Management and Acceptance of Organisational Change

Overview

Managing and accepting change are two different areas. Everyone has to accept change for it to succeed, including managers. Managers, however, have a role in assisting others to accept and successfully implement change. Change can be particularly hard for managers, because they must go through the acceptance phase personally - and often quickly - before they begin to assist others.

Let's read more about management and acceptance of organisational change.

Resistance and involvement

Resistance to change is often linked to self-esteem. People with low self-esteem may fear that they can't cope with the new situation that change will bring. They may fear that they will lose what they have worked for.

On the other hand, people with high self-esteem may resent the change if they have ideas and suggestions but are not consulted.

Clearly, it makes sense to involve people when determining what to change and how to do it. Involvement and participation are communication strategies. People need feedback, encouragement, and reassurance that they are valued by the organisation. They may also need an opportunity to undertake development to bridge skill gaps.

You can make a similar link between involvement and resistance when it comes to security. Many change programmes create fear about job security. People may also fear their job will be devalued. People need an opportunity to voice their fears and to receive feedback that reduces future uncertainty.

The change process

The reality is that change is a political process. It's a selling process. It is also possible, and usually desirable, to introduce a degree of rationality into the process.

The steps in the process will determine where the process fits on the consultation-confrontation continuum. For example, interventions and other steps could provide opportunities for extensive participation. People might find opportunities to collect and learn from information, change their values and attitudes, and make and consolidate changes.

Some authorities call this unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. They point out that most failures occur in the unfreezing stage: people just don't see the need to change. They don't have enough information and they don't have good reasons to change.

Involve or tell methodologies

Another way of thinking about change methodologies is that they are either

• involving those affected, or
• telling those affected.

Both involve attitudes, behaviour, and structure but in different sequences:

• Involve: change attitudes -> change behaviour -> change structure.
• Tell: change structure -> change behaviour -> change attitudes.

Most evidence supports the second of these two approaches. That is, first change the structure, which will bring about change in behaviour, which will lead to a change in attitudes. However, many favour the first approach, because it is more participative.

Changing structure

Structural intervention has probably lost some of its former popularity. Don't be too quick to discard this approach, however, as it may well be appropriate. It depends on the situation. For example, if an organisation is making increasing use of processes that flow horizontally across functions, why persist with traditional hierarchical functions? Why not organise around processes?

Structural interventions can include redesigning jobs, reducing the number of levels, changing levels of authority, and altering reporting arrangements. Just think of all the potential for resistance!