Change Management Paper

Change Management Paper

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Introduction
While change is an immutable law of nature that fosters progress, it comes with a price. In the age of globalization and decentralized information systems, organizations have been compelled to scale up their operations not only for profit but to remain competitive. It is on this backdrop that most organisations have no choice but to embrace change or become irrelevant in a highly competitive market economy. This paper sets out to deliberate on a change event that culminated to a failed change process, while adopting strategies that turned it into a success (Bradford & Burke, 2005). The paper cross-examines how organization development (OD) theory, was employed to realize the required change process. The missing link between central concepts to OD such as organizational culture and climate were discussed.  Moreover, the paper will deliberate on the need to apply organizational change processes like action planning, diagnosis, intervention and learning has been discussed in the paper.
Define a change event
Change event is an opportune moment in the life of an organisation that sets precedence in terms of changing how business is performed. During the change event, change agent may take up certain functions that will help the change event take course.

Change Management Paper

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Organizational Development (OD) Theory
Organizational development is a discipline of research and practice that aims at enhancing knowledge as well as individual effectiveness to attain successful change (Bradford & Burke, 2005). In addition, OD is a continuous procedure that involves diagnosis, planning, implementation and assessment, which purposes to transfer knowledge and skills to various corporate establishments while enhancing their ability for problem solving and management of potential change (Kegler & Glanz, 2008). This theory emerged in the 1930s in studies of human relations to describe the manner in which organizational structures and procedures impact employee behaviors, inspiration, communication, problem solving skills. In the 1960s, organization development theory focused on intervention strategies used by organizations in designing relevant tools and human processes for ensuring that work is rewarding and satisfying. It also provided a platform for demonstrating that feedback was an important tool for solving social procedures. In other words, it was concerned with effects of rewards in increasing workforce performance (Bradford & Burke, 2005). Currently, the theory focuses on aligning corporate establishments with remarkable changes in complex struts by way of learning and management of knowledge, and changing organizational practices and norms. Some of the main concepts that are associated with organizational development theory include;

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·    Organizational climate an aspect that presents the distinct features of a given organization. It also describes attitudes and belief regarding organizational culture that influences employees’ collective traits. However according to organizational development theory climate attributes might be related to workforce contentment, stress management, performance, results and effective implementation of strategies. Climate attributes in organizational change include leadership, communication, participative administration, conflict management, responsibility clarity and support.
·    Organizational culture defines practices, values and norms shared by employees. Generally, there are five fundamental components of organizational culture such as assumptions, artifacts, values, behavioral norms and patterns. Subjective components like assumptions, values and norms portray employee unconscious views and understanding of the organizations they work for. Additionally, subjective components are important in shaping artifacts and behaviors across the organization (Kegler & Glanz, 2008).
·    Organizational approaches these are strategies employed in OD theory to enable organizations in negotiating change process. These strategies include;
1.    Diagnosis enables organizations in problem identification that can disrupt the efficiency while evaluating underlying causes. In most cases, diagnosis in OD theory normally involves enlisting an external expert to assist in the identification of problems through assessment of mission, objectives, procedures, systems and technology; climate, targeted results and preparedness to take the necessary action (Sullivan, 2010). Normally, diagnosis is performed via formal surveys of all employees.

Change Management Paper

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2.    Action Planning involves strategic measures for handling the diagnosed issues. For that reason, organization is engaged in action process to evaluate the feasibility of executing different change approaches leading to an action.
3.    Intervention involves specifying steps, monitoring progress and cultivating stakeholder dedication.
4.    Evaluation deals with assessing planned attempts by way of monitoring the progress of the organization when it comes to rolling out change and reporting its effects on the organization as a whole.

Process the event
Diagnosis and Intervention
Because the change was in the past, the OD theory will start with identifying the issue at personal, group and corporate level.  To start with interventions were never crafted using certain OD tools and procedures (Sullivan, 2010). At the core of OD interventions lies the truism that people can creatively employ their competencies to formulate new outcomes based on corporate performance, and that they are critical facets of the corporate system. Because the climate at the company could not allow an effective change process, an intervention in this regard was commenced starting by cultivating the right environment for change to take place (Sullivan, 2010). The change process seeks to determine whether or not people are opposed to change. In this case, people were not ready for change, largely becausechange was never communicated the right way.  The solution then lied in communicating the organization’s vision appropriately for people to understand what change was all about. What the change agents did not comprehend is that people were opposed to the change process because the status quo was being challenged (Bradford & Burke, 2005).

