BBA Principle Practice Management Organisational Change Study Material Notes
Table of Contents
BBA Principle Practice Management Organisational Change Study Material Notes: Nature of organisation a change Factors in Organisational Change Planned Change External Factors Planned Change Objectives of Planned Change Process of Planned Change Identifying Need For Change Planning for Change Assessing change forces Elements to be changed Planning for Change Actions for Change Feedback Human Response to Change : 
BBA Principle Practice Management Organisational Change Study Material Notes
BCom 1st year Insolvency Accounts Study Material notes In Hindi
Organisational Change
Change in some way is a necessary aspect of human life. One of the few things of real permanence in this world is change. We see all sorts of changes-change in nature, seasonal changes, change in man-made organisations, change in biological beings, and so on. Whole society is changing in some form or the other, either for better or for worse, though objective of change is for better. Therefore, in dynamic society surrounding today’s oganisations, the question before the managers is not whether change will take place or not. The relevant question is: how to cope up with inevitable barrage of changes that confront the organisation: how to incorporate changes in the organisation in order to better achieve its objectives? Therefore, it is relevant for the managers to find the answer to this question and incorporate it in their organisation.
Nature of Organisational Change
The term ‘change’ refers to an alteration in a system whether physical, biological, or social. Thus, organisational change is the alteration of work environment in organisation. It implies a new equilibrium between different components of the organisation-technology, structural arrangement, job designs, and people. Thus, organisational change may have following features:
1 When change occurs in any part of the organisation, it disturbs the old equilibrium necessitating the development of a new equilibrium. The type of new equilibrium depends on the degree of change and its impact on the organisation.
2. Any change may affect the whole organisation; some parts of the organisation may be affected more, others less; some parts are affected directly, others indirectly.
3. Organisational change is a continuous process. However, some changes, which are of minor type, may be absorbed by the existing equilibrium; others, which are major ones, may require special change efforts. Newstrom and Davis have explained the impact of a change in any part of the organisation on the total organisation. They have illustrated it by comparing an organisation to an airfilled balloon. When a finger (which represents external force) is forced against a point on the balloon (which represents the organisation), the contour of the balloon visibly changes: it becomes indented at the point of contact. However, if we look minutely, we find that the shape of the entire balloon has changed; it has stretched slightly. Thus, they have concluded that the whole organisation tends to be affected by change in any part of it.
However, the change in organisation does not occur purely on mechanical relationship. While managers as change agents want to bring changes in the organisation, employees want to maintain a status quo. Though this phenomenon will be taken later, what is important at this point is that a change in any part affects the entire organisation and subsequent changes are required in other parts.
FACTORS IN ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Organisational change is required to maintain equilibrium between various external and internal forces to achieve organisational goals. Therefore, various factors which may be important for necessitating organisational changes may be grouped into two categoriesexternal and internal.
External Factors
Every organisation exists in some context; no organisation is an island in itself. Each must continually interact with other organisations and individuals the consumers, suppliers, unions, shareholders, government-and many more. Each organisation has goals and responsibility related to others in its environment. Thus, not only an organisation must deal with its environment in conducting its affairs, but it must also give consideration to the goals of others as it establishes its goals and conducts its operations. The present-day environment is dynamic and will continue to be dynamic. Changes in social, political, economic, technological, and legal environment force organisations to change themselves. Such changes may result in organisational changes like major functions, production process, labour-management relations, nature of competition, economic constraints, organisation methods, etc. In order to survive in the changing environment, organisation must change. How the change in various environmental factors necessitate change in the organisation may be seen in the following context:
1 Technological Changes. When there is a change in technology in the organisation’s environment and other organisations adopt the new technology. the organisation under focus becomes less cost effective and its competitive position weakens. Therefore, it has to adopt new technology. When the organisation adopts a new technology, its work structure is affected and a new equilibrium has to be established. We have seen in Chapter 11 that technology has impact on organisation structure and processes. For example, computers and automation have made significant impact on organisational functioning.
2. Changes in Marketing Conditions. Since every organisation exports its outputs to the environment, an organisation has to face competition in the market. There may be two types of forces which may affect the competitive position of organisation-other organisations supplying the same products and buyers who are buying the products. Any change in these forces may require suitable changes in the organisation. For example, when Indian economy was liberalised (the process still continues), there were many foreign organisations which entered the Indian market. This forced many Indian organisations to realign themselves with the new situation. The result is that there have been many cases of divesting the businesses and concentrating on the core businesses, acquiring core businesses, and developing competitive competence to face competitive threats. Similarly, there may be changes in buyers in terms of their needs, liking-disliking, and income disposal for a product. These changes force the organisations to bring those products which meet buyers’ requirements.
