ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Change refers to any alteration which occurs in an organization’s environment. It may relate to
change in technology, organizational structure, working processes, work environment,
organizational policy and even the roles people play.

Change is inevitable. Nothing is permanent except the change. It is the duty of the management
to manage change properly. Organizations must keep a close watch on the environment and
incorporate suitable changes if the situation so demands. Change is a continuous phenomenon.
Organizations must be proactive in affecting change. If the change is beneficial people accept it
willingly. If it is not desirable, there is great resistance. If it is of no consequence to the people,
they may adopt an attitude of indifference.

Reasons for Resistance to Change

Although change management decisions are normally made at the top level, it’s still very
important to have the rest of the employees bought in to the change. Having employees who are
opposed to what is going to be changing from the start is a major setback and one that needs to
be dealt with carefully in order to be successful with the change management. The following are
some reasons for resistance to change;

1. Economic factors. Organizational changes sometimes can be seen from the employee’s
side simply as something that will decrease or increase their salary or other economic
privileges that some workplace brings to them in the moment before implementation of the
change process. It is normal to expect that those people who feel that they will lose the
portion of their salary will resist the change.
2. Threat of comfort. Organizational changes in many cases results in personal discomfort
and make employee’s life more difficult. They make a transfer from the comfort of the
status quo to the discomfort of the new situation. Employees have the skills to do an old job
without some special attention to accomplishing the task. Each new task requires forgetting

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 the old methods of doing the job and learning new things that lead to waste of energy, and
causes dissatisfaction;
3. Job’s security. Organizational change can eliminate some work places, can produce
technological excess, layoffs and so on. Job’s security simply is one of the causes of
resistance to change;
4. Implications on personal plans. Organizational change can stop other plans, projects or
other personal or family activities. In such a way this become one of the causes of
resistance to change for those persons who will be reached by this change;
5. Mistrust to initiators of change. When employees don’t have trust to the initiators of the
process, the process will not be accepted and this will cause resistance to change;
6. Fear of unknown. Organizational change, in many cases leads to uncertainty and some
dose of fear. It is normal people to feel the fear of uncertainty. When employees feel
uncertainty in a process of transformation, they think that changes are something
dangerous. This uncertainty affects organizational members to resist the proposed change;
7. Previous Experience. All employees already have some experience with a previous
organizational change process. So, they know that this process is not an easy process. That
experience simply will tell them that most of the change processes in the past was a failure.
So, this can cause resistance to change;
8. Threat to interpersonal relations. Employees are often friends with each other and they
have a strong social and interpersonal relationship inside and outside organization. If an
organizational change process can be seen as a threat to these powerful social networks in
the organization, the affected employees will resist to that change.
9. Weakness of the proposed changes. Sometimes proposed change might have a weakness
that can be recognized by the employees. So, those employees will resist the
implementation of the process until these weaknesses will not be removed or solved.
10. Limited resources. A normal problem in every organization is to have limited resources.
When resources are limited, and with the proposed organizational changes those resources
are threatened, the resistance to change is more likely to occur;
11. Selective information processing. Individuals usually have selective information
processing, or hear only something that they want to hear. They simply ignore information

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 that is opposite of the current situation, and with this, they don’t want to accept important
aspects of the proposed changes. Because of that, appear resistance to change;
12. Uninformed employees. Often employees are not provided with adequate information
about organizational changes that must be implemented. And normally, this can cause
resistance to change;
13. Peer pressure. Often, we utilize some kind of informal punishment for colleagues who
supports change which others don’t support. This situation can have a large impact on
increasing the level of resistance to change;
14. Increasing workload. In the process of organizational change, except normal working
activities, employees usually must implement activities of a new change process. These
increases of workloads, affects appearing of resistance to change;
15. Short time to perform the change process. Because organizational systems are
open systems and they are interactive with their environment, the need of change often
comes from outside. In such a way the performing time is dictated from the outside of an
organization. These situations lead to a short time for implementation of the organizational
change process and cause resistance to change

Strategies for minimizing resistance

1. Be timely: Announce an impending change as quickly as possible – rumors start very

quickly. Delivering bad news is one of the biggest challenges managers face.

2. The need for change: Find lots of ways to demonstrate why the change is necessary.
Change management requires a compelling change story – communicating it to
employees and following it up with ongoing communications and involvement.

3. Involvement: Involve interested parties in the planning of change by asking them for
suggestions and incorporating their ideas. If people are involved in change and
understand the reasons for it they become supportive of the whole idea and the
change process.

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4. Communication: it is important to communicate with everybody about everything in
relation to the upcoming changes in order to reduce the uncertainty. Use any
communication channels available and remember that it is impossible to over-
communicate change.

5. Training programs: Deliver training programs that develop skills that is needed to
support “the new way”.

6. Don’t change for the sake of change: Continual change leads to resistance. Making a
change for the purpose of shaking things up makes it more difficult to get acceptance
of necessary changes. Save your energy for more important changes.

7. Build trust: If a manager has a reputation for providing reliable and timely information to
employees, the explanation as to why a change is to be made will likely be believed. The
change may still be resisted, but if the manager is trusted by the employees, problems
will be minimized.

8. Provide counselling: Counselling or discussion with the employees who will be affected
by the change may reduce the resistance and may stimulate them to voluntarily adopt a
change. Nondirective counselling has been used effectively in many change situations.

9. Allow for negotiation: Resistance to change can be reduced by the process of negotiation.
Negotiation is a primary method used by labour unions to effect modification of proposed
managerial changes.

10. Expect Resistance to Change: Do not be surprised by resistance! Even if the solution a
project presents is a wonderful improvement to a problem that has been plaguing
employees, there will still be resistance to change. Being psychologically prepared will
make management of the resistance easier.

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CHANGING AN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Kurt Lewin proposed Three Stage Model of the change process for moving the organization from
present position to the changed position. This is as under:

1. Unfreezing: Process of unfreezing makes individuals ready for change. Lewin believes that
employees must be informed in advance of impending change and that they should not be
surprised. Unfreezing entails unfreezing the old behaviour or situation. This can be achieved by
making announcements, meetings and promoting the idea throughout the organization through
bulletin, boards, personal contacts and group conferences. The unfreezing process basically
cleans the slate so that fresh behavioral patterns, customs, traditions can be imprinted which can
then become a new way of doing things.

2. Moving/Changing: Once unfreezing process is completed, moving takes place. Moving is

incorporating change. Persons undergo cognitive restructuring. The process is carried out by the
following three methods as proposed by Kelman.
• Compliance: Compliance is achieved by introducing rewards and punishments. It has been
established that individual accepts change if he is rewarded or punished. This is a behaviour
modification tool.
• Identification: Members are psychologically impressed upon to select their role model and
modify behaviour. If a leader can act as a role model the change is easier.
• Internalization: Internalization involves internal changing of individual’s thought processes in
order to adjust to a new environment. Members are advised to carry out soul searching and adopt
a new behaviour.

3. Refreezing: It is related to integrate the new behaviours into the person’s personality and
attitude. It is referred to stabilization. The change behaviour must necessarily fit into the social
surroundings. Refreezing takes place when the new behaviour is adopted in a normal way of life.
New behaviour must replace the old on a permanent basis. New behaviors must be re-enforced
continuously so that it does not diminish. Change process is not a one-time process but it is
continuous hence unfreezing, change and refreezing must also be continuous.