Discuss organisational change and the impact of change on organisation if not properly planned. Explain what can be done to minimise any resistance to change.
In this modern era, organizations and companies undergo rapid changes like never before. Globalization has brought with it increased markets and opportunities for growth and development. But big and diverse markets results to varied needs and expectations that must be factored in for employees, customers and collaborators satisfactions. Therefore, the organizations must undergo changes to meet the changing expectations, and this is the skills needed from today’s leaders and managers. The changes have been formulated by Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist to take place in three stage process.
The first step, unfreezing stage is very important for leadership and management team, because it is necessary in preparing the workers and the entire organization to get ready for the planned change. It enables every one to be ready for the change and in a way help to curb future conflicts. Thus in this stage, the aspired leadership style and good management skills are evaluated to weigh on the benefits and weaknesses likely to occur.
The second stage is changing, a process that is sometimes referred to as transition. The aspired leadership and management style will take place through a process that allows people to react to the changes. This stage is probably the hardest since people are moving from known to unknown, thus it needs patience and understanding as people learn the new changes.
The final stage, known as refreezing gives people an opportunity to accept the implemented changes and make them as the new norms. During this stage people become familiar with the changed leadership style, management level and conflict resolution skills. It takes time for people to develop comfort in this final stage.
If change is not properly planned, there will be fears and resistance from the employees, and sometimes, the change may result to underperformance from the workers as well as decrease of the expected results and organizations output. However, resistance is easy to curb by simply supporting the workers in addition to giving them time to learn and understand the new changes. Support can be given through coaching, training and expecting, mistakes during the change process.