3. Social Changes. Social changes reflect in terms of people’s aspirations, their needs. and their way of working. Social changes have taken place because of the several forces like level of education, urbanisation, feeling of autonomy, and international impact due to new information sources. These social changes affect the behaviour of people in the organisation. Therefore, it is required to make adjustment in its working so that it matches with people.
4. Political and Legal Changes. Political and legal factors broadly define the activities which an organisation can undertake and the methods which will be followed by it in accomplishing those activities. Any change in these political and legal factors may affect the organisational operation.
Internal Factors
It is not only the change in external factors which may necessitate organisational change. any change in organisation’s internal factors may also necessitate change. Such a change is required because of two reasons-change in managerial personnel and deficiency in existing organisational practices.
1 Change in Managerial Personnel. Besides environmental changes, there is a change in managerial personnel. Old managers are replaced by new managers which is necessitated because of retirement, promotion, transfer, or dismissal. Each new manager brings his own ideas and way of working in the organisation. The relationships, more particularly informal ones, change because of changes in managerial personnel. Moreover, attitudes of the personnel change even though there is no change in them. The result is that an organisation has to change accordingly.
2. Deficiency in Existing Organisational Practices. Sometimes, changes are necessary because of deficiency in the present organisational arrangement and process. These deficiencies may be in the form of unmanageable span of management, large number of managerial levels, lack in coordination between various departments, obstacles in communication, multiplicity of committees, lack of uniformity in policy decisions, lack of cooperation between line and staff, and so on.
Planned Change
One of Newton’s laws is that “bodies in motion tend to stay in motion: bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.” There is an organisational version of this basic truth. Those who believe in growth and forward movement tend to be exemplars of change, while those who believe in “this is how we do things around here” lead to doom. Therefore, bringing change in a planned manner is the prime responsibility of all managers who are forward-looking. The planned change aims to prepare the total organisation, or a major portion of it, to adapt to significant changes in the organisation’s goals and direction. Thomas and Bennis have defined planned change as follows:
Planned change attempts at all aspects of the organisation which are closely interrelated: technology. task, structure, and people as shown in Figure 17.1.
Technology-related Changes. Technology refers to the sum total of knowledge providing ways to do things. It may include inventions and techniques which affect the way of doing things, that is, designing, producing, and distributing products. Technology-related changes may include:
We have seen in Chapter 11 that a change in technology affects nature of task. organisation structure, processes, and people’s behaviour in the organisation. Thus, any change in technology necessitates change in all these factors. Task-related Changes. Technology-related changes determine the types of task that may be required to complete an operation. A job consisting of several tasks may be designed in a number of ways ranging from job simplification to job enrichment. However, what alternatives are chosen must consider the core job characteristics-skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback from the job. Task-related changes must focus on:
1 high internal work motivation, and
2. high quality work performance.
Structure-related Changes. Structural changes redefine nature of relationships among various organisational positions and may include:
1 changing the number of hierarchical levels.
2. changing one form of organisation to another form,
3. changing span of management, and
4. changing line-staff and functional authority.
When structural changes are effected, these may affect the formal reporting relationships, formal interaction pattern, and consequently informal relations.
People-related Changes. Changes of any type as pointed out above require changes in people in an organisation. These changes may be of two types-skills and behaviour. The magnitude of these changes depends on the type of change. For example, if there is a change in technology, say from manual to automated, it requires different type of skills in the operators as compared to the previously used skills. Similarly, changes in behaviour and the socio-psychological factors determining behaviour are required. Objectives of Planned Change
The planned change is needed to meet the overall objectives of the organisation. Since there may be changes in the forces-both internal and external-affecting organisational functioning, the organisation has to make suitable change to meet its objectives. Thus, obectives for such change may be twofold: (9 modification of the organisation’s mode of adaptation to changes in its environment, and to modification of structure, technology. attitudes, values, and other behavioural construct of people in the organisation.
1 Environmental Adaptation. Organisation is basically adaptive-coping system. It has to work in an environment which is marked by dynamic characteristics. Every organisation has a tendency to maintain balance and equilibrium. Because of changes in the environment, the organisational equilibrium is affected. If the changes are minor and come within the perview of existing programmes, the organisation will accommodate them automatically. However, if the changes cannot be adapted by the existing framework, the organisational equilibrium will be imbalanced and organisational effectiveness is adversely affected. In this case, the organisation requires some innovation. This innovation is in the form of various changes which the organisation has to incorporate. Simply because of this reason, every organisation has adaptive subsystem, such as research and development department, marketing research department, and so on.
2. Individual Adaptation. The second objective of planned change is to achieve individual adaptation. The organisation cannot reach to the objective of its environmental adaptation unless some basic internal adaptation is achieved. These internal factors may be individuals. organisation structure, technology, and task. Individuals are the first in this context. For organisational effectiveness, people have to change themselves so that they can cope with the requirement of changed circumstances. Such changes may be required in their attitudes. communication system, way of behaving, leadership and work styles, and other relevant organisational behaviour. Such changes must be made according to the need of the new situation.
