Concept explainers
To determine:
The difference between white-water rapids and calm water methods of change.
Introduction: Organizational Change is generally conducted by change agents; any manager can take up the role of a change agent. They are usually in charge of ensuring the process of change takes place appropriately.
Explanation of Solution
There are two ways in which change can take place in an organization, calm water and white-water rapids.
Calm water change refers to the processes of change that take place in relatively smooth operations, these are the change processes that take place calmly as the name suggests. This is a situation where a manager and its employees are known towards the change they are headed towards and are clear about the path they are taking for it. This change doesn’t severely disrupt the organizational operations, there are only minor deviations.
White-water rapids are the opposite of calm water changes; the organization and employees are in a state of unrest with the change process, the employees are unfair to the process, therefore, this causes a lot of confusion and disagreement with the parties going through change. Because of how disruptive the changes are, they are unsure of how/when or what destination these changes will ultimately lead them to. In this situation of change, change is the status quo and managing the change will be a repetitive process.
The two discussed change metaphors can be contrastively different as the two different metaphors describe two different attitudes the organization and its employees have towards change, and the above expressions explain the constructs of such situations.
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