Change Management

Dealing with individuals and

groups.
 People and change
 Every change has an impact on people
associated with it.
 Effective and efficient management of
change depends on people who are
actually involved in implementation of
change.
 Organizations are made up of people and
if people within the organization do not
change the organizations can not change.
 People and change
 It is very important for every manager to
understand the human response to change.
 There are three distinct ways by which people
are affected by change.
 First is operational, which refers to alterations in
behaviors. This demands changes from the
routine ways of doing work
 Demands people to learn new method or new
sequence of doing a work
 People and change
 Second is psychological, which relates to
what an employee feels about what he or
she doing.
 Some fear like whether one will be able to
master new skills, or whether he will be
compensated fairly for new responsibility etc
 The third is social, which relates to
alterations in established relationships
among the individuals.
 Changes in formal or informal relationships
 People and change
 Thus people resist change and effective
change management calls for
 Understanding the human response to change
 Overcoming individual and group resistance to
change
 Tuning the organizational change.
 Human response to change
 Individuals both fear and seek change.
 Hence both change as well as stagnation are
resisted.
 Continuity without change leads to stagnation
and hence it results boredom and frustration.
 Change without continuity leads to ambiguity,
conflict and stress.
 Thus change can be an opportunity or a threat.
 Human response to change
 Change to many individuals may be
learning new skills, acquiring new
relationships, by abandoning earlier habit
patterns.
 Individuals may not resist change. But
what they resist is imposition of change.
So when change is felt by an individual
(internal) it is easy to change than being
imposed by others (external).
 Human response to change
 Change is always threat when done to
people, but an opportunity when done by
people.
 Change is intensely personal
 Change give rise to emotions which could
be positive or negative.
 The best strategy for managing change is
to make people choose change.
 Change and employee attitude
 Attitude continuum

Aggressive Passive Passive Active

Neutral
Resistance Resistance Acceptance Involvement
 Change and employee attitude
 Individuals may develop different types of
attitudes towards change.
 Pareto principle holds good for attitude to
change also-80% of resistance to change
in organizations may come form 20% of
people.
 Majority of the people belong to neutral
category.
 Change and employee attitude
 Aggressive resistance-Complaining, criticism,
non cooperation, Withdrawal, Counter control
activities, sabotage.
 Passive resistance- fake sympathy, spreading of
rumors, reluctance to cooperate, delaying
change implementation.
 Neutral- Cats on the wall, May tilt to either side
depending on what is advantageous to them.
 Change and employee attitude
 Passive acceptance- Accept the need for change
but may not fully accept the way it is
implemented, or work behind the scene and
support change, Watch/wait before expressing
full support, may not support directly due to
peer group pressure.
 Active involvement- highly positive about
intended change, try to convince others for
change, wants to learn new skills, try out new
things, innovators.
 Why individuals resist change?
 Personal Loss
 Job security-workforce reduction, elimination of jobs.
 Salary and income-reduction in salary, pay benefits,
and overtime allowances.
 Pride and satisfaction-current skills may become
obsolete, or of less importance.
 Job nature-job may become either simple or more
complex, necessitates new procedures and methods,
need for new skills, increased work load.
 Why individuals resist change?
 Personal Loss
 Friendship and associations-Need to move to
another location, working with new people,
separation from close associates.
 Freedom to do the job the way one has been
doing- Increase in supervision, increased
responsibilities.
 Negative attitudes-Towards organization
or superiors, lack of trust, earlier bitter
experiences.
 Why individuals resist change?
 Lack of involvement- No participation in
decisions related to change, Lack of first hand
information about the change, Opinions are not
sought.
 Personal criticism-Questioning of one’s
capability, performance, challenge to authority.
 Loss of status and authority-Relegation of job to
lower level in the hierarchy, loss of power.
 Why individuals resist change?
 Inappropriate timing-People are loaded with
work.
 Cognitive rigidity-Belief that old practices that
are evolved over time still the best.
 Challenging authority-want to challenge boss as
one do not like him
 Discomfort with uncertainty-people are not
aware of significant details of new state and it
leads to ambiguity or uncertainty and they are
not comfortable at this state of mind.
 Why individuals resist change?
 Attachment to established culture-People may
feel threat to established beliefs, values, and
artifacts.
 Perceived breach of psychological contract-
Employees form belief as to the nature of
reciprocal relationship between them and their
employer and it is called psychological contract.
People may feel that there may be breach or
violation of this contract due to changes that
may be brought in.
 Why individuals resist change?
 Lack of conviction that the change is needed-
Good track record of success, lack of visible
crisis, feel that no need of any change at all.
 Lack of clarity to what is expected
 Belief that proposed change is inappropriate
 Excessive change-Several change initiatives at
once results in initiative fatigue, burnout etc.
 Cumulative effect of other changes in one’s own
life-changes not related to employment
 Why individuals resist change?
 Perceived clash with ethics
 Reaction to the experience of previous
changes
 Disagreement with the way change is
being made
 Selective perception
 Fear of unknown
 Resentment towards the initiators
 Why people accept change
 Change results in benefits in terms what an
individual values
 Increased job security-Both job and occupant
become more important
 Increased monetary and other benefits-
Increased salary, perks, better working
conditions, opportunities for more personal
contacts.
 Personal satisfaction-more interesting job, more
challenging, easier job with better performance
 Opportunity to contribute more
 Assessing employee attitude to
change
 Helps to determine employees readiness
to change
 Helps to classify individuals on the basis of
attitudinal continuum.
 Quantitative methods-Survey research
methods using questionnaires, interviews,
and observation methods.
 Qualitative methods- Analysis of rumors,
opinion polls from leaders.