3. Structural Adaptation. Organisation structure is the pattern of relationships among various positions and among various position holders. Structural adaptation involves changing the internal structure of the organisation. This change may be in the whole set of relationships, work assignment, and authority structure. Change in organisation structure is required because old relationships and interactions no longer remain valid and useful in the changed circumstances.
4. Technological Adaptation. The impact of recent technological development has forced the organisation to take into account the role of technology in organisational success. In order to cope with the changed environment which may include technological factor as well, the organisation has to incorporate new technology. Thus, this technological adaptation forces directly the organisation to change its task. 5. Task Adaptation. Technological changes may bring many types of changes in organisational task being performed by the individuals in the organisation. Since, there may be many new type of jobs, the existing job performing techniques may not be suitable. Moreover, there may be new job load because of the job enlargement. In such a case, a new equilibrium has to be found out which matches people with jobs. In this matching process, there may be several problems which must be encountered by planned change.
PROCESS OF PLANNED CHANGE
Management of organisational change is a complex process. Organisational change does not occur instantaneously. Instead, it involves formidable exercise on the part of management. A major organisational change requires considerable planning. The change is successful if it is taken in a planned way which proceeds in a sequential form as shown in Figure 17.2.
1 Identifying need for change,
2. Elements to be changed,
3. Planning for change,
4. Assessing change forces,
5. Actions for change, and
6. Feedback
Identifying Need for Change
The first basic step in planned change is to identify when change in the organisation is required because change for the sake of change may produce much stronger resistance while useful and necessary changes may get support from people. Though there are various external forces necessitating change in an organisation, it is better if the organisation analyses how change in external forces affects it. If a change in external forces does not affect the organisation, there is no need for change. Thus, the most information for identifying need for change comes from the organisation’s feedback and control data. Indeed, the process of change can be viewed as a part of control function, specially the correctiveaction requirement. Some of the features of the organisation may indicate the need for change like cost of production, declining profit, employee turnover, role conflict, need for expansion and growth, etc. Such indicators may force management to analyse what actions can be undertaken to overcome these.
Identification of need for change depends on gap analysis, that is, the gap between desired state of affairs and actual state of affairs; the difference between what the organisation is achieving and what it should achieve. However, this gap analysis should be seen on progression basis because desired state of affairs is not a fixed concept. The organisation may go on changing its objectives over the period of time. Moreover, gap analysis can be made on the basis of likely gap because any change in any factor affects the operation of the organisation. For example, if there is entry of a new competitor in the market, this may not affect the organisation immediately but may affect it at a later stage. Thus, gap may exist subsequently. Here, the past records of the organisation may not be sufficient but projected data will be more meaningful.
Elements to be Changed
What elements of the organisation should be changed will largely be decided by need and objectives of change. While the process of identification of change will provide clue why change should take place, this stage takes the analysis further by diagnosing the problems caused because of which the change is necessary. For example, declining profit may require change but does not specify what elements are to be changed. Therefore, it is necessary to diagnose the factors which are responsible for declining profit. Usually, change is required in three major elements of the organisation: organisation structure, technology, and people. The nature and extent of change in these elements will depend on the type of problem being faced by the organisation. Structural changes may include job design, job definitions, basis of departmentation, span of control, organisational policies and procedures, coordination mechanism, power structure, flow of task, etc. Technological changes include changes in plant and equipment, techniques for doing work, production methods, engineering processes, etc. When technology changes, the organisation has to change in some form or the other. Changes in people include changes in their behaviour, interaction pattern, informal grouping, skills, attitudes, etc. Some changes may affect the organisation on all these dimensions while others may affect only limited aspect. For example, a change in technology from manual to automation may require change in people but at the same time, change in organisation structure also.
Planning for Change
At this stage, managers should plan about how the change can be brought in the light of the above two sub-processes. Planning for change includes who will bring change, when to bring change, and how to bring change. The first question who will bring change relates to the persons who will work as change agents. Though every manager is change agent as he brings occasional changes in his area of operation, major changes require that some persons are specified for the purpose. The second question when to bring change is related with time dimension of change. While deciding time element of change, many factors have to be considered, such as nature of forces which are likely to resist the change and the time taken to bring them to accept change, time taken in training and development of people to make them more suitable for the changed situation, time required to make resources available for the change, etc. How to bring change requires drawing up of procedure, that is, chronological ordering of various events of the change. Normally, change, expanding over a long period of time, requires continuous process of putting change effort in one aspect, measuring its impact and correcting dysfunctional aspects resulting from change, putting change in another aspect, etc. This process goes on over the period of time.
Assessing Change Forces
The planned change is not automatic, rather there are many forces in individuals, groups, and even in the organisation which resist such change. Unless the cooperation of people is not ensured, any change process will not succeed. For this purpose, the management has to create an environment in which change will be accepted by the people. This problem is referred to the problem of overcoming resistance to change and will be taken later.