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Another factor that led to the failed change process was the inability to create a collaborative and participative process. To counter this, I embraced team spirit as the surest way to leading an effective process (Sullivan, 2010).  While the know it all attitude where the management has the most say was their undoing, I made is sure the change agents understood the fact that team spirit was a critical element to ensuring a smooth change process.
It was imprudent to overlook existing policies an issue that made the change process crumble (Bradford & Burke, 2005). The change process was unable to alter forces that enhance effective change. By not being able to bring together persons involved in diagnostic events, that implied that change process was doomed to fail. Again, the organization failed to create the environment for motivation to learn and change (Wendell and Bell, 2006).  Creating an environment that give people an opportunity to learn and reflect on the need for change, made it possible for people to support change holistically. Supporting individual employees and team was never a feasible thing, which made the implement of the change process flop. To avoid opposition to change, it would the necessary to create mental safety to prevent opposition; however, this was never realized.
Action planning
Owing to the fact that action planning is the basis of OD theory, it is required to present strategic approaches for tackling the diagnosed problems of the event. This entails engaging the organization to assess the feasibility of event (Bradford & Burke, 2005). The engagement process did not involve all employees, as such, it limited the need to ensuring that they negotiate the objective of change and assess the existing reality. To this effect, I made collective responsibility mandatory; this gave each and every team player the sense of belonging, because their decisions mattered. The failure to involve other employees meant that the future for the organization hanged in the balance. It also prohibited the need to work in groups, to learn and share ideas; an aspect that hampered to enhance quantity as well as quality of assessment (Bradford & Burke, 2005). Moreover, commitment to the change process was lacking in that employee decisions were not put into consideration. This continued to stifle the change process

Change Management Paper

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I also instituted a taskforce that guided people involved in supporting and implementing change with a clear roadmap. Moreover, persons involved in the change process were given room to reflect on knowledge they will acquire while planning for the right course. During action planning it’s important to recognize the required tools (Wendell and Bell, 2006).  This helps the involved people understand whether the event is effective or rejecting it.  A number of experts believe that OD is developed on practice as well as experimentation; therefore it overlooks the necessary components that enhance the value of the process. However, this is not the case. For that reason, organizations should understand organizational development theory toolkit and how to apply the tools to ensure effective completion of the event process (McNamara, 2006).
Evaluation
During this phase, planned efforts were never actualized in terms of monitoring the progress in terms of implementing change and its impacts (Wendell and Bell, 2006). A completely new approach was integrated to ensuring an effective monitoring process underpins the required change. In addition, evaluation of the event failed to consider the issue of implementing decisions workforce and management had formulated.  The lack of democratic leadership made it difficult for those involved in the change process not to learn or even self-organize themselves. Bringing on board a culture of open-mindedness where everyone’s where employees were treated with respect and dignity helped turn around the change process. Furthermore, people involved in the event were never selected based on their capacity to develop business case, get management team on board to fund the event, develop associations with main agents of change within the organization and unite desperate individuals to make sure that the event objectives are accomplished (Wendell and Bell, 2006).  While such individuals are the basis of any meaningful change, the use of change agents helped to catalyze for the successful implementation process to change. This is an important aspect of organizational development theory.

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Conclusion
While corporate change is an important process in the life of any organisation, effective change has never been easy to realize. In this paper, a failed change process of a past event was deliberated (Wendell and Bell, 2006).  The failure to apply elements of organizational development theory such as corporate culture and the climate were reviewed. The paper determined that change failed because some measures were never put in place. However, the incorporation of various strands of the OD theory such as; action planning, diagnosis, intervention and learning were put into incorporated to reclaim the even from a failed to a successful change process.

References

Bradford, D.L. & Burke, W.W. (2005) Reinventing Organization Development. San         Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Kegler, M.C. & Glanz, B.K. (2008).Perspectives on Group, Organization, and     CommunityInterventions. In K.M. Glanz, B.K. Rimer & K. Viswanath (Eds.),     (Eds.), Health     behavior and health education: Theory, research and practice     (Chapter 17), 4rd Edition,San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.
McNamara, C. (2006). Clearing up the Language about Organizational Change and     Development. In Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development: A     Collaborative and Systems Approach to Performance, Change and Learning.     Minneapolis: Authenticity Consulting, LLC.
Sullivan, Roland (2010). Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change, Jossey Bass.

Wendell L French; Cecil Bell (2006) Organization development: behavioral science     interventions for organization improvement. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-    Hall.

Change Management Paper

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By admin in Essays on February 10, 2017