The Heart of Change

As a result, Zwick (2002, p. 542) has noted that implementing change programmes in organisations that realise positive outcomes remain problematic for many organisations in the 21st century. Ayodeji & Oyesola (2011, p. 235) have postulated that organisational change is a dynamic process, which when taken poorly contribute to employee resistance to it, and eventually leads to failure of the whole process. 3|Page Organisation Behaviour; MGTS 1601; Individual Essay; Employee resistance to change Yuanli Zhang 43401163 Employees resist changes when they occur in the organisations for several reasons. Many organisations when they introduce changes are likely to stick to the ‘top-down organisational change’ process (Awasthy, Chandrasekaran & Gupta, 2011, pp.

Step 2 is forming a powerful guiding coalition. Leadership will have to be on board and on the same page in regards to the change. Kotter and Cohen reveal the core problems people face when leading change. Their main findings are that the central issue concerns not structure or systems but behavior and how to alter it (Farris, 2008). The success of the changes will depend on the ability of the managers to show their commitment to change and motivate the employees to do the same. Without any process to track the implementation, the change can also fail.

Change is difficult because all organizations cultures, structures, mission, and values are unique. As a result, there is not a “blueprint” that leaders can follow to ensure change initiative success. However, understanding the conditions that promote successful change processes is critically important for leaders. If employees do not support

To have to establish a sense of urgency is crucial when needing to gain cooperation. If complacency is high, transformation usually goes nowhere because very few people are even interested in working on change or becoming the change. If urgency is low, it is difficult to put together a group with enough power and credibility to guide the change effort or to convince key individuals to append the time necessary to create and communicate a change vision. People typically change because they want to avoid something that they believe will happen without the change. Despite that, if there is not a sufficient sense of urgency, they still don’t change because they aren’t pushed out of that comfort zone. One of Kotter’s solutions is to create a crisis. Nothing rallies people to change faster than a major crisis. I like the idea of hitting people or bombard is the word Kotter uses with information about potential opportunities for the organization, as well as the rich reward within those opportunities. Then explaining why those opportunities can’t be realized without change. I also agree with his idea of using consultants to force honest discussions. As change moves from the episodic to the continuous, urgency is very crucial when you need something done as fast as possible. Kotter further differentiates between true and false urgency, noting

The need for each individual to recognizing and accepting change has in fact become such a mantra, and been given so much lip service within the organization, in recent years, that it has nearly lost its meaning from over exposure. This may be due in part to the fact that many of the leaders feel the need to affect changes simply for the sake of making changes. Things that they can then lay claim to and take credit and receive potential recognition for. Every leader in turn steps in to affect their own series of changes during their short tinier in change, with little thought to the long term effects on those who must live through all this unnecessary and relatively disruptive turmoil. This is because few of these leaders have taken the time to identify and exact meaningful, necessary and therefore truly lasting positive changes. No, instead the vast majority is change simply for the sake of change and the turmoil that accompanies

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.

Kotter, J.P. (1996) asserts, a high level of complacency and low sense of urgency are the two most significant obstacles to change. He explains most companies face some level of complacency even when highly intelligent and competent individuals are leading the organization. Implementation of the Eight-Stage process begins with (1) embracing the importance of urgency dealing with a known or unknown crisis is essential for managers and employees to see that status quo holds greater danger to their existence than any fear a minor or a major change represents; (2) the leader needs to identify a guiding coalition others respect to share in the leadership role of organizational change; (3) the leader needs to communicate an ambitious but attainable vision the group finds convincing —with clarity and simplicity; (4) repeated communication of the vision is necessary. The leader’s message needs consistency and delivered in various ways reaching all interested parties. Persistence is vital since

The purpose of this paper is to discuss organizational change and the management of that change. I will talk about the different drivers of change, the factors a leader needs to weigh to implement change effectively, the various resistances a leader may encounter while trying to implement change, and how various leadership styles will effect the realization of change. I will also discuss the knowledge I have gained through the completion of this assignment and how I think it might affect the way I manage change in my workplace.

Introducing organisational change is often hard, the main reasons for that can be variation in perceptions of the employees, fear of disruption or failure and underlining the right approach to apply change. Then even if the change in a specific organisation is projected successfully there is still lot to be done to manage it in an appropriate way (Oakland, 2007).

adopt before setting out on a change initiative. Kotter identifies the ‘‘analysis-thinkchange’’ mindset as the traditional method

Individuals when faced with any major change will be inevitably resistant and will want to preserve the status quo, especially if they think their status or security within the organization is in danger (Bolognese, 2010). Folger and Skarlicki believe that organizational change produces skepticism in employees which make it problematic and possibly even impossible to contrive improvements within the organization (as cited in Bolognese, 2010) Therefore, management must understand, accept and make an effort to work with resistance, since it can undermine even the most well-conceived change efforts (Bolognese, 2010). Furthermore, Coetsee states for organizations to achieve the maximum benefits from change they must effectively create and

In the review of the book, “Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change,” I decided to summarize the major steps the book establishes. It discusses how to begin the change process by understanding your need for change, to the final step of the change process where an organization needs to implement changes. After summarizing the steps, I am going to show how the book relates to the textbook, Organizational Change: An Action-Oriented Toolkit, as well as giving a managerial implication.

If you’ve ever tried to change anything, you know how hard it is. How do you go about getting your message across to truly change people’s behavior? While most companies believe change happens by making people think differently, that isn’t the case. Instead, according to John Kotter and Dan Cohen, change happens when you make people feel differently. You have to appeal more to the heart than the mind. In

Changing situations throughout the world affect all organizations in business today. Therefore, most organizations acknowledge the need to experience change and transformation in order to survive. The key challenges companies face are due to the advancements in technology, the social environment caused by globalization, the pace of competition, and the demands regarding customer expectations. It is difficult to overcome the obstacles involved with change despite all the articles, books, and publications devoted to the topic. People are naturally resistant to fundamental changes and often intimidated by the process; the old traditional patterns and methods are no longer effective.

Resistance to change is one of the biggest barriers that organizations face in their efforts to implement organizational change. This greatly hampers the uptake of new technologies, new ways of doing work and even progress of organizations. Reviewing on this, the British Journal of