In a group process, there are some forces favouring and some opposing change to maintain an equilibrium. This has been referred to as ‘field of forces’ by Kurt Lewin. He assumes that in any situation, there are both driving and restraining forces which Influence any change that may occur. Driving forces are those which affect a situation by pushing it in a particular direction; they tend to initiate a change and keep it going. Restraining forces act to restrain change or to decrease the driving forces. Equilibrium is reached when the sum of driving forces equals the sum of restraining forces as shown in Organisational equilibrium is not static but is quasi-static and management may change this equilibrium by some efforts. For introducing change, management may face three types of situations based on the operation of field of forces:
1 If the driving forces far outweigh the restraining forces, management can push driving forces and overpower restraining forces.
2. If the restraining forces are stronger than the driving forces, management may either give up the change programme or pursue it by concentrating on driving forces and changing restraining forces into driving ones or immobilising them.
3. If driving and restraining forces are fairly equal, management can push up the driving forces and, at the same time, can convert or immobilise restraining forces.
Thus, the management has to push driving forces and/or converting or immobilising restraining forces so that people accept the change. If the driving forces exist or management’s efforts have brought the equilibrium of driving and restraining forces at a desired level, it can go for the change; it can take necessary actions for change. Actions for Change Actions for change comprises three stages-unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. Unfreezing. Unfreezing is the process in which a person casts aside his old behaviour which might be inappropriate, irrelevant, or inadequate to the changing demands of the situation. This aspect of action is as important as the action relating to changing the target. Just as a farmer must clear a field before planting new seeds, so must manager help employees clear their minds of old roles and purposes. Schien has suggested some measures which are quite helpful in undertaking unfreezing process. These are as follows:
1 The physical removal of the individuals being changed from their accustomed routines, sources of information, and social relationships.
2. The undermining and destruction of social support.
3. Demeaning and humiliating experiences to help individuals to see their old attitudes or behaviour as unworthy and think to be motivated to change.
4. The consistent linking of reward with willingness to change and of punishment with unwilling to change.
Changing. This is the stage at which the individuals being changed learn new behaviour methods of working, new thinking, perception of new roles, etc. There are a variety of ways through which all these can be inculcated. Smith has provided guidelines for effective change which are as follows:5
1 Recognise that the primary purpose of change is to improve performance results.
2. Make individuals responsible for their own change.
3. Encourage improvisation, team performance, and coordinated initiatives.
4. Ensure that people see how they fit into the larger organisational picture.
5. Encourage learning by doing and provide just-in-time training for performance,
6. Use positive energy. meaningful language, and courageous leadership to drive change relentlessly. Refreezing. Refreezing means that what has been learned is integrated into actual practice. At this stage, the individuals internalise the new beliefs, feeling and behaviours learned during the changing phase. They adopt these elements as a permanent part of their behaviour repertoire. Often, there is a tendency that individuals revert back gradually to their old behaviours, which they were displaying before the change, in the absence of suitable reinforcement. Therefore, reinforcement is necessary for the internalisation of new behaviour.
Feedback
Management of change requires feedback and follow-up actions to ensure that change programme is progressing in right direction without producing any dysfunctional effect. Since a change programme is likely to solve some problems and produce other problems, though of minor magnitude, it is desirable that management has constant watch as the change programme progresses. Problems created by the change should be tackled immediately so that it gives better results to the organisation. Feedback received from the initial attempt of change programme may be used to modify the subsequent programme. Normally, the impact of the change programme is measured in terms of its objectives. Therefore, objectives of the change should be defined operationally so that measurement is easier.
Human Response to Change
When change is inititated, both managers and employees react to it. Though human reaction to change depends on the outcome of the change particularly its impact on their need satisfaction, often, the attitudes of people play a significant role in deciding human response to change. Attitudes are important in determining the response to change because an employee’s perception about the likely impact of change depends on his attitudes. Attitudes are not necessarily the matter of logic but may be entirely different from it. Therefore, the reaction to a change will depend largely on how the outcome of the change has been interpreted. There are three possible alternatives of human response to change: resistance, indifference, and acceptance.
1 Resistance. People resist a change when they have a feeling that the change is likely to affect them unfavourably. Resistance to change becomes more forceful when the people have feeling that through resistance they may eliminate the change. However, in most of the cases, the first response to change is resistance even though the result may be favourable to people. This aspect will be discussed in detail later in this chapter.
2. Indifference. Sometimes, people do not react to change either in positive way or in negative way. The reason may be that either they fail to interpret the outcome of the change on their need satisfaction, or they feel that it has nothing to do with them. They may also become indifferent if they feel that they cannot do anything against the change.
