Organizational Change and Stress Management

Resistance to change is an expected reaction of human nature. We are not accustomed to change, as it is possible to lead to failure; however, there are also ways to manage the resistance within the company.

Organizational change is a necessary outcome when considering various scenarios contributing to the resulting vision. Perplexing as it may seem, change initiatives don’t always result in positive outcomes. In fact, many never succeed. As a change agent, one should always have formulated a vision of what change will “look” like for the organization. One would be hard pressed to paint a landscape without having a vision of what the landscape should resemble. Yet, resistance to change usually becomes a significant factor contributing to an initiative’s failure. It is likely an

Part three of the book “Beyond the Wall of Resistance” has two chapters and the title of part three is, “Narrowing the Gap the Next Time”. The first nine chapters of this book gave information on planning and implementing successful change. The final two chapters expand the information on change as it relates to hiring, monitoring the work of consultants, and selecting people to lead within the organization. Chapter ten, entitled “Expanding Your Ability to Apply What You’ve Learned”, gives a range of ways to apply the Cycle of Change and the three levels of support and resistance.

To help reduce stress for myself, even through I know its quite common practice for most managers I would write down a list of all my tasks and then put them in priority order according to timescales, importance and whether I could or could not delegate the task I would also consider how long they might take, having a list especially when I am feeling stressed helps me focus and ticking areas off can have a positive effect on me as the list reduces.

The organization must implement specific strategies to identify and resolve resistance to change. O Connor (1993) stated "In an organization, resistance is opposition or witholding of support for specific plans or ideas. It can either be intentional or unintentional, covert or overt" (p. 30). Employees will likely consider how change affects them personally and that may naturally cause some resistance. One of the most important things an organization can do to minimize resistance is to address these personal concerns. It is also important to identify any potential loss or gain that comes from implementing, or not implementing, the change initiative. Leaders

Why change initiatives are difficult. Many times People 's reaction to change rely upon their understanding or idea about change . Furthermore, according to their perception it is in their advantage they do not have any problems with accepting it . If it is unimportant or irrelevant to them, they have an attitude of unbiased towards change. If they tend to believe there is some kind of loss to them, they react to it. Moreover, the loss can be concerning their direct value or it can be concerning them having to make some changes in the way they tend to work or adjusting/adapting a different technique of doing the same. Hence, change initiatives are at times

Studies from different parts of the world made by different health organizations have showed that long working hours and pressured work lead to stress which affects the employees mentally and physically and leads indirectly to low productivity levels. Not only stress, but it can cause a lot more of health issues like extreme fatigue including sleepiness, poor concentration, and increased susceptibility to illness. These symptoms can a have a noticed effect on the general productivity of an organization.

To identify the key elements of the resistanceto change described in this situation, one may make use of the six Change Approaches of Kotter and Schlesinger.[1]The model prevents, minimizes or descreases resistance to change in organizations. According to Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), there are four reasons that why people resist change, three of which are applicable to this case:

Survey all employees. Create a survey to asking the employees about the stressors faced both on-the-job and off.

Although work stress is a key issue for all organizations, the problems associated with work stress appear to be particularly acute in organizations with a framework within which to manage and reduce the cost of employee stress, Arroba and James (1990) developed a sequential 4-stage model for stress management. However, while retaining the 4-stage approach, McHugh and Brennan (1992) go beyond the Arroba and James model and develop the concept of total stress management (TSM). The 4-stage model for TSM consists of: 1. the stress audit, 2. stress recognition, 3. adequate training support to prevent, identify, and manage stress, and 4.

“Stress is the body’s response to any change that requires an adjustment or response. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental and emotional responses. Stress is a normal part of life.”(WebMD UK) Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure. Pressure turns into stress when one feels unable to cope. For workers everywhere, the economy may feel like an emotional roller coaster. "Layoffs" and "budget cuts" are common in the workplace, and the result is increased fear, uncertainty, and higher levels of stress ( Jeanne Segal, Melinda Smith, Lawrence Robinson, and Robert Segal, 2015).

“It is easy to change the things that nobody cares about. It becomes difficult when you start to change the things that people do care about, or when they start to care about the things that you are changing.” (Lorenzi) Resistance to change is a continuous problem. At both the employee and organizational ranks. Resistance to change damages concentrated efforts to improve an organization, and can cripple an organizations efficiency. (Lorenzi) Opposition to change may even be logical and justified in some cases. Sometimes, people do not resist change, but they oppose the person representing the change or the mode of executing the change.

Individuals resist change because of basic human characteristics such as perceptions, personalities and needs (Langton 2007, pg 530). Specifically, people resist change because of habit, fear of the unknown, direct costs, threats to status of influence and power, selective perception, misaligned structures, resource limitations, and altered relationships (Course Document). Lewin argued that if we examine some of the reasons that people resist change it will enable us to be more effective in implementing change that needs to happen. Langton (2010, pg 530) concluded that people resist change because it is difficult. McShane (2010, pg 425) added that resistance to change should be viewed as a resources, not as an inherit obstacle to

Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W., & D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance t change: The rest of the story. The academey of management review , 33 (2), 362-377.

1. 2. 3. 4. Introduction What is work stress? What causes work stress? The effects of stress 4.1 The effects of stress on individuals 4.2 The effects of stress on organisations 5. Risk assessment and management: what you can do about it 5.1 Assessing risks at work 5.2 Essential steps in risk management 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. The prevention of work stress Solving work stress problems Caring for