Change Agent Strategy For Change Management: Importance Of Best Practices And Effective Communication

The Role of Change Agent in Change Management

Discuss about the Change Agent Strategy for Change Management.

Every organization requires change agent for bringing the change in the environment of the organization.  A change agent has the skill to coordinate and facilitate the change effort. Change agents can be internal such as manager or employees and can be external such as consultants. The success of the change agent entirely depends on the ability of work of relationship between change agent and the decision maker. Changes in management will be reflecting in this essay. Change efforts should be designed so that employee of the organization gets rewards and motivated environment (Lunenburg, 2010). It is necessary to diagnose the issue. It should be analyzed with better understanding and oversee the impact on long term as well as short term on business result. Interpretations of hopes regarding change management should be done by keeping in mind of vision statement. There are so many companies that bring changes in its organization. A big company like Cisco undertakes huge reorganization and promotes leader and employee from one department to another. The process of change management is the sequence of steps that leaders or change agent need to consider and follow while making changes in an organization. It is required to work on best practices and communication for successful change process. It is necessary for the change agent or manager to consider the aspects which is required for change. Best practices are having the more weight with higher management. To make changes in an organization, manager should be aware about the environment and need of the organization (Jain, 2011).   

For successful change in the organization communication should be done in effective manner between employee and manager. For instance, to making changes in business change agent appointed completer. The role of completer is to protect the organization from mistakes. It is necessary to provide the complete information about the change to the whole staff so that misunderstanding could not take place in the organization. Completer takes care of all aspects such as emergency, task completion, deadlines, observance of targets and follow-up. As per beblin theory, the result of the work of completer would be positive because the ability of completer has combine of sense of concerns with aim. The theory for change management has potential benefits and weakness. There are several models which can give benefits to the organization in case of change management. Mckinsey 7S Model has the ability maintain the existence of management eve when trends came in or went out from the organization. It includes strategy, structure, system, shared values, staff, skills, and style. Strategy is the first step of change management. Chair person plays a major role to develop the strategy in the organization. Chair person is the person who takes use of resources in the best way after recognizing the strength and weaknesses of the group. The next step of Mckinsey 7S model is structure which refers the way in which organization follows the stages or structure. System is the next step of it in which day to day activities are mentioned. Chairperson performs his role in this step by analyzing the working activities of the staff. Shared value keeps importance high in the organization. It is also referred as core value. It is developed by the chairperson or leader of the organization and followed by everyone in the organization. Style is the manner in which changes in the organization is adopted by employees. Staff is the major part of the organization, it refers to the workforce. A skill is the last step of Mckinsey that shows the capability and competencies of the workers in the organization. This model provides the better understanding. Along with this model, the positive quality of chairperson such as communication ability, sense of timing and balance helps to the organization to put this model effectively. This model considers almost all important aspect. The disadvantage of this model is complexity because it is not easy as others. The key point of group dynamic theory is that group should be more productive and positive towards handling the project. The role of group dynamic in OD is to encouraging the group to do more group discussion and treat each other with descent manner.

Steps in Change Management

Organizational development is the nature of continuous process. It contains evaluation, implementation and action planning. The main focus of OD is to transferring the knowledge to organization so that improvement can be done in the context of managing future change and solving problems. Organistional strategies contain four steps in it. Diagnosis, action planning, intervention and evaluation are the steps of OD. Diagnosis works to find the problems of organization. It is done by OD by examining the mission, vision, policies, structure and technologies. Action planning is a process which assesses the comfort ability of making different changes in the organization. Intervention refers the sequence of the implemented strategies and monitors the progress. Evaluation is the process which tracks the progress of organization in the term of change and by evaluating its influence in the organization. Organization development as a theory works in the organization. Change agent gets huge help from effective OD. OD is the field of practice and theory which dedicates to enhancing the knowledge and productivity of the people so that organizational change can be done in an efficient manner and the performance of the employees could get improved (Guler, 2010).