3. Acceptance. If people perceive that the change is likely to affect them favourably, they will accept the change. They can do it in two ways. First, they may accept change and adopt it, recognising that it is a way of life. Second, they may anticipate change and plan for it. This is a more progressive approach. In fact, forward-looking organisations create environment in which such possibilities exist.
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
As the manager contemplates and initiates change in organisation, one phenomenon that is quite likely to emerge any time in the change process is the resistance to change. Specially at the initial phase of change, people may react dysfunctionally to change in any of the following ways. First, they may deny that change is taking place When this happens, the organisation may lose some of its effectiveness in bringing change. Second, they may resist the change rather than determining how they can react in a functional way. Thus, people may resist the change efforts. Not only that, even the organisation may resist to change because of its own reasons. Thus, resistance to change may come from individuals as well as from organisation. However, in both cases, factors may be different. Thus, various factors responsible for change can be identified into individual factors for resistance to change and organisational factors for resistance to change. Individual Factors for Resistance to Change There are many factors responsible to resistance to change at the individual level. Degree of force or resistance depends on how people feel about the change. This feeling may be based on actual facts or may be governed by emotional factors. Thus, in actual operation. many factors generate resistance to change.
1 Problem of Adjustment. Perhaps most important factor for resistance to change is the problem of adjustment. Each individual tries to maintain a sort of equilibrium, both at formal level as well as at informal level. When change comes, it requires people to make adjustment so as to cope with the new situation. People seek status quo because once they establish equilibrium, they may not like that it is disturbed. Status quo gives them more satisfaction because the existing equilibrium has been arrived at by eliminating those forces which give people discomforts. When change is introduced, this equilibrium does not in as satisfactory as it was before the change. The change may present various Hties because people have to engage themselves again in the process of forming a new equilibrium. This transitory period is quite unsatisfactory, and people may not like to go for dissatisfaction unless the change may bring them more satisfaction otherwise. Thus, there is a natural tendency that people will resist change.
2. Economic Reasons. People resist change if they feel that it is likely to affect them unfavourably so far as their economic needs are concerned. The greater the amount of loss perceived, greater is the degree of resistance. People may perceive several types of economic losses because of change, major of them being as follows:
1 Fear of technological unemployment:
2. Fear of reduced work hours and consequently reduced monetary benefits:
3. Fear of demotion and consequently red uced pay:
4. Fear of speed-up and reduced incentive wages, etc.
It can be seen that many of the above factors are quite real and not merely imaginary. For example, automation may replace many workers and they will be put out of employment if no alternative employment is provided by the organisation, or the organisation is not able to increase its volume of operation so as to absorb all workers. This is the reason why automation is resisted by workers, and they accept it only when they are guaranteed for alternative jobs.
3. Obsolescence of Skills. Change may result in obsolescence of skills specially when altogether a new method of working is adopted. With the adoption of new method of working, old techniques become useless and consequently old skills become obsolete. Therefore, when people sense that new method of working poses a threat of replacing them or in some way affecting them adversely, they will resist it. It is not necessary that with the adoption of new method, people with old skiils will be replaced; there may be other consequences also like reduction in authority of the position which they have been holding, attaching less importance to the jobs they have been performing, and so on. For example, with the introduction of computers, the jobs of accountants may be changed completely, and unless they adapt themselves to the new situation, their utility will be reduced and their job will become less important to the organisation. Either accountants change themselves which is not an easy task, or try to stall the move of putting computers. Thus, fear of obsolescence of skills may be reason for resisting change. This phenomenon is commonly found in those people who possess no real marketable skills and whose knowledge is outdated.
4 .Emotional Factors. There are many emotional factors which also generate resistance to change. As indicated earlier, people may not analyse the likely impact of change in an objective manner but they may be governed by their feelings, emotions, attitudes, etc. Thus, many factors will produce resistance to change like fear of unknown, ego defensiveness, group norms, and social displacement. (0 Fear of Unknown. People fail to evaluate the impact of change because it is futureoriented. Therefore, some amount of uncertainty is always there. It is a tendency to discount future impact because of two reasons: First, people may derive benefits or otherwise in future while they have to pay the cost at the present. Naturally, they will discount the future. Second, future is uncertain and the impact may not be exactly in the same way as predicted. The unknown poses a constant threat to people. Therefore, the fear of unknown makes people uncomfortable, as the impact of change is unknown. (10 Ego Defensiveness. Sometimes people resist change because it is ego deflating. Ego defensive people always resist such a change. Everyone has some ego which one tries to maintain. Ego is the state of a person’s way of behaving, thinking, and feeling. Any attack
on these, actual or perceived by the person, will be resisted. For example, a foreman is unlikely to accept a change suggested by a worker bacause he may feel that his ego has been hurt. If he is highly ego defensive, he may take it even adversely. (tt) Group Norms. People also resist change because the group to which they belong resists it. Though each person interprets change individually, often he expresses it through the group. He follows the group norms. The degree and extent of group pressure on individual to resist the change will depend on two factors. First, how loyal an individual is towards the group. If he is loyal to the group, he will resist the change even though it may be beneficial to him. Second, how the group perceives it as a separate class than change agent: higher is the difference between two, higher will be the degree of resistance and its impact on individuals. For example, if managers and workers see them as distinct classes and perceive their interests differently, there will be more resistance to change by workers and individual workers will resist it vehemently. (w) Social Displacement. Introduction of change often results in social displacement of people like breaking of informal groups and relationships. When the friendship with fellowmembers is interrupted, there is a possibility for the employees to experience psychological let down. Therefore, they dislike new adjustment, breaking up of present social relationships, reduced social satisfaction, and feeling of outside interference in the form of change.
