CHAPTER 10: LEADING CHANGE IN ORGANIZATION

Effective leadership is needed to revitalize an organization and facilitate adaptation to a

changing environment. Nine major reason for resistance to change include lack of trust,
belief that change is not necessary, belief that the change is not feasible, economic threats,
relative high cost, fear of personal failure, loss of status and power, threat to value and ideals,
resentment of interference.
There are 3 important stages in the change process, including unfreezing,
changing, and refreezing. Firstly, in the unfreezing phase, people come realize that the old
ways of doing things are no longer adequate. This recognition may occur as a result of an
obvious crisis, or it may result from an effort to describe threat or opportunities not evident to
most people in the organization. Secondly, in the changing phase, people look for new ways
of doing things as well as try to find an appropriate method. The last is the refreezing phase
when the new approach is implemented, and it becomes established. Understanding each
of these change processes helps leaders guide and facilitate change. There are 2 approaches
as driving forces toward change and reducing restraining forces that create resistance to
change.
Also, there are 4 stages of reaction to change: denial, anger, mourning, and adaptation.
Understanding these stages is important for leaders, who must learn to be patient and helpful.
Organizational change has different types: the attitude-centered approach and rolecentered approach. The attitude-centered approach involves changing attitudes and values
with persuasive appeals, training programs and team-building activities, or a culture change
program. The role-centered approach involves changing work roles by reorganizing the
workflow, redesigning jobs to include different activities.
The changes in organization culture can indirectly influence the motivation and
behavior of organization. Organization culture involves assumption, belief and values that
are shared by member of a group or organization. Culture in new organizations is embedded
easier than one in mature organization. First, culture can be influence by several aspects of a
leaders behavior, including examples set by the leader what the leader attends to and how
the leader react to crises. The programs and systems is also an important factor which
improve formal budgets, planning sessions, reports, performance review procedures as well
as management development programs can be used emphasize some values and beliefs about
proper behavior. The final one is the leaders react to crises.
In order for people to support the radical change, the need to develop a vision for a
better future is totally important to justify the sacrifices and hardships of which the change
will be require. Vision coveys an image of what the company can be achieved in future and
this links the past event to present strategies to a vivid image of a better future for the
organization. The vision is usually created in a progressive, interactive process involving key
stakeholders. Therefore, vision must include strong ideological, simple and idealistic content
that appeals to organization members shares values and ideals concerning customers,
employees and the mission of the organization.
The mission statement usually describes the purpose of the organization in terms of
the type of activities to be performed for constituents or customers. The core of the vision
is the organizations mission. The value statement is a list of the key value or ideological
themes considered important for an organization. A value statement provides a

good beginning for developing a more complete vision. The slogan is the statement
used to summarize and communicate values in simple terms. The strategic objectives are
tangible outcomes or results to be achieve, sometime by a specific deadline. In general, the
guideline for formulating a compelling vision includes involving key stakeholders,
identifying shared values and ideas as well as strategic objectives with wide appeal,
identifying relevant elements in the old ideology, linking the vision to core competencies
and prior achievements, evaluating the credibility of the vision, and finally continually
assessing and refining the vision.
A leader can do many things to facilitate the successful implementing major change.
Guidelines to implement changes include (1) creating a sense of urgency about the need
for change, (2) communicating a clear vision of benefits to be gained from change, (3)
identifying likely supporters and opponents; (4) building a broad coalition to support change;
(5) using task forces to guide the implementation of change; (6) filling key positions with
competent change agents; (7) empowering competent people to help plan and implement the
change and (8) monitoring the progress of change to detect problems that require
attention. Besides, other actions includes (9) making symbolic changes that affect work,
(10) preparing people for change by explaining how it will affect them, (11) helping
people deal with the stress and difficulties of major change, (12) providing
opportunities for early successes to build confidence; (13) monitoring the progress of change
and make any necessary adjustments; (14) keeping people informed about the progress of
change; and (15) demonstrating continued optimism and commitment to the change.
The environment of most organization is becoming increasing dynamic and
competitive; competition is becoming more intense; customer expectations are rising; less
time is available to develop and market new products and services; and the consumer are also
more intelligent. To succeed in this turbulent environment, organization needs to have people
at every level who are oriented toward learning and continuous improvement. Because
organization learning involves acquiring and using new knowledge, the new knowledge can
be created internally or acquired from the outside the organization. After new knowledge is
acquired, it must be conveyed to the people who need it and applied to improve the
organizations products, services and work processes. Individual leader can do many things to
encourage and facilitate learning and innovation in the organization.
In organizations, the value of learning, innovation, experimentation, flexibility and
initiative are firmly. Therefore, leaders should develop and refine shared conceptual tool and
mental models for understanding how things work, how to adapt to the environment, and how
to achieve the organizations objective. The leaders at all levels can help to create conditions
favorable to learning and innovation through using the guidelines for increasing learning and
innovation: encourage appreciation for flexibility and innovation, encourage and facilitate
learning by individuals and teams, help people improve their mental model, leverage learning
from surprise and failures, encourage and facilitate sharing of knowledge and ideas, set
innovation goals, and reward entrepreneurial behavior.