The Challenges that Change Presents to Modern Business
.... Managers started to panic, trying to go ahead solving the crisis. It all seems like aiming towards the objectives and achieving goals are unreachable. The bonding of the organization itself began to fall apart dramatically, if further action or innovation within the company do not react, it could possibly lead to failures and the worst situation of all the collapse of management level. At this point of time the management level need certain dramatic changes desperately especially in the way which generates creativity, another view on the entire view situation and ensuring the right path to the right solutions. Change if handled well, brings growth and betterment with it. Development and use of information technologies is probably one of the biggest forces for change. Organizations, large and small, for profit and not for profit, all must adapt to using a lot of various types of information technologies. The ever-changing technical scenario will definitely continue to create evolutionary change in organizations around the world. The classic The Important of Leadership and Culture in Change The leadership can be identified as the process of influencing people and providing an environment for them to achieve team or organizational objectives. Effective leaders help groups of people define their goals and find ways to achieve them (5). It is important to look at the aspects of leadership involved, if companies want to achieve successful organizational change and a problem they may be facing is the lack of employee commitment. For change requires a sense of direction which a leader can generate, but it may also need someone who can manage the change process effectively, proving to be a valuable asset to the company at the times when changes are required rapidly. Lewin's three-step model talks about the change process as unfreezing from the status quo, implementing the actual change, and refreezing to continue the journey. A new thought has arisen which considers that change is a natural state and managing change is a continuous process. For the importance of an individual’s culture, the organizational culture, in addition to that of the nation state, all play an influence on how the company thinks and operates, and the choice of corporate strategy to be adopted. Along with leadership, culture is an important feature of any company especially when change is taking place, for culture can help change to occur smoothly if accepted by the workforce but culture can also be one of the main obstacles to change. If the company feels a new leadership style is necessary then it must be introduced in such a way that fits in with the culture of the company. Overcoming the issue that culture can be a big barrier to effective change. It sounds as though change is a process that no company will want to happen; a positive example however of organizational change was achieved by Staffordshire County Council. It managed to overcome many barriers facing through sharing the concept of change, and why it was happening, providing training sessions for employees to learn how to work with new computer systems to save time and resources. A key element here seems to have been communication, relating to the style of leadership and culture in a firm. For communication is a good key to success, and a good way to communicate to the workforce is through leadership, if a company can do this then they can hopefully gain the workers trust and introduce changes more effectively (7). Resistance to change and How to reduce it When managers try to carry out changes, the main problem may face is resistance. It is almost impossible for any change process to be implemented without some degree of resistance. That because of people becomes ingrained with beliefs, values, and when change is addressed. But understanding the causes or reasons behind the resistance and working towards a commitment to the change will point the organization towards productive change management. “Uncertainty is usually the biggest cause of employee resistance to change. In the face of impeding change, employees may become anxious and nervous. Employees may worry about the way it will affect their work and their lives and whether they will be able to meet the new demands of their jobs.” (1) People view change as a threat to their power, status, security, familiarity and self-confidence and it is the nature of people that like things to remain the same. For example, Zhou Mingxiong bought Shuguang Chemical Factory (sulfate chemical company) in 1994 (6). When he wanted to change the factory from state-owned enterprise into a non-state-owned enterprise, he found that employees resisted to the change, because workers wanted to keep the privileges rather than risk the transition to the non-state-owned enterprise. (An employee in state-owned enterprise shifting into the non-state-owned enterprise could experience a drop in income and security) A good manager has to be able to work with and overcome this resistance and must be able to control the whole process of change. There are many kinds of resistance that the leader of change in an organization will be experience. Ken Hultman explains that individuals will resist change when a change in habit is imposed, personal sense of security is threatened, one's income could be lowered, the change is ambiguous and contains a high level of uncertainty, or they become guilty of selectively processing the information presented and do not understand the potential benefits that the changes could bring. Six tactics presented by Robbins to overcome resistance to change include: education and communication, participation, facilitation and support, negotiation, manipulation and co-optation, and coercion. Communication and education are probably the most important method to this organization, as the internal communication channels are the organizational change, which needs to take place. It is important to fully inform the people within the organization of planned change and also constantly updating them of the progress made with the change and goals, which are hoped to be achieved. People who are informed will be more willing to accept the change. In the facilitation and support, management can offer a range of support efforts to reduce resistance. This can be in the form of counseling, therapy, and training or short paid leave of absence. Like participation, this too is time consuming and often expensive with the possibility that efforts may be fruitless. Negotiating, or exchanging something of value, is a strategy that can lessen the resistance to change. Then it is the method of participation. By involving the employees into any change will determine exactly what the employees deem fair and once people are persuaded, people will often help with the implementation of the change. This is furthermore helpful in the long run as the more employees who get directly i...