Many emotional problems relating to change are difficult to overcome because these are based on non-logical considerations rather than the rational considerations. People’s perception of the likely impact of change is affected considerably by their personal factors and group factors to which they belong rather than technical aspect of change. Thus, the degree of resistance to change will be determined by the effect of change on people’s need satisfaction and the way the change agent brings the change. Organisational Factors for Resistance to Change
Beside individuals, the organisation also may resist change. Some of the organisations are so designed that they resist innovation and change. For example, organisations that perform a narrowly prescribed assortment of functions oppose change. They create strong defence against change. This is the reason why many organisations fail to change over a period of time, though this phenomenon may be disastrous to them. Major organisational factors for resistance to change are as follows:
1 Threat to Power and Influence. A change is likely to be incorporated successfully if it has the blessing and support of top management. When people, at the top level, consider change as a potential threat to their position and influence, they resist it. A change is likely to produce a new power equilibrium with more emphasis on knowledge and new skills. This new equilibrium may reduce the amount of power and influence of people at the top which may not be liked by them. Therefore, they may resist any such change.
2. Organisation Structure. Some forms of organisation structure are more resistant to change, for example, bureaucratic structure. A bureaucratic structure where lines of communication are clearly spelled out, jobs are precisely defined, works against change. Since all these are prescribed rigidly, there is very little scope of making changes. Moreover, the flow of information from top to bottom level is stressed. Therefore, there is every possibility that an information initiating or necessitating change may be screened out at the higher level itself because change does not suit the present organizational structure. Unless the person at the top is highly dynamic, change will always be resisted.
3. Resource Constraints. Many organisations resist change because of resource constraints. It is to be noted that all organisations have limited resources because resources are limited by their basic nature. However, some organisations may feel resource constraints more than others. In such a case, the organisations may not like to incorporate change because it involves some additional cost at least in the beginning.
4. Sunk Costs. Organisations may also resist change because they have invested in fixed assets and other resources. These costs cannot be recovered unless the assets and resources are put to productive use. When change is incorporated, many of these resources become useless. This may be true for assets as well as for persons also. For example, earlier it has been seen that change may result in obsolescence of skills. However, an organisation will have to bear the cost because it cannot dispense with these people. Similarly, assets cannot be replaced because of change in technology. Naturally, the organisation will like to continue with the old system.
OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
The basic problem in introducing and managing change successfully is to overcome resistance to change, whether rational or otherwise. Unless resistance to change is eliminated properly, the change may not be as beneficial to the organisation as intended. On the contrary, change may become dysfunctional if it has been forced without properly handling the problem of change. Thus, the use of formal authority in bringing change in the organisation may not be desirable in most of the cases. But management should adopt techniques and actions through which people accept change willingly rather than forced to accept change. In order to overcome resistance to change, efforts can be made at the level of individual as well as at the level of group. Though efforts at both these levels may be complementary and sometimes even overlapping, people react differently at individual level and at group level. Therefore, efforts are required at both these levels. Efforts at Individual Level
A change may affect some people in one way, others in another way, while some others may not be affected at all. Therefore, resistance may come from people as individuals and not as group, and efforts can be made to overcome resistance at individual level. For example, creation of new unit or merger of two units into one because of change in organisation structure may affect some people favourably, others unfavourably, while large majority may not be affected at all. In such a case, resistance may be at the individual level. In situations where individual resistance takes the form of group resistance, it can be tackled at the level of individual because he is the starting point. Following efforts are useful to deal with resistance to change at Individual level:
1 Education and Communication. One of the most easy techniques to overcome resistance to change is to educate people, train them to adopt change, counsel them, and communicate them the various aspects of change. Management can change the basic values and attitudes of people by training and psychological counselling. People can be educated to become familiar with change, its process, and working. They must be taught new skills, helped to develop new relationships and attitudes. Since this is a long process, it can be successful if it is taken on continuous basis. Similarly, role of communication in overcoming change is very important. Often, many types of resistance come because of misunderstanding. For example, Pestonjee has observed that resistance to change is likely to take place when (1) change is not made clear to the individual who is going to be influenced by the change: (l) different people see different meanings in change: (tt) those influenced are caught between strong forces pushing them to make a change and strong forces deterring them from making the change: (tv) change is made on personal ground rather than impersonal requirements or sanctions; and (u) change ignores the already established institutions in the group. Thus, it can be seen that resistance to change can be overcome through proper communication. In this context, managers can obtain better result when they explain the people about (0) what the change is, (ti) when it is to be introduced, to how it will be implemented, (iv) why the change is needed. (u) what is the objective of the change, and (vi) how the change will be beneficial to all. This will help people to visualise the need and logic of change; they will appreciate it in much better way and will accept it easily.
