Organizational Change

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1. Describe how organizational change may be successfully managed through appropriate managerial processes and initiatives.
Managing organizational change will be more successful if managers apply specific principles, processes and initiatives. For example, change management entails thoughtful planning and sensitive implementation, and above all, consultation with, and involvement of, the people affected by the changes. If you force change on people normally problems arise. Change must be realistic, achievable and measurable. Before starting organizational change, the manager needs to prepare through asking questions, such as: What do we want to achieve with this change, why, and how will we know that the change has been achieved? Who is affected by this change, and how will they react to it? How much of this change can we achieve ourselves, and what parts of the change do we need help with? http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm
Change needs to be understood and managed in a way that people can cope effectively with it. As well, change can be unsettling, so the manager logically needs to be a settling influence. Do not sell change to people as a way of accelerating 'agreement' and implementation. 'Selling' change to people is not a sustainable strategy for success, unless your aim is to be bitten on the bum at some time in the future when you least expect it. When people listen to a management high-up 'selling' them a change, decent diligent folk will generally smile and appear to accede, but quietly to themselves, they're thinking, "No bloody chance mate, if you think I'm standing for that load of old bollocks you've another think coming..." And that's just the amenable types - the other more abstinent types will be more verbal. Therefore, the manager needs to check that people affected by the change agree with, or at least understand, the need for change, and have a chance to decide how the change will be managed, and to be involved in the planning and implementation of the change. Use face-to-face communications to handle sensitive aspects of organizational change management (see Mehrabian's research on conveying meaning and understanding). Email and written notices are extremely weak at conveying and developing understanding. If you think that you need to make a change quickly, probe the reasons - is the urgency real? Will the effects of agreeing a more sensible time-frame really be more disastrous than presiding over a disastrous change? Quick change prevents proper consultation and involvement, which leads to difficulties that take time to resolve. http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm
John P Kotter's (2002) eight steps to successful change can be summarized as:
1. Increase urgency - inspire people to move, make ...