Importance of Change Management in Modern Organizations
Every organization in the modern generation has to constantly keep on changing its strategy to survive the cut throat competition with the rival companies. Hence they always need to be on keep on updating their systems with innovative and creative strategies which help them meet their organizational goals and achieve their mission. In today’s fast paced generation, it is extremely important not only for the organization but also for its employees to adapt to the changes successfully (Hayes et al., 2014). In the present business industry, requirements and conditions are continuously changing and therefore it becomes necessary for each individual to apt to the changes. Therefore, change management is very important for maintaining the profit margin and the sales target. Researchers define this term as the process which when put in place ultimately helps in easing out the organizational transitions (Hornstein, 2015). However for successful change management, managers play a great role where they have to ensure that all the employees need to understand, commit to the goals, accept the changes and thereby embrace the changes in the current business environment to bring the positive outcomes (Lines et al., 2015). The following assignment will mainly describe three important theories and will compare and contrast between the different models so that managers can accordingly choose models as per their needs.
The first theory which can be used is the Lewin’s models. Researchers consider this as one of the most popular approaches of change managements. In this procedure, the author had mainly dissected the entire procedure in three important stages. These stages mainly help the managers in following a framework which they can follow to plan out ideas and innovations to implement the changes.
The first stage of the process is called the unfreezing procedure which mainly contains four important steps (Vora, 2013). It includes determining the different needs and requirements for the implementation of the changes and ensuring that there is a strong support which will back up the change. This will also showcase the need for change and will help the employees to manage and understand the doubts and concerns. In easier terms, this step mainly includes the analysis of every step and human interaction for potential improvements and venturing into depths and venturing out the requirements to find out the things which require changes and analyze the rationale of the changes. The managers need to know that forcing sudden change can result in the resentment (Shirey, 2013). Therefore, he needs to prepare the team for the new elements in order to let them take the hold when deployed. It is also important for the managers in the unfreezing stage to make everyone identify the defects present with the current process, the rationale for importance of the changes. They should also make the employees know what benefits they will be requiring form the changes.
Introduction to Lewin’s Model
The second stage is called the “making change” stage. After the first stage, the managers should then deploy the changes and guide the team for adapting to the situation. Communication, support and education are very important to be inculcated among the workers so that the managers can make sure that the employees face no difficulties. By doing this, the managers can limit any difficulties in the transition phase and thereby address problems as soon as they arise. In this stage, managers try their best to make the employees take initiatives to adapt to the change (Worley and mohrman, 2014). For example, if a new machine or technology is implemented in workplace, the mangers will give guidelines to the workers about how to use them successfully with positive outcomes. Dispelling rumors, empowering action of the workers and involving people in the process are the main steps in the stage.
The last stage in the process is called the refreeze stage. It mainly involves the managers to refreeze and finalize the working style once the activities and the changes are deployed, measured and finalized by proper feedback (Mitchell, 2013). It mainly incorporates the anchoring of the changes in to the culture and developing ways by which the change can be sustained in the new changed model of working. The mangers at this stage should provide support and training to ever workers so that they stick to the new habits and taking care that the old habits do not resurface.
This type of model is often found to be highly effective when the business is in requirement of drastic change so that the company can succeed. Many researchers are also of the opinion that this model has excellent result mainly during uncovering of hidden mistakes which were previously taken for granted. This mainly becomes possible because the managers or other employees get the opportunity to directly analyze every aspect of everything which is changing. However, many researchers have also found out the negative aspects (Sutherland, 2013). Due to scale of the unfreezing process, sometimes this model becomes difficult to follow by the managers or the organizers they are of the opinion that this stage is time consuming to enact. Moreover this model requires a great deal of care as that it can be taken beyond the base instructions to support the team members as well as to consider their emotions through turmoil. Moreover this model is suited to massive changes and therefore it includes the risk of alienating employees. This is because the style of working will be drastically different from before. Therefore often it seems important for the managers to be more than careful as they would be bringing the employees on board and keep up with the enthusiasm in the refreezing stage (Burnes and Cook, 2013).
Understanding Lewin’s Model: The Unfreezing, Making Change, and Refreeze Stage
The next model which can be discussed is the change management procedure is the McKinsey 7s model. It is quite different from the Lewin model of change management is that instead of providing greater support to deeper analysis and large shifts, the McKinley 7s model is suitable for understanding how coherent one organization is. In many cases, managers often face issues where they now that they need to change certain acts but are not sure about how to achieve them and what to perform (Quinney and Richardson, 2014). In such cases, this model becomes highly significant. Manager following this model will need mainly to analyze the seven aspects of the company and how such aspects are affecting each other. They then need to highlight the changes needed to develop a united approach to business. The seven main aspects include strategy, systems, structure, styles, staffs, shared values and skills.
