Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Organisational Change
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction....................................................................................................... 2
2. Resistance to Change........................................................................................ 2
3. Issues around Managing Organisational Change...............................................3
3.1 Perception Barriers....................................................................................... 3
3.2 Emotional Barriers........................................................................................ 3
3.3 Cultural Barriers........................................................................................... 3
3.4 Environmental Barriers................................................................................. 3
3.5 Cognitive Barriers......................................................................................... 4
4. Levins Model for Change Management.............................................................5
4.1 Unfreeze....................................................................................................... 5
4.2 Change......................................................................................................... 5
4.3 Refreeze....................................................................................................... 6
5. Conclusion......................................................................................................... 6
References............................................................................................................. 7
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1. Introduction
The organisational change can occur due to two forces: internal forces and external forces
(Graetz et al, 2010). It is essential for the project manager to understand the source for well
preparing for change. The internal forces are those inside the organisation such strategy
change, change in productivity rules/standards, or revolution in quality control standards. In
contrast, external forces refer forces outside the control of an organisation. For example,
economic conditions, inflation, local and federal regulations, and living cost etc.
2. Resistance to Change
The major resistance to change that organisations face today is the employee resistance to
change. It normally results in 10/80/10 rule means that only 10% employees accept change,
80% are confused and the rest of the 10% openly resist the change (Harvard Business School,
2005). In this regard, the human resource manager of Yorkshire House Food (YHF) has a
core responsibility to recognise and understand this situation by keeping in mind that
employees role is important in bringing change. Technology can only support the change
process, but it cannot replace people. Many researchers and theorists highlight six different
factors for resistance to change at employee or personal level. These factors are: social
factors, economic factors, lack of awareness, habit, security, and fear of relationships (Griffin
and Moorhead, 2011).
The human resource and project managers as change agents in YHF can take help from
Murthys (2007) framework for reducing resistance to change. Murthys framework consists
of five following steps to reduce change.
1. Purposeful and meaningful communication between managers and people involved in
the change process. Logically explaining them about the benefits of change;
2. Practically involving employees in the change process for their better understanding;
3. Providing special therapy, training, and support to employees who still resist change;
4. Directly negotiating with employees who are not ready to accept change either due to
some threats or benefits;
5. Moving those employees who still resist change to other projects or departments
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Emotional Barriers
Cultural Barriers
Environmental Barriers
Cognitive Barriers
Other Barriers
Lack of awareness
Economic barriers
Fear of relationships
Job insecurity
Habitual barriers
Sources: Hussey (2000); Alvesson and Sveningsson (2008); and Graetz et al (2010); Griffin and Moorhead (2011)
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4.1 Unfreeze
This first stage is very crucial and stressful for the change agents in YHF because at this stage
they need to prepare the organisation to realise that change is essential. For this purpose, the
managers are required to challenge core values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours of
organisational people (Levin and Ward, 2011). In fact, challenging people and organisation
cores means creating a controlled crisis which can reflect either strong motivation or terrible
disturbance.
4.2 Change
The change phase refers to resolve uncertainty, created in the unfreeze phase, by looking at
new methods of doing the job. The role of change agents is to allow and support people to
adopt innovative methods in order to manage change effectively (Levin, 2012). The change
process is not an overnight process. In fact, organisational people must know about the
benefits of change and pitfalls of resisting the change. In this regard communication, time and
resource management are the key areas to concentrate on.
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4.3 Refreeze
When people have adopted new methods of accomplishing job and change is taking shape,
this is the time for the change agents to refreeze core values, beliefs, and attitudes within the
organisation (Levin and Ward, 2011). In this phase, the change agents in YHF can redevelop
organisation chart and reassign works to people which will consequently incorporate changes
into routine business activities.
The stages and the processes in the Levins model for change management are illustrated in
table 1.2.
Table 1.2 Levins model for change management
Stages
Unfreeze
Steps
Tools/Strategies
Survey
Stakeholder analysis
Stakeholder management
Conflict management
(Anticipate, prevent,
Identify, Manage, Resolve)
5. Frequently communicate
Change
7. Empowering actions
Refreeze
Douglas McGregor's XY
Theory
5. Conclusion
From the above reasoned discussion, it can be concluded that managing change is not an easy
process and contains numerous barriers and resistances to change such as perceptual barriers,
emotional barriers, cultural barriers, environmental barriers, and cognitive barriers. However,
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the change agents in YHF can manage change using an appropriate framework such as
Levins model which is based on three key stages: unfreeze, change, and refreeze. As shown
in table 1.2 that a range of tools and strategies can be employed for the effective
implementation of the model.
References
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S. (2008). Changing Organizational Culture: Cultural Change Work
in Progress. Taylor & Francis
Graetz, F., Rimmer, M, Smith, R. and Lawrence, A. (2010). Managing Organisational Change. John
Wiley & Sons Australia Limited
Griffin, R. W. and Moorhead, G. (2011). Organizational behaviour: Managing people and
organizations. 10th edition, Cengage Learning
Harvard Business School (2005). The Results-driven Manager: Managing Change to Reduce
Resistance. Harvard Business School Press
Hussey, D. E. (2000). How to manage organisational change. 2nd edition, Kogan Page Publishers
Levin, G. (2012). Program Management: A lifecycle approach. CRC Press
Levin, G. and Ward, J. L. (2011). Program Management Complexity: A Competency Model. Taylor &
Francis
Murthy, P. R. (2007). Production and Operations Management. New Age International
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