2. Participation and Involvement. Participation and involvement can be used in overcoming resistance to change either on regular basis or for a particular change programme. Here, the basic strategy of the change agent is to involve resistors in some aspect of design and implementation of change so that they do not block the change. Participation and involvement are the process to bring people who are likely to resist the change to understand it through continuous dialogue. This is not one-time action but it should be continuous over a period of time. It implies explanation and then discussion of the proposed change. It includes finding out from the people how they interpret the change and what they think about it. The fundamental idea in this process is to encourage the people to say what they feel about the various aspects of the change. As this process goes, the level of resistance to the change tends to decrease, understanding of the change increases, and personal involvement in the change increases.
3. Commitment. Commitment is a further step to participation and involvement. It is an agreement between change agent and change resistors to take active part in the actual mechanics of the change. If there is strong resistance by a few members of the organisation, commitment to take part in the change programme can be obtained in private from each member. Later on, it can be obtained in public so that members may feel committed to the programme, and at no level, they will sabotage it. Commitment to change is a dynamic process meaning thereby that it changes over the period of time depending on the factors. Therefore, it can be taken on continuous basis so that people become committed to various programmes of the organisation.
4. Leadership. Leadership is a process of getting consent and support of people willingly. Since a manager cannot always use his formal authority to get support for the change, he should rely on his personal skills and qualities to impress people for the change. He can create a climate where people not only accept change but they are willing to propose changes. A manager with strong leadership qualities can use personal reasons for change without arousing any resistance. He can try to time the change to fit the psychological needs of his followers. Efforts at Group Level Group efforts are more useful where the change is likely to affect more members in the organisation like change in policies or procedures, incentive systems, etc. Although agreement to a change can be obtained individually, it is more meaningful if it is done through group. The impact of group over individuals is very important to accept or resist the change. Normally, people interpret the impact of change individually but they express Behavioural Process in Organisations,
through the group. Thus, instead of solving the problem of resistance at the individual level. It is better to attempt at group level for better acceptance of the change. Group dynamics offers some basic ideas as to how efforts can be made at the group level to overcome resistance to change. Cartwright has identified the following characteristics of group as means for overcoming resistance to change:
1 If both change agent and people target for the change belong to the same group, the role of group is more effective in change.
2. If people have more cohesiveness and strong belonging to the group, change is easier to achieve.
3. The more attractive the group is to the members, the greater is the influence of the group to accept or resist a change.
4. Group can exert more pressure on those factors of the members which are responsible for the group being attractive to the members. Normally, attitudes, values, and behaviours are common factors determining the group attractiveness.
5. The degree of prestige of a group, as interpreted by the members, will determine the degree of influence the group has over its members.
6. If any attempt is made to change any individual or some individuals which deviates the group norms, there is more likelihood of the change attempt being resisted by the group.
7 Based on the above characteristics of group dynamics as related to resistance to change. management can adopt two strategies for overcoming change. These are group contact and the group dynamics training for change.
8. Group Contact. For overcoming resistance to change, a group itself should be the point of contact. Since all the members of a group cannot be contacted at the same time, some representative members can be contacted. This contact is different from individual contact because persons so contacted speak on behalf of the group as a whole. During this contact, many of the things about the change can be made clear like reasons for the change, its benefits, and how these benefits can be shared by the organisation as well as by the members. This may help in proper understanding about the change. Therefore, even if few members are affected by the change, taking the group as a whole into confidence helps in maintaining cooperation between the group and the organisation. Moreover, group contact may offer certain other advantages: (0 Through group. communication is easier as one can communicate with more number of persons at a time. (ii) Group can get at the problem very rapidly as compared to the single individual. (iii) In group, there may be some persons who will support the change even if it is resisted by others. This will facilitate to get acceptance from others also very quickly.
1 Group Dynamics Training for Change. Group dynamics also provides help for designing training to get acceptance for the change and its implementation. Such training may be in the form of role playing, sensitivity training or T-group training, psychodrama, etc. Such training programmes help members to recognise the need for change in the present working, to develop tolerance for others including tension arising out of change, and to know how members can contribute in a better way.
