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adaptive”
Jong-Yong Yun
CEO of Samsung
Introduction
Hence the organization will constantly scan their internal and external
environments to establish work settings that encourage and reward individual
innovation, growth, and development, while avoiding radical, infrequent yet
disruptive large-scale change.
‘Change Agent’ a term that is widely used to describe a person or group that
facilitates change through interventions in group and organizations which has its
roots in the field of organizational development. At an earlier time, change agent
was considered as a person who facilitate positive learning, change, and
development (Sullivan, 2005).
Later Cumming and Worley (2005) elaborated that a change agent “as a
person who make an effort to change some aspect of an organization or an
environment. Change agents can be someone from inside an organization and
identified as an internal consultant, or they may come from outside an organization,
in which they are referred as an external consultant.” This identified person or group
will be trained to acquire needed skill to handle change in the organization.
Sullivan, (2012) further add that a change agent is an individual who has
formal or informal legitimate power and whose purpose is to direct and guide change
promoting a vision and rationale for the change. Often time an individual that play
the role of leader will take the charge or responsibility. Researcher have realized
that often the behaviour of the leaders can successfully influence staff action.
Hence as change agent i.e. leaders and managers are responsible for change
strategy, implementation, and monitoring (Kanter, Stein, & Jick, 1992).
Recently, Peter Drucker a has put forward a new approach in defining the
change agent and brought the term to a new level. He said that we can already
foresee the future is taking shape in unpredicted way. Hence to survive and succeed,
organizations will have to become the change agents (Sullivan W. J., 2005). For
example, Nokia was the leading cell phone maker but the lost it leads to Apple,
Motorola and Samsung when it resisted change in producing more competitive cell
phone model which the other players did. Therefore, failure to change swiftly and
adaptive towards changing environment is catastrophic. (Daft, 2010)
In the end, leaders in the organization need to play central and persistence
role in facing the challenge of managing changes, and acquiring effective leadership
skill become vital and the organization need to constantly backing the changes in
order to remain competitive (Gilley, McMillan, & Gilley, 2009). For a large
organization engaging with external change agent such as private consultant is
preferred because of the fact this group or individual are not bounded by
organization culture, politics, or traditions. These allows them to bring a new
perspective to the situation and challenge the status quo. However, this may not be
the case since this external change agent lacks in grasping organizations history,
core business and their personnel’s (Lunenburg, 2010).
Thus, to pacify the internal and external resistance, author as change agent
will be team up with internal coordinator that is know well the organization related
information thoroughly and make the change possible.
Recent few studies have explored and identified different type of change
agent based on their attribute and approaches in implementing the change. There
are four different type of change agents (table 1) i.e. Outside Pressure type,
People Change Technology type, Analysis for the Top, and Organization
Development.
Based on several previous research many change agents adopt the role of
analysis for the top and organization development type when implementing changes
in organization. Nonetheless the author will adopt people change technology type it
is preferred by employees with less resistances.
Author also understand that change agent regardless whether internal or
external agent plays three distinctive roles i.e. consultant, trainer and researcher
(diagram 1).
Consultant
connects employees with data
from outside the organization
or generate data from within
the organization and analyse
it to find solutions for
problems
Trainer Researcher
facilitates organization trains organization
members derive members in the skills
implications for action needed for valid
from the present data evaluation of the
and provide organization effectiveness of action
members with a new set plans that have been
of skills—the ability to implemented will design
retrieve, translate, and an evaluation
use new data to solve component that can be
future problems used in solving not only
the current problem but
also future problems
Author anticipate that victory of any change effort depends heavily on the
quality and workability of the relationship between the change agent and the key
decision makers within the organization (Lunenburg, 2010). By applying the above
mentioned role and type, author as a change agent will be able to produce balancing
act and excite the whole organization towards new desired direction change.
Identifying the reasons for the resistance is complicated since it can take
many shapes and looks. In spite of the fact that change is executed for positive
reasons such as adjusting to volatile environment conditions and enduring
competitive, employees repeatedly react to change efforts negatively and resist
change. Leaders and manager have the tendency to imply narrow view that
resistance is a way employee pursuing their own agenda without taking in
consideration about the future of the organizations. Therefore, solely putting the
blame on the individual employee perspective. But based recent development,
change experts have put forward a more complex, dynamic and system approach to
ascertain resistance. This in other hand emphasizes resistance is triggered by an
interaction between change recipients, change agents, and the relationships
between the two (Kinicki & Fugate, 2018).
The following are the common reasons for resistance to change within
organizations among others are (Zafar & Naveed, 2014): -
1. Lack of Communication
employees are not communicated properly why change is implement
in organization, how it will work, what approaches will use, therefore
the employee will think that their status quo will also be changed
4. Organizational structure
unsupportive organizational structure, poor management problems
and fails to define the hierarchy level in organization for change
implementation
5. Limited resources
Inadequate resources may lead to abandon the desired changes
One of the common organizational change approach are scaling down the
organizational structure and reducing the number of employee. This approach will
not favour the employee, because some of them will be laid off and the retained
one will be required to absorb the current workload including any new additional
task. Furthermore, there will be less promotional opportunity made available which
will not be taken lightly by the employees. Under such situation their performance
will be affected and sense of revolt will be manifest throughout the organization if
not cleverly tackle by the leaders and managers.
