THE NEED TO UNDERSTAND CHANGE

INTRODUCTION Organizational change is the essence of adaptation and innovation. People and organizations need to be flexible in order to respond to changes in the environment or otherwise, take advantage of them. Often, the need for change overlooked. Lulled into the false sense of security, they plod along in their old ways. They fail to make the corresponding adjustments to environmental changes until they suffer in mediocrity or lose their competitive edge entirely. Eventually, the result is organizational failure. As the necessity for change looms larger than ever, a more positive attitude toward it is essential. Managers need to plan and control change to give direction and consistency to it. As change agents, their aim is to raise the level of performance by people and group. Managers must themselves be open to continuous change if they are able to cause change in others. Complacency is the enemy of effectiveness. In order for people or organizations to succeed, they must be willing and able to change. Changing for the better seems nothing else will suffice. The role of the manager is to manage change skillfully.

THE NATURE OF CHANGE A change is any shift or alteration in the present state of a system or in work environment. The shift or change may be in a way we perceive things or in how items are organized, processed, created, or maintained. Every individual and organization experiences change. In social organizations, change is initiated, implemented and maintained to achieve a new and higher level of performance by the system. Changing involves the deliberate introduction and management of discontinuity. The purpose is to increase the organizations level of adaptation to its environment.

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Dimensions of Change The three Major Areas of Change: Strategic Change. In the course of business operations it is necessary to change the strategy to achieve goals or even to change the mission of the organization. Changing the mission of the organization in essence results in changing the culture. Organizations that decide to focus on a single mission often need to change the mission and divest themselves of unrelated business. Structural Change Organizations often find it necessary to change the structural design of the company. As the plans change the organization changes. But structural design also relates to other areas of structure. When a company changes its procedures, policies, and rules it is changing its structure. This includes policies in employment, pay, and evaluation, and the procedures associated with vacations, grievances, and sick leave. People-Centered Change This type of change focuses on changing the attitudes, behaviors, skills, or performance of employees in the company. In changing the skills and performance of employees this can be done through training, replacing present employees, or increasing the job performance expectations of new hires. SOURCES/FORCES OF CHANGE An organization may find it necessary to change for a number of different reasons. These reasons surface from outside the company and inside the company. External Sources of Change External source of change may include technology, competition, government actions, economic variables, and social values. Government regulations on health, safety, and the conduct of business affect an organization. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines that have been enacted that influencing hiring, pay, training, and promotion decisions. Tax Law Change. Economic conditions, such as recession, inflation, and interest rates are sources of changes. Lastly, the cultural changes in such areas as modes of dress, reasons for people working, composition of workforce, and changes in traditional female and male roles can affect the organizational environment.
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Internal Sources of Change Internal sources of change might include managerial policies and styles, systems, and procedures; technology; and employee attitudes, with their resultant behavior. Example, if a manager develops a new set of expectations for job performance, this change will influence the values and behaviors of the employees affected. The employees could adapt to these expectations or resist them.

IDENTIFYING THE NEED FOR CHANGE How do an organization know that there is a need for a change? The management must be sensitive to the external sources of change. They will able to see the need for change through diagnosis. Diagnosing the need for change: Phase 1: Creativity. This is the birth stage of an organization. It is marked by concerns for product and market, informal and internal relationships, and an entrepreneurial style of management. But soon the need for capital, new products, new markets, and new employees forces the organization to change. A crisis of leadership occurs when management becomes incapable of reacting to the demands for structure as it grows. The organization enters a new phase. Phase 2: Direction. This phase is characterized by the implementation of rules, regulations, and procedures. Additionally, a functional organization structures is introduced; an accounting system for inventory and purchases is created; incentives, budgets, and work standards are established; and communications become more informal and impersonal. Eventually, there is a demand by lowerlevel managers for greater delegation in decision-making. This prompts another crisis and a change in organization. Phase 3: Delegation. Decentralization is the key to this phase. This is shown by greater accountability being exacted form territorial managers, profit centers being created, top-level management beginning to practice management by exception (the conscious decision by a manager to enter into a situation on a needs basis), and communication from top-level management becoming infrequent. A crisis occurs when top management senses that is losing control over the organization. This leads to another major change.

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Phase 4: Coordination. Management now attempts to seize control by emphasizing coordination. The organization is characterized by the merging of decentralized work units, the introduction of formal organizationwide planning, the increased exercise of control by staff personnel, and the restricting of capital expenditures. This phase is achieved at the price of red tape. Distance develops between line and staff personnel and between headquarters and field staffs. Paperwork bogs down the organization, and new crisis takes place. Phase 5: Collaboration. This phase introduces a more people-oriented and flexible system. Change produces more spontaneity in managing. Characteristics include team action to solve problems, reduction of headquarters staff in number, modification of formal systems, and encouragement of an attitude toward risk taking and innovation.

ORGANIZATION OBSOLESCENCE One of the reasons why organizations change is because of obsolescence. Change accelerating rapidly in our society; revolutions are occurring in technological, communications, political, scientific, and institutional areas. Both cultural and technological changes appear to be irresistible. In the past years, the amount of technological change has been greater than in the past two hundred thousand years. In technological obsolescence. As old knowledge and product has become obsolete new knowledge is developed. These days, knowledge quickly becomes obsolete, and organizations can become obsolete just as quickly. For example, for thousands of years the wheel was the most advanced invention in transportation. But during that time, relatively little improvement was made on it, thus it evolved from being solid to having spokes; then, a few years, transportation progress from buggies to automobiles and even to rockets to the moon and probes to Mars and Venus. Also, the transistors replaced the vacuum tube, which was replaced more rapidly by microchips in the modern world of computer technology. In personnel obsolescence. A dramatic shift in labor force is occurring as the country becomes highly urbanized. The educational level of the population is steadily rising. The younger, more mobile, more highly educated labor force has shown the increasing desire to do its own thing. Many workers are less interested in money as such and more concerned about opportunities for autonomy, personal choice, and freedom, about the quality of work life. Managers deals with the
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better-educated and younger workers who do not readily accept outmoded styles of management. PLANNED / REACTIVE CHANGE Planned or Pro-active when the organization are forward looking. They initiate changes in anticipation of pressure in the future, the people in organization has the desire for creativity, innovation, and imagination for the excellence of their performance as well as the organization, also pro-active organizations seem as changing their environment as well as themselves. Reactive the internal changes are made in response to external forces. The technological, economic, social, and political environment of the firm changes. Markets and industries develop, grow, and mature. Industry competitors come and go, increasing or decreasing the intensity competition. All of these require appropriate responses from the organization or it will simply be left behind. Structure of industry competition is the primary source of external pressures in which the organization can develop a new strategy, restructure the organization, acquire new technology, introduce new products or services, or it can change the behavior of the people involve in organization. - End References: Management of Human Behavior in Organization Second Edition: By: Concepcion Rodil Martires/Galileo S. Fule Introduction to Management Fourth Edition, By: Plunkett/Attner Management Sixth Edition, By: James A. F. Stoner, R. Edward Freeman, Daniel R. Gilbert, Jr. Organizational Behavior Human Behavior on Work 9th Edition: By: John W. Newstrom/Keith Davis Management: Concepts and Situations By: Howard M. Carlisle
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