Phase 3 Discussion Board

Joel Negron

Colorado Technical University Online

HRMT440-X-1502B-02 Managing Organizational Change

June 3, 2015

Professor: David G. Gliddon

Change within the Organization

Despite all the rhetoric, books, effort, and money thrown into change efforts, most

organizational change efforts fail (Stanleigh, n.d.). Change can be a challenging, and confusing

moment within many organizations. During my work experience, I’ve experienced some change

initiatives that where successful, and one of them was in part lead by me. At the time my office

was working as three divisions; network operations, telecommunications department, and

helpdesk. These divisions were successful during normal operations. During the past years

we’ve been having to work with new project developments, and project management tasks. This

additional workload was not being handled by a single section, but rather it was being divided,

and completed without any direct guidance. In order to successfully manage all of the upcoming

projects, I suggested to management to create a projects section with key personnel from the

existing areas. This change initiative would create a new structure within the organization, and it

would also remove employees from their accustomed work positions. The transition of this

change was taken slow, and employees participated in several challenging trainings, before being

organized into a team officially. The main reason the change initiative was a successful in my

point of view, was the time we spent in training together, since this created a team cohesion and
trust. The change model explains that employees move through “phases of denial, resistance,

exploration and commitment when a change occurs” (Stanleigh, n.d.). Our change initiative was

so smooth that it almost seemed that we moved from denial, straight into commitment.

However, too often, management fails to recognize that adjustment to change takes time

(Stanleigh, n.d.). Not every change is successful, and one of those changes within my

organization involved restructuring the helpdesk section. Within the helpdesk section there were

only team leaders, but no management was physically present at their office. Management

wanted to move a manager into the helpdesk office, in order to modify their operations, and

make them more efficient. This change was done without informing the employees within the

office. The manager showed up one day, and told everyone how it was, and actually moved

people around from their offices in order to take one for himself. As you can imagine this wasn’t

taken kindly by the employees, since they felt unappreciated by management, since no one was

informed. I can honestly say that I believe that it has been six months since this change

occurred, and most of the employees are still in the denial phase of the change model.

In my first example, managers took the time to properly inform employees of the vision,

and purpose behind the change. They provided adequate time for the team to build a bond, and

learn to trust each other. Not only was time given, but they were sent in a group training to learn

the skills required from their new position. This type of approach usually renders good results.

On the other hand, my second example showed managers forcing change upon employees, and

not properly engaging them about the purpose, or vision behind the change. In both cases the

change was directed by the same managers, but in the successful example, leaders between the

managers developed a plan that would help the team be successful. As mentioned by Michael

Stanleigh in his article, “Each change is different, each organization is different and each
department is different”, thus every change needs to be thought of individually and thoroughly.

I’m aware that as I progress in my career, I will fail in some change initiatives, but I will also

learn from them, in order to be more efficient the next time.

References

Stanleigh, M. (n.d.). Effecting Successful Change Management Initiatives. Retrieved June 4,

2015, from

http://www.bia.ca/articles/EffectingSuccessfulChangeManagementInitiatives.htm