The manager first needs to assess the strategy. The strategy should be formal enough so that it can allow the individuals to move forward with the purpose and maintain an advantage over the other competitors. Moreover, the strategies should be flexible enough to adapt to the changes without disrupting and destroying the progress. While assessing the strategy the managers can determine several clarifications like what the objectives are, their strategies to achieve them, ways of staying competitive and how the strategy can adapt to the current as well as future coming days (Buciarelli, 2015).
Secondly, it becomes very important for the individuals to develop ideas about the structures of the organization so that he can correctly alter anything successfully if required. The structure should be simple so that the manager can note down the aspects effectively as structures are always more tangible than the strategy. It is also extremely important to cross check the structure with the teams. Researchers are of the opinion that if the mangers who are the change agents have no accurate information about how the organization is structures then only the effectiveness of the changes are neutered. The manager should develop ideas about how the company is structured, its hierarchy, organizations and managements of departments, teams, individual members (Kok and Mcdonald, 2017). The managers should also know the individuals how make the decisions, the ways of carrying out of the decisions, how everyone communicates and the frequency of communication.
The managers also need to develop ideas about the systems of the oragnsations so that they can develop ideas about how they are impacting the working procedures
Analysis of Lewin’s Model: Pros and Cons
Then another important aspect is the shared values which should be recorded that will involve both the official many and values and its culture. Although many researchers argue that culture plays no role, many others are of the opinion that culture can act as important role. Linking values and cultures to the different changes will help in making them more agreeable to workforce and this will make them more readily adapt them (Cavusgil and Knight 2015).
The next important stage is assessing the management and leadership style of the business so that the managers can effectively bring in the changes if required in the field for better management of teams, departments, development of collaboration and others.
The next stage assessing of the staffs looking over list of the staffs and analyzing that whether any required positions have been filled properly or gaps are present and similar others.
The next will mainly include the managers developing an in depth knowledge about the skills of the staffs, getting surveys about customers’ appreciations, what is missing as skills in the employees, what skills need to be incorporated and others.
Following this, the managers should then analyze that whether the seven s are supporting each other or not. This could be simplified. The managers should look that wherever the structure of the company is supporting the strategy or not. He also have to see that how they are helping the systems and whether these three aspects are reflecting the shared values or not (Guenzi and Storbacka, 2015). After thoroughly analyzing the components which needs to be brought in line, the managers should then plan out changes which won’t cause disruption of the regular operations too much or alienate the owners. So that mangers after deploying the changes, have to go through the 7 model to reassess and find out whether any further steps need to be taken or not.
Unlike the Lewin model, this model does not believe in implementing massive changes and grand transitions, it is mainly useful in identifying the weaknesses of the company and thereby highlighting the different domains which require information during the deploying of changes. Lewis model doe not find any realistic connections between the different components of the organizations and mainly incorporates the stages of transitions and how changes are made. However this model makes sure that every aspect of the company supports the others thereby helping in developing a formidable business plan which is not only strong but also flexible for further changes (Singh, 2013). This model is helpful for running small operations with few employees but is snot suitable for massive changes like that of the Lewin model. The 7 s model requires huge time to asses every elements of the company which is highly time consuming and resource are required for that. This characteristic is quite similar to the Lewin models as that also requires huge amount of time for analysis and implementation.
Introduction to McKinsey 7s Model
Massive changes may take place when an organization recruits a new CEO. With the recruitment of the new CEO, there is a high chance of the entire working system of the organization to change. The new CEO may have a totally different plan of managing a company and meeting its profits. Therefore it is not impossible that the organization has altogether new working system which may be due to the necessity of certain threats to the organization. Here the new CEO may incorporate the Lewin model which helps in managing massive changes that occur on a large scale. This may start form changing the objectives of the company, to that of developing new rules, aligning employees to them, setting new mission and many others. This takes place on a larger scale. On the other hand, let one assume a scenario where huge amount of attrition rate is affecting the company because the strategy, system and structure of the working framework are not aligning with the skills of the workers (Wright et al. 2013). Due to exhaustion and job stress and lack of incentives, large number of people is leaving the jobs. Hence, here the manager needs to apply the Mckinsey’s 7s model where he should try to analyze the interactions between the mentioned factors and try to implement changes which will establish a stable relationship among the different factors. Thereby one can successfully implement models according to the requirements of the situations.
Conclusions:
Different models of change management are applied by managers when there is an urgent requirement of modifications in the organizations to meet the goals and to increase productivity. The Lewin model and The McKinsey 7-S model are two such theories. However different researchers have found out different positive and negative aspects of the theories. These are very important for the managers to know so that they can correctly apply them in proper situations. Change management is an important situation that every company has to inculcate in times of need and therefore it becomes the duty of the change agents to be knowledgeable about the processes and implement them properly for best efforts.
References:
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