Posted: November 19th, 2022

Operational Change in Organisations

Operational Change in Organisations

This paper is dedicated at analysing two models of change. These are specifically the Lewin Change Management Model and the Kotter’s eight step change Model. The Kurt Lewin model of 1951, focuses on the aspects of psychological behaviour modification. This is based on the aspects of unfreezing, movement and refreezing. Unfreezing refers to the process of lowering resistance to change by understanding that there is need for change. This creates awareness of how a system has to change since the status quo is hindering the well-being of an organisation in some way. The second aspect is movement or changing whereby this refers to the process of encouraging behaviours that necessitate change to occur. At this stage users are taught behaviours, processes and also ways of the thought process. The third aspect is refreezing which refers to the process of supporting the new change conditions. Then refers to the process of reinforcing the whole process after change has occurred.
The Kotter’s 8 step model of change was proposed by John Kotter (1996). This model proposes 8 key stages based on research in the US. Where change in management had not been effective. The first is to establish a sense of urgency. This is a need to change. The second being to create a guiding coalition that has both credibility and authority. The third stage creates a strategy and a vision. This promotes a clear aim and sets pace on the way forward. The fourth stage communicates change thus promoting understanding. The fifth stage creates an action plan that is broad based. This plan enables them to overcome barriers. The sixth stage is create short term wins so that it motivates and creates further support. The seventh checks on the gains and consolidate them to produce more change thus maintaining change momentum. The eighth stage creates new approach on the culture thus adopting new values, behaviours and attitudes.
This model is linear and follows a series of sequences. This system is similar to Lewin’s in that in the last two stages tries to solve its issues. This model also incorporates a lot of leadership that particularly deals with developing and communicating change that is critical and is effective and thus manage large scale organisations (Bass 1985). Based on the advantages of the 2 systems, I would prefer the Kotter’s Model since it is an easy step by step model and has clear steps to be followed in the process. In this model the transition process is easier and also fits well into cultures of many companies. Therefore this is the best system.
The people in the Human Resource Development are usually in the prime position of facilitating a change process since they are people in an organisation who are tasked with handling issues to do with the human resource of a given organisation they therefore know what is likely to work for them and what is likely to fail. They are better positioned to know the people that work in their organisation so when handling the change process they are sure of the best method to adopt based on the staff they have in their organisation. This is because in any organisation, different people usually have different talents and these talents may be very important in kicking off the change process. The Human Resource Development, can create trust in their staff by first understanding the requirements of the change process. A Human Resource Management that truly understand the change process therefore creating confidence in the staff in that they feel the system cannot fail when the Human Resource Department is confident about what they are doing. This knowledge also sets pace for the rest of the staff since they are the people to be followed. The trust can also be achieved by taking the staff through a training program. In this program, they are made to understand the aspects of the whole change process. This also involves taking them the Model that will be adopted and the stages to be followed. The Human Resource development could also create timelines within which progress needs to be achieved so that the system is said to be fully successful. Finally these staff need to be part of the change process this means that also the senior staff in Human Resource take it upon themselves to be part of the change process this may create trust in the system since it creates a unifying factor among all the staff.
The resistance to change in an organisation can be due to various reasons Prahald (2008). However in any organisation the main causes of resistance to change can be broken down to three. The first being because of management actions and their behaviours. In some cases, there are always the expectations of the management and also the expectations of staff. Their ideologies in most cases may not be the same. This may warrant a change of behaviour on how the whole process is handled which may hazardous to the change process. Secondly a change process may devalue the existing knowledge of staff and management especially on the running of an organisation. Also before the change process was initiated, employees had existing knowledge which gets eroded with time since after change their know-how may be termed as being obsolete. This may create war in an institution which may cause them to resist such as a move and therefore sabotage the whole system. Lack of knowledge may also cause it to fail especially on the management part. This is because they should be the people to guide the whole process and lack of the clear guidance may create mistrust that may untimely lead to it failing.
French et al (2011) says that this resistance to change needs to be overcome. This can be by clearly stipulating how the change will benefit them. This means that the whole change process should have clear advantage for all the players. For all players it offers a better way of solving a problem. The change should also be compatible with the existing process so that it is easier for them to embrace it positively and to subscribe to its believes. The change process should also be easy to understand so that the employees and senior faith adopt it in good faith and thus reduce resistance about it. The process of change should be something that is arranged in stages. So that it can be tried in stages so that adjustment can be done when the need arises. According to Frahm and Brown (2005) for a system to undergo a change, the employees have to accept it so it is therefore the duty of management to communicate about it.
REFERENCES
Kotter, J.P., (1996), “Leading Change,” Harvard Business School Press Edition 1996,
ISBN: 0875847471
Ahluwalia, S., and Joshi, V., (2008), “Managing Change in Organization,” Mani pal University Dubai Campus, Retrieved on September 1st, 2008 from:
www.indianmba.com/faculty_column/FC707/fc707.html
Building an Organizational Change Communication Theory by Jennifer A. Frahm and Kerry A brown doi: 10.5465/AMBPP. 2005. 18781296 ACAD MANAGE PROC August 2005.
Nielsen, J.F., (2008), “Models of Change and the Adoption of Web Technologies: Encapsulating participation,” Journal of Applied Behavioural Science 2008; 44; 263

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