In some organization resistance can be translated as declining in level of
creativity, commitment, performance and job satisfaction. In long run if this issue
allowed to persist then organization will suffer badly. All this factor very much
related to how good the leaders (change agent) able to maintain and provide the
environment which is conducive for the employees (Chen, Hou, & Fan, 2009). If the
employees sensed the workplace atmosphere is high degree of challenge,
involvement and trust, they feel motivated and committed to making contributions.
However, if employees feel the environment is vague, low tolerance of uncertainty,
less freedom and idea time for work, they become hesitate to take risk, and thus
less motivated and committed to making contributions (Isken et al. 2001).
Therefore, we can arrive to a conclusion that organizational change can
affect practically all aspect of the organizational operations i.e.: - organizational
structure, culture, strategies, control systems, groups and teams, and human
resource management system. This also include critical organizational processes
such as communication, motivation, and leadership (George, 2015).
Change agent can utilise several approaches to manage change while able to
minimizes resistance in the organization. Many change experts have developed
models that can be used to better understand the change and its relation to
organizations. In generality most change experts agreed upon that awareness on
need for change is a most fundamental and to certain extend crucial step in ensuring
change kick-start in desired manner and achieve intended future for the
organization. Then a thorough analysis of current situation need to done before start
implementing the planned changed.
The success in implementing the change is depending on individual
involvement in working together in realising the change. For example, involvement
of HR professional, who is familiar with the organizational culture and employee’s
behaviour can contribute to the success of the planned change. Therefore, three
commonly used change model will be further discussed as author chooses this model
to implement the change instead many other models. The reason being this models
have shown evident successfully applied in organizational change because of its
simplicity, that’s make easy to understand and implement.
Lewin’s 3 step model for change is one of the most important theories in
understanding the organizational change. It was developed by Kurt Lewis a German-
American psychologist in 1947. Lewin suggested that change take place only because
of two different forces, the internal force (individual personal needs) and external
force induced or imposed by the environment. His ideology was to find a way to
make change permanent and at the same time prevent individual employees revert
back to their old habit but sticking to new habits (Mills, Dye, & Mills, 2009). There
3-step model – unfreeze, change, re-freeze is show as framework below:
Figure: Lewin’s framework for change
Using Lewis 3-step model, John Kotter developed a comprehensive model for
implementing change in organizations. He firstly analyses all the mistake and wrong
approaches that leaders and managers commit while implementing change in
organization. Based on the Kotter created eight sequential steps to overcome these
problems as shown in the list below: (Robbins & Judge, 2018)
1. Creating a Sense of Urgency
Establish a sense of urgency by creating a compelling reason for why
change is needed.
2. Building a Core Coalition
Form a coalition with enough power to lead the change.
3. Developing a Strategic Vision
Create a new vision to direct the change and strategies for achieving
the vision.
4. Involving Everyone in the plan
Communicate the vision throughout the organization.
5. Reducing Obstacles
Empower others to act on the vision by removing barriers to change
and encouraging risk taking and creative problem solving.
6. Focusing on Short-term Wins
Plan for, create, and reward short-term “wins” that move the
organization toward the new vision.
7. Keeping the Momentum Going
Consolidate improvements, reassess changes, and make necessary
adjustments in the new programs.
8. Add some Stability
Reinforce the changes by demonstrating the relationship between new
behaviours and organizational success.
If the both Lewis and Kotter model analysed closely, a conclusion can be made
that Kotter’s first four steps more or less resembles Lewin’s “unfreezing” stage.
Steps 5 to 7 represent “change,” and the step 8 works on “refreezing.” In conclusion
author believes that Kotter’s 8 step has given better understanding on what and how
the leaders and managers can tackle issue while implementing change while it was
lacking in Lewis 3-step approaches. This model is formulated for leading change, not
managing it thus it’s the organisation top management obligation to provide the
required support for change to succeed. Therefore, author agrees that this model
serves as good reference guide and steer the organization in finding their own steps
on their change initiatives, making it more appropriate for their desires. (Blomqvist,
2017)
ADKAR Model
Awareness
As a first step, it focuses on individual to see the problems in the old ways of
doing things and understands what can be the consequence if the change does not
happen. This is because most of resistance to change arises due to the fact lack of
awareness among the people why is being made and needed. If all this information
is made available and communicated, resistance can be managed.
Desire
Once the individual has awareness on the needed change, nevertheless the
obstacle will be to make them have desire towards the changes planned. A person
who don’t have may have the knowledge why the change is needed but may not
support the change initiatives. This is due to the fact the organization doesn’t have
or have narrow grip on individual’s choice. Therefore, by paying more attention to
the factor’s that would result in intended desire to change is crucial and important
for the organization to make ADKAR model a successful venture.
Knowledge
The individual needs to understand and knows how to execute the change,
Therefore, providing them with training, education on the needed new skills,
information on the new processes, systems and tools and information on the new
roles and responsibilities that the change will bring, the individual then can engage
in transformation process.
Ability
Ability offers the individuals how to execute the change and reach the desired
outcome. Once an individual has the knowledge and aware and desires to make the
change, they need to have the ability to make the changes. To achieve success in
this step organisations, need to give time to the employees by providing with
sufficient coaching and training and allows constant feedback both ways.
Reinforcement
Final and crucial step is to maintaining the change that have taken place. To
make change stay and preventing the individuals revert to their old habits needs
time. Therefore, strong reinforcement efforts needed in order to make individuals
stick to the change initiatives until its sustained and become part of organisational
culture.