Organizational Change

Organizational Development (OD) has become more and more important for today’s organizations because the world is moving so fast that organizations have to find ways to be more effective, more innovation, more customer-driven, and more agile. Cumming and Worley (1997) define organizational development as “a process that applies a broad range of behaviour science knowledge and practices to help organizations build their capacity to change and to achieve greater effectiveness”.

Therefore, OD will help organizations understand how people act to change and which change methods can work with the resistance to change that usually occurs in organizations undergoing change. In the study of organizational development, it is important to study Organizational Intervention & Change Implementation in order to know how to operate and make use of change methods that seem to be vital in solving any problems that arise. Organizational change is an important part of organizational management and leaders cannot ignore the inevitability of having to manage change within their organizations.

In addition, a global study that was conducted with over 2,000 organizations showed that 82 percent had implemented major information system change, which entailed other changes in structure, technology, and people as well (Robbins &ump; Coulter, 2007). Therefore, it is imperative that managers and organizations understand how to increase their chances of having successful change programs. WHY DO WE NEED ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE? There are different reasons why we need for organizational change. Some of the reason stated below: 1.

Crisis: The most obvious crisis is Global financial crisis (2007-2008) which caused numerous organizations, industries to change. They all have to change to survive. 2. Performance Gaps: Being an organization, they always look forward to improve gradually. The organization may not meet their goal, changes are required to close these gaps. 3. New Technology: Identification of new technology and more efficient and economical methods to perform work. 4. Identification of Opportunities: Opportunities are identified in the market place that the organization needs to pursue in order to increase its competitiveness. 5. Reaction to Internal & External Pressure: Management and employees, particularly those in organized unions often exert pressure for change. External pressures come from many areas, including customers, competition, changing government regulations, shareholders, financial markets, and other factors in the organization’s external environment. 6. Mergers & Acquisitions: Mergers and acquisitions create change in a number of areas often negatively impacting employees when two organizations are merged and employees in duel functions are made redundant. 7.

Change for the Sake of Change: Often times and organization will appoint a new CEO. In order to prove to the board he is doing something, he will make changes just for their own sake. 8. Sounds Good: Another reason organizations may institute certain changes is that other organizations are doing so. It sounds good, so the organization tries it. 9. Planned Abandonment: Changes as a result of abandoning declining products, markets, or subsidiaries and allocating resources to innovation and new opportunities. WHAT ORGANIZATION CAN CHANGE? What organizations can change fall into the following broad areas: 1.

Mission, Vision, & Strategy: Organizations should continually ask themselves, “What is our business and what should it be? ” Answers to these questions can lead to changes in the organization’s mission (the purpose of its business), its vision for the future (what the organization should look like), and its competitive strategy. 2. Technology: Organizations can change their technology in order to increase efficiency and lower costs, etc. 3. Human-Behavioural Changes: Training can be provided to managers and employees to provide new knowledge and skills, or people can be replaced or downsized.

As result of the recent financial crisis, many organizations downsized creating massive unemployment that continues to this day. 4. Task-Job Design: The way work is performed in the organization can be changed with new procedures and methods for performing work. 5. Organizational Structure: Organizations can change the way they are structured in order to be more responsive to their external environment. Again to be more responsive to the marketplace, this also includes where decisions should be made in the organization (centralized or decentralized).

Organizational Culture: Entities can attempt to change their culture, including management and leadership styles, values and beliefs. Of all the things organizations can change, this is by far the most difficult to undertake. These are the major elements in the organizations for the change process. It is that changes in one of the elements will usually effect or impact on another element. For example, changing technology may require changes in the human-behavioural area, changes in task-job design may require changes in organization structure, etc.

WHY ORGANIZATION FAIL IN CHANGE? People in organization resists to change. There are much reasons for resisting to change. Some of the facts shown in below. Loss of control: Change interferes with autonomy and can make people feel that they’ve lost control over their territory. It’s not just political, as in who has the power. Our sense of self-determination is often the first things to go when faced with a potential change coming from someone else. Excess uncertainty: If the changes make the people feel risky, then people will reject it.

People will often prefer to make then comfortable and profitable. Surprise: Decisions imposed on people suddenly, with no time to get used to the idea or prepare for the consequences, are generally resisted. Everything seems different: Change is meant to bring something different, but how different is it? People are creatures of habit. Routines become automatic. Too many differences can be distracting or confusing. Loss of face: People may not have confident enough to change. Under the unusual operation, they may have lack of confident in front of other people or boss, etc.

When change involves a big shift of strategic direction, the people responsible for the previous direction dread the perception that they must have been wrong. Concerns about competence: Can or cannot? Change is resisted when the people feel stupid. They might worry about their skill because of new technology or software will work efficiently… More work: Common challenge. Change means more work or less work effectively? If people believe more work, they may scare the stress because of overload work. WHY ORGANIZATION SUFFER CHANGE FATIGUE? Organization suffer change fatigue since organization failed in changes. Due to the global transformation from the industrial age to the information age, along with wide spread financial issues, the need for companies to streamline and become more responsive in order to survive has come to the forefront (Senior & Swailes, 2010). This has led to a marked increase in the number and speed of change initiatives that bombard front line staff. Due to the increased urgency to create change, many change initiatives are created simultaneously and in rapid succession without always giving the necessary consideration to the eventual impact, leading to a phenomenon known as change fatigue (Garside, 2004).

Change fatigue is often mentioned in the literature as a reason for unsuccessful implementation of various change initiatives but what does the term refer too? Change fatigue has been described as what occurs when staff have attempted to implement various change strategies that have not been successful in creating the desired change. To be embraced, change needs to provide a noticeable benefit to workflow or everyday work life (Merisotis, 2011). The effort to create the change also impacts the energy required to fulfil the necessary aspects of patient care increasing stress and feelings of disillusionment (Bernerth, Walker, & Harris, 2011).

To compensate for this, staff become disengaged from future change processes and exhibit behaviour that provide barriers to other change initiatives (Merisotis, 2011). This may also lead to a decrease in overall patient care thereby causing more stress to front-line staff. Disengaged people are less likely to provide the necessary feedback required for creating the appropriate environment for successful change implementation. Unless change fatigue is identified and addressed effectively, rates of success will be diminished.