Change Agents Any planned change needs change agents. These are the persons who initiate change in the organisation. Behavioural scientists have taken somewhat divergent positions on the question of who should initiate an organisational change, what type of person this would be, and what methods should be followed. Though management as a whole is involved with innovation as a continuing process, its role is somewhat limited to regular change. In a planned change, however, the type of requirements may be different and internal management has to take the help of external change agents. Thus, there may be two types of change agents–external and internal.
External change agents are in the form of consultants for change. These are the persons who are normally experts in the specific area of organisational change. The internal change agents are from the existing organisational personnel, from any level or department, depending upon the needs of the change. Often, both these agents work in harmony. A good deal of interaction in early contacts between internal and external change agents is implicitly related to developing a relationship of mutual trust so that each of them can understand the views of others. Afterwards, the internal change agents are trained by the consultants to implement the change as an ongoing process. For this purpose, the consultants devise change strategy.
ROLE OF CHANGE AGENTS
The objective of the change agents is to bring desired change in the organisation. However, for this purpose, a specific role is required to be performed by the change agents, both external and internal. Since relative positions of these change agents may be different in organisational context, their roles may also be different in the change process.
Role of External Change Agent
The external change agent is in a position to view the organisation meant for change from a total systems viewpoint and is much less affected by organisational norms. He is likely to have easy access to top management since it is the top management on whose initiative the consultant is contacted. Depending upon the situation, the role of an external change agent may vary because he is engaged by an organisation for certain specific activities. The role of the consultant may include diagnosis of the situation, planning strategy for change, intervening in the system for change, and even the evaluation of the change efforts in the context of various outcomes. From this point of view, the role of a consultant may be quite comprehensive. However, the change programme will be successful only when the consultant is given the role of process consultation and the rest of the programme is implemented by the organisation itself with the help of the consultant. Schein observes that, “problems will stay solved longer and be solved more effectively if the organisation solves its own problems. The consultant has a role in teaching diagnostic and problem-solving skills but he should not work on the actual concrete problems himself. Though there may be variation in the role of external change agent depending on the nature of the change to be brought and the target organisation’s own human resources to act as change agents, an external change agent may perform the following functions:
1 To act as catalyst sparking change within the system while remaining somewhat independent of it.
2. To undertake an organisational diagnosis.
3. To educate top management and other key personnel in the organisation
4. Process consultation at different levels of the organisation.
5. Evaluation of and feedback from change efforts.
Role of Internal Change Agent
There are several differences between internal and external change agents and their roles may not be interchanged. The internal change agents are more likely to accept the system as given and try to accommodate their change tactics to the needs of the organisation. By accepting the norms of the organisation, these change agents spend little time in helping the organisation move towards self-renewal, growth, and change. There may be two categories of persons who may act as internal change agents: chief executive and other managers who act as change advisers.
Chief Executive. The chief executive sponsors the change programme and provides leadership and support for its success. Usually, there is a belief, though erroneous, that the chief executive has no role in planned change. However, the change programme has a greater chance of success if it is sponsored by the chief executive. His role as a change agent is of paramount importance specially during the initial phase of the change process. He has to be personally convinced about the change and shows his conviction not only in the things he says but in the things he does. In the early stages of change, he must demonstrate that he believes in change and provides leadership to his management team in the change process. When the change process proceeds smoothly, the role of the chief executive may gradually reduce and other key members of the organisation should act as change agents.
Change Advisers. In the organisation, it is the change adviser who is primarily responsible for bringing change. Depending on the need, many change advisers can be appointed for specified periods. These are the persons drawn from the organisation to work as change agents on a whole-time basis for a specific period. When the programme is completed, they go back to their original work. They work in close harmony with the consultant. They are trained by the consultant before the actual implementation of the change. The basic concern of a change adviser is to prepare the organisation and its people to accept and implement the change. Thus, his role is primarily educational. He communicates with the managers the knowledge of the concepts and techniques of change which he must have learned through the various training programmes conducted by the consultant. He helps the managers to develop appropriate behaviour and skills required for the change. He has to depend more on the skills of communication and persuasion because he has to convince the people for the change. In earlier situation, he might have worked in line capacity where he was giving orders. But in the new situation, he has merely to advise and no line authority is attached to him. This suggests that his role is more complex than earlier. Therefore, a change agent should be selected keeping in view the requirement of his role. The skills required may be different than those applicable to his regular assignment. Walton has described the qualities to be possessed by a change adviser as follows: (1) diagnostic skills, (t behavioural skills in breaking impasses and interrupting repetitive interchange, (tl) attitudes of acceptance, and (w) personal qualities to provide emotional support and reassurance.
QUESTIONS
1 What were the reasons for not supporting the actions of Mr. Kamal Nayan by his employees?
2. Advise Mr. Kamal Nayan how he should proceed in the matter.
