critical for motivating employees to embrace change. An opaque leadership style and poor communication are serious barriers to organizational change.

Although the need to reform might be clear to the CEO, chief of finance and other department heads, the rest of the organization may not have access to the information and data that justifies the given change. Leaders will have a hard time rallying support if they aren’t transparent. 

While a change is still in the planning stages, leaders should carefully articulate why it’s necessary, the timeline by which it will be implemented, who will be affected, what the main goals are, and how progress will be assessed, among other metrics.

Providing answers to these questions will foster greater trust between employees and leadership, and make the overall transition period smoother.

Giving staff a seat at the table should be more than just a courtesy. No one in your organization has better insight about what it’s like to perform a job than those who do it every day. If the need to update certain policies, implement a new software system, or rejigger a long-held process arises, solicit input from staff.

Types of barriers and methods to overcome them

First, they could draw from their experience to provide ideas that wouldn’t have occurred to those who are farther removed from the change. Second, giving employees greater ownership of the change during the planning phase will automatically motivate them to embrace it. Finally, they will be more willing to champion the change among their peers.

To succeed in a rapidly evolving business world, strategy must be agile. One of the most overlooked barriers to organizational change is unwillingness among leaders to amend strategy to account for emerging internal and external forces.

The conditions that spurred transformation are subject to change as time goes on. That means change strategy must have enough flexibility built in to bend. If a change initiative is too rigid, the end goal of the change could become obsolete before it is fully implemented.

The key is not to get stuck strategizing. Although planning is an important part of effective change management, it is impossible to create a perfect strategy. Even if a strategy is perfect today, it could be worthless tomorrow. The more important aspect of change is execution.

With greater focus on execution, a company can course correct as needed, in real time. Leaders and staff won’t feel as attached to the strategy and will be better able to adapt. 

Communication is key but will be unsuccessful if it lacks direction or a cohesive message. From the moment you begin to plan or implement any type of organizational change, first clarify your objectives.  Think of your objectives as the roadmap that will guide you to your intended destination.  Ideally, your change management strategy should include the following components:

1. An overarching goal or intended outcome of the process.
2. Clear, measurable objectives related to the overall outcome.
3. An estimated timeline of achieving your objectives.
4. Regular benchmarks or check-ins to evaluate your progress toward goal.
5. An outline of strategic communication to keep everyone involved on the same page.
6. With the right strategy, you will improve your chances of getting buy in so staff are more likely to take a productive vs. disruptive role in the change process.

We all experience it, and we can all become frustrated by it. Cognitive dissonance describes what happens when your ideas, beliefs, or behaviors contradict each other. You see an ad, but the product doesn’t deliver on its promises. You experience one of your role models commit an unethical act. You hear great things about organizational change, but all you can see is the increased workload it will bring you for the next six months.

During organizational change or transition, some cognitive dissonance is inevitable. Your team will experience an initial increase in their workload and painfully discover many ways in which the new way of doing things (such as a new business software platform) is actually more time consuming or initially cumbersome than the old one.  If the gap between the perceived benefits of the change and the real work it will take to accomplish change is too long or too great, progress stalls and problems can arise.

Sustaining change

Observing positive benefits that were promised actually materialize helps to generate buy-in on and maintain energy for change on behalf of your employees. That’s why planning so you can achieve a few early “wins” and then reinforce them frequently through communication, is so important to a successful change process.

Encourage your implementation team to speak out. Left alone, contradictions between hoped for benefits and lived reality will fester and cause resentment, which in turn will undermine the change. Then, align your communication with expectations to make sure that people experience as much consistency between their expectations and actual outcomes as possible.

Several researches have been conducted to find out the probable reasons of failures in the management of the changes occurred in the structure as well as the performance of an organization. Studies have indicated, in spite of spending a huge amount of money often organisation fails to manage the overall transformation due to the change in its framework and work procedures (Hayes, 2018). This also leads to the wastage of resources resources as well as time. Researchers have delved deep into the management procedure adopted by several organisation to find out the actual reasons of failure in the change management. According to them the lack of commitment is one of the most common reasons. Again, the overloading of the plans and programs for bring substantial changes in the work procedure can be considered another reason behind this failure. According to Waddell other causes may include the lack of providing incentives and motivation and also the lack of training to the persons employed for the management of organisational change (Carnall, 2018). 

Commitment from senior management is required if the change program is to succeed.. Employees infer what is important from management’s behaviour. Trying to do too much at once is often an obstacle because trying to accomplish too many activities can create confusion. Hence the people assigned for change management should incorporate a sense of order and confidence in the process. The organization must publicly recognize and reward employees who have taken initiatives for inducing as well as managing the change. This could be done by linking promotion and pay rewards to the desired behaviours. Rewards that reinforce old methods must be eliminated. More attention should be given to development of the skills employees require for the incorporation of a new technology in the work procedures. The organization must provide experiential training that provides real time hands-on experience with new processes and procedures. The physical environment must also reinforce these changes. Employees often consider that the change process is disruptive (Ceulemans, Lozano & Alonso-Almeida, 2015). A successful change program requires the understanding on the part of the employees regarding the importance of change. In this context the concept as well as principles of organisational commitment and the outcomes of the commitment may be implemented. The company should implement strategies to enhace the ‘organisational commitment of the employees. Again, the commitments of the employees must be linked to the change outcomes of the company. During transitions, employees speculate about how change will benefit or possibly harm them. Hence the employees should be conveyed more information regarding the possible effects of the change process. The company should communicate about the facts regarding the change process to everyone related to the change procedure.  This will not only minimi9ze the rumours but also aid the management of the change process. Communication lowers stress and anxiety. If the company convey employees about how the change is going to impact them positively, this will act as a dose of motivation to the employees and they will be eager to assist the management of the change process. This can be explained with an example, if a company decides to increase working hours for increasing the productivity of the employees and incorporating necessary changes, and also declares that the employees will be provided free lunch as well as incentives in return, the employees will be encouraged to accept the change in the working hours. In this case lack of incentives or improper communication about the benefits to the employee, may lead to a disastrous situation and employees may not cooperate.

In the conclusion, it can be stated that, incorporating necessary changes in the system of working, work culture as well as infrastructure are very essential for the growth of an organisation. What is more important is the management of the necessary changes in a way that leads an organisation to the path of success. 

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