The role of IT in organizational development is very important. In the context of change management, it is not possible for every time that change could accepted by everyone in easy manner. Changes in management require proper training to the employees so that they can understand the basic knowledge about the changes. Customers prefer internet to search data and commodities (Khan, et. al., 2011). IT can put its influence on the process and structure of organization. IT helps organization to gain the more competitive advantages. Change agent should provide proper training to the employees if any changes occur regarding IT. Changes in technology are normal. It is necessary to the change agent to take care of the employees and their skill while bringing change in the organization. In the case of changing in technology, team work plays a vital role. Change agent should appoint a team worker for support to the employees (Anderson, 2011). The role of team worker in the organization is to support to an individuals in their strength. It is a person who provides personal support and maintains the group harmony. Team member satisfaction and team spirit must to maintain the effectiveness of the organization. Flexibility is the positive attitude of team worker. However, IT changes bring the environment of comfort in the organization but it does not happen every time. Knowledge management projects starts in the organization with introduction of new technology where changes come in database and representation of database are involved in the new technology. Possibility of trapping through IT can be done in the organization. The trap can be cookie-cutter approach in the area of organization which enhances the possibility of failure. IT complexity is another trap for the organization. The higher complexity in the structure of IT brings the higher level of challenges in among employees. Team worker should focus on the irrelevancy of the performance so that wrong practices can be recognized as soon as possible. The reporting mechanism is monitoring the mission of an organization for ensuring successful use of IT in OD. Strategic objective of reporting mechanism is to raise awareness of consumer and business. It provides learning about the information technology (?iri? & Rakovi?, 2010). Operational objectives of reporting mechanism is to share the information with relevancy and produce statistics so that organization can get prevent from threats. These objectives help out to the change agent or manager to take action as per requirement of change. It is important for the change management to assess the characteristics of the change. Change agent should focus on enterprise level instead of geographical spread. To exposing the failure, it is required to business should evaluate the existing project and the capabilities of change management and highlight the risk. Managing change is not being done by single hand; there should be contribution of both employee as well as manager. Involvement of the employee must in managing the change. Instead of forcing to the employees for accepting the change, manager or change agent should keep the policy of feedback. Change management can assess the feedback from employees and take corrective action. As it has been discussed above that for managing change, change agent appointed team worker and completer who will be able to provide the help to an individual towards changing (Eikenberry, 2011).

Importance of Best Practices for Successful Change Process

To make an enterprise as per next generation, new thinking, technologies and procedures are required to consider. However, it is difficult to create a vision because it involves uncertainty, risk and chances of failure. Organizational development facilitate that organization is ready to accept the huge change in business scale and technology solutions. It provides the tools and technique to enhancing the productivity of the employees. Change management encourages employees to adopt and accept the changes. It helps to convert the strategic goals in to reality. Organizational development is not a fancy idea for brainwashing. It is a concept or process which never stops and diagnoses the issues in the organization. With the help of OD organization can analyze the situation and can take initiative action against issues. It is well planned strategy which is implemented for the purpose of enhancing the effectiveness of the employee towards performing the task. It put efforts to achieve the strategic goal. In the context of managing change in the organization, OD plays a vital role to give better understanding to the employees. OD theory includes organizational climate, attitude and behavior of an individual.  By using knowledge management, organizational learning and transformation values of organization, OD focused on complex environments and changes. To making the change in organization, organizational development identifies the area in which changes are required. Each need or requirement has been analyzed and move ahead in the management plan. The management plan outlines the specific change that will improve the situation of the company (Burke, 2011). Without OD business would have a difficulty to develop an effective change management programs.  In case of changing in organization, change agent or manager appoint or gives responsibility to specific person or make team who help to encourage employee towards accepting the change. Team worker, completer and chairperson have been chosen as per belbin theory. They all have their own roles and responsibilities.  Organizational development plays a crucial role to make an effective strategy and management. To analyze the work efficiency and accuracy, completer protect the team from mistakes and omission. Chair person communicates with their subordinate to accomplish a task with change management. Team worker maintain a team and provide possible training and development program.

It has been concluded that change agent has various role to play to perform the task efficiently. Organizational development enhances the productivity of the employees. Various important aspects for the success of organizational change have been discussed in essay which is helpful to learner to gain more knowledge about the succession of change management. The role of chair person, team worker and completer has been mentioned and along with that their contribution in change management also being discussed. The theories of change management provide the huge support to make better understanding with employees towards change management. Organizational development is the field which analyzes the situation and provides the suggestion that which area of organization want change requirement. It mainly focuses on complex environment and tries to protect organization from threats. OD is not just a fancy idea for the organization while it is the process that is capable to enhance the effectiveness of the organization. It is important for the change agent to take care of all aspects that may impact on other area of organization. Changing decision in any area of organization should be done after consulting with team members. It is concluded that effective strategy and OD make easy to take better understanding regarding changing in organization.

References

Anderson, L. A. (2011). The change leader’s roadmap: How to navigate your organization’s transformation. New York, NY: Routledge.

Burke, W. W. (2011). Organizational change: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

?iri?, Z. & Rakovi?, L. (2010). Change Management in Information System Development and Implementation Projects. Management Information Systems, Vol. 5 (2010), No. 2, pp. 023-028.

Eikenberry, K. (2011). Championing change: Creating remarkable leaders. New York, NY:Wiley.

Guler, S. (2010). Change Management A Case Study of SAP Implementation in a Major Company. Chalmers. Sweden.

Jain, R. (2011). Managing research, development and innovation: Managing the unmanageable. New York, NY: Wiley.

Khan, R. A. G., Khan, F. A., & Khan, M. A. (2011). Impact of Training and Development on Organizational Performance. Global Journal of Management and Business Research. Volume 11 Issue 7 Version 1.0 July 2011.

Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). Managing Change: The Role of the Change Agent. International journal of management, business, and administration. volume 13, number 1, 2010.