Organizational Behavior & Management Concepts

4. Briefly describe the elements of the formal and the informal organization. Give examples of each.

Classical organization theory evolved during the first half of this century. It represents the merger of scientific management, bureaucratic theory, and administrative theory.

Managing Change: The Art of Balancing“ by Jeanie Daniel Duck [1] came out in the Harvard Business Review in November 1993. It is an influential article, one that has been cited 437 times until date. Duck draws upon her years of experience as a Vice President in the Chicago Office of the Boston Consulting Group and of running her own consulting firm that focused on the emotional and behavioral impact of change on corporate performance. She can be safely called both, a management consultant as well as an organization development consultant. Presented below is a summary and key points of the article supplemented by examples, views and facts gleaned from other sources as well.

“The images, metaphors, or frames that we hold, both of managing and of change, influence our ideas of what we think managing change is all about” (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). As people we all see through our own eyes, we call see a different perspective and have a different reaction to what is coming next. As human beings we react differently to situations. Situations of change are transitions that some are able to adapt to quickly while others have a hard time. Being the leader of that change can be difficult and helping make a change does not come easily or effectively. Keep and Newcomer (2008)

The study of Organizational Behavior (OB) is related to individuals, group of people working together in teams. The study becomes more challenging when situational factors interact. No two individuals are likely to behave in the same manner in a particular work situation. It is the predictability of a manager about the expected behavior of an individual. There are no absolutes in human behavior. It is the human factor that is contributory to the productivity hence the study of human behavior is important. Great importance therefore must be attached to the study.

It was noted that communication efforts must be verbal and active (Kotter, 1995). Kotter eight step change model has many drawbacks and benefits. The advantages are that it is the step by step, which is easy to follow model. Another is that it does not focus on the change itself, but rather the acceptance and the preparation of this change, which makes it an easy transition. In Kotter’s and Lewin’s models, both consider the difficulties that organizations encounter when trying to move people from their comfort zone for the change to happen. In both of the models they use a different set of calculations to know whether there is any need to change to take place in the

Organizations must respond to their internal and external environment. Therefore, organizational success heavily relies on leaderships ability to manage change. Unfortunately, many leaders struggle to effectively lead change initiatives. In fact, Ashkenas (2013, para. 1) reported 60 – 70% of organizational change initiatives fail to meet their objectives.

Group Emotional Intelligence is a topic that we discussed in class that is essential to the type of change discussed in The Heart Of Change. The second stage of change is about putting together a team that is able drive the company towards its specific goal in regards to instituting change. There needs to be a strong force pushing the change and keeping the urgency up. It is understandably to much for on person to handle so there needs to be a team of interested, motivated people to act as that driving force. The three ideas of trust, sense of group identity, and group efficacy are essential to group effectiveness. The group that is at the forefront of the change action in an organization needs to exhibit a high EI. Not only because they need to be efficient, but because they are a model for the rest of the organization. This again relates to the character traits of the transformational leadership theory. Being a role model, showing others behaviors to emulate are what transformational leaders do, and this is what the change guiding group does as described in The Heart Of Change.

Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.

Although employees have their unique differences regarding resisting change in the workplace, researchers have identified some macro-factors that affect change in an organization. At an individual level some core factors that may influence change are self-esteem, level of optimism, and perceived control. At an organizational level, insufficient information, lack of participation in the process, social support, and personal impact of change figure among the elements that may hinder change in the workplace (Wanberg & Banas, 2000). In studies conducted by Taylor and Brown (1988) results showed that although change is distressful, openness to change was found to be associated with high levels of self-esteem, optimism, and perceived control. They argue that individuals with these features attempt to see change in the best light

For most, resistance to change inevitable, for some it is their personality and others it is fear of the unknown. Organizational structure may change through downsizing, outsourcing, acquisitions, or mergers. In this paper, I will be examining resistance to change during a merger and how to manage this type of stressful and many times unclear change in an organization. There are three key strategies for managing resistance to change; communication, participation, and empathy and support. Throughout this paper I will discuss the three strategies above as well as some other contributing factors to change in an organization.

However, people will not get out of their “comfort zone” without being motivated. This leads to the second error by leaders, which is not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition. Regardless of the size of the organization, the change effort should continually grow to include more and more people who believe that the changes are necessary (Kotter).

It is generally noted that Albert Einstein once said, “the measure of intelligence is the ability to change”. John Kotter embedded this mindset that continually adapting and evolving can lead to success within the novel Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Condition. Kotter’s and Rathgeber structural organization allows change management to be introduced through a relatable fable highlighting the needed steps to properly manage a group dealing with change. Tone, approach, and mood management are amongst the areas defined as crucial in managing change and making it acceptable. Kotter also introduces what he defines as The Eight Step Process of Successful Change that are surrounded by the themes of Setting the stage, Deciding what to do, Making it happen, and Making it stick. This novel is the example of how to effectively manage change within an organization as well as individually.

Change is fundamentally about feelings; organizations that want their employees to contribute with their heads and their hearts have to accept that emotions are central to the new management style. Organizational change has the potential to trigger positive and negative emotions in employees depending on the factors included. Some factors consist of

Communication and its effects on employee’s perceptions towards organizational changes have been extensively studied. Communication, if poorly managed, can lead to negative consequences including employee’s frustration, uncertainty, change contempt (Frahm & Brown (2007), Bordia, Hunt, & Paulsen (2004)), psychological strain, low job satisfaction, and increase in turnover intention (Bordia, Hunt, & Paulsen (2004)). If effectively managed, communication can result in multiple positive effects such as employee’s positive perception towards change process, change acceptance (Frahm & Brown (2007)), perception of justice within the organization (Nese (2014)), and change-based momentum (Jansen (2004)). In this paper, I would like to explore how two communication approaches – programmatic and participatory - can be used to improve employee’s positive perceptions towards organizational changes. The paper is divided into three sections. It starts with a summary of employee’s perceptions towards organizational changes. The effects of communication on employee’s perceptions towards organizational changes will follow. The last section is a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of programmatic and participatory approaches through the analysis of empirical studies.