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People Don’t Resist Change, They Resist Being Changed!

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People Don’t Resist Change, They Resist Being Changed!
The Impact of Change Management on the Success of Project Management.

Stuart Riley

PJMN501

October 28, 2012

Change Management, if implemented well, has the ability to make transitions positive, possible and profitable. It goes without saying that change is a part of life. From the moment we are born until the moment we pass away, change is occurring in us and around us. That being the case, it needs to be clearly stated that organizations, companies and institutions are much like individuals. No organization is able to exist without the people that work within their walls or the clients that utilize their services or products. If change is inevitable and constant …show more content…

If we were dealing with inanimate objects with no feelings, thoughts, or consciousness, change would certainly be more easily implemented. As I stated earlier, organizations are made up of and rely on people. People often look to their leaders when change is to be implemented. Some might suggest that Leadership is about change. In the 2008 Presidential Election, Barrack Obama ran his campaign based on the slogan “Change you can believe in”. That being said, what does a leader do when he or she runs into strong resistance to change and what does that resistance look like? Resistance can manifest itself in several different ways. According Paul R. Lawrence, Such resistance may take a number of forms — persistent reduction in output, increase in the number of "quits" and requests for transfer, chronic quarrels, sullen hostility, wildcat or slowdown strikes, and, of course, the expression of a lot of pseudo logical reasons why the change will not work”. Lawrence made this observation in 1969 and remarkably, today’s experts agree that not much has changed with respect to the manner in which resistance manifests itself in the modern workplace “Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) mention that negative responses to change from individuals and groups can vary from passive resistance to aggressive attempts to undermine it.” The experts agree that people are resistant to change and if the change managers don’t win over the “hearts and minds of those that require a

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