Implications on Managing Organizational and Personal Change for Organizational Practice
Overview
In an organization where people are striving to achieve a particular goal, there exists collision of strategies instituted by individuals towards perfecting a given task. Managers and junior employees utilize the learned expertise to perform a given task, a situation that culminates in acrimony especially if either of the individual models performs dismally below expectations. Such collisions are the hindrances to change management in the organization. Change in an organization is presumed to be inevitable especially if it emanates from the looming threats from competitors or economic demands. The senior management takes the lead to instigate appropriate changes to be implemented by the junior employees in collaboration with the management. However, organizational functions face the challenge of individual stance where employees cling to their old ways at the expense of modern adaptations to positive change. According to behavioral theorists, people tend to inherit persons or environmental approaches and accommodate them in their way of life.
In an organization, managers and junior employees remain complacent to the current managerial process and resist any force whose intention is to distort the norm. Therefore, change management can only be effected if accommodative measures are formulated to supplement the mechanisms for change by creating an enabling environment for all pertaining parties. In his paradoxical theory, Arnold Beisser emphasized that it would be detrimental to force change to occur in a person or an organization. Rather, a favorable platform would be necessary for change to happen. Further, individual face the dilemma of understanding what “they are” and what they “should be” (Yontef G M & Fuhr R 2005:81). The thin gap between the two rational aspects forms the foundation of change, and the most effective approach to bridge the gap is enabling participatory approach in decision making for all parties.
This paper will delve into the organizational developments in a banking institution and unravel the appropriate techniques to blend personal variations with organizational changes in order to enhance effective management.
Creating an enabling employee Relations
Effective managers believe that employees form the heart of an organization since their input determines an organization’s output. The social welfare of staff is an integral aspect of ensuring that the management advance its strategic objectives and sustain a competitive advantage over market rivals. The psychological aspect of change in employees requires an accommodate style of leadership that engages in understanding the emotions and capabilities of every individual in the bank. Leadership theorists argue that transformational leadership must harmonize affected parties sentiments with the company’s objectives before drafting the final working practice formula for the company’s workforce (Jung 2001). 'Transformational and transactional leadership and their effects on creativity in groups', Creativity Research The bank management bore in mind the influence of life-cycle approach that points out the tendency of social beings to subconsciously inherit the norms of the bank and developing reluctance to adopt new changes.
The behavioral approach has been a hindrance in most companies thus derailing the success of any instituted strategy in an organization. However, it is easier to overcome the challenge if the bank’s management enhanced cordial relationship between executive, departmental managers and the junior employees. Through its bottom-up management strategy, participatory decision-making and policy formulation was the management’s driving force. Senior manager’s role was to facilitate the implementation of suggested propositions by the workers through a selected team of quality coordinators from the staff (Dawson & Cameron 2003). This mechanism reflects the traits of a situational leader who adopts reactive techniques to address the prevailing problem. Leadership theorists believe that a situation problem at work can only be solved if the management focuses on the individual capacity of every worker rather than the attainment of company’s final output. In another perspective, the management adopted the top-bottom approach that induced the influence of senior managers in establishing new managerial strategies. The aim of the methodology was to eliminate information asymmetry and job conflict that exists when two departments share some responsibilities as well as promote organizational development among stakeholders in the bank.
Establishment of quality improvement program
Quality improvement program is a continuous strategic initiative that strives to identify performance loopholes in an organization and instill alternative ways to improve the company’s overall performance. The program aspires to reduce the cost of operation, improve quality products and services as well as point out weak areas that need improvement. Quality improvement program is an accommodative strategy that capitalizes on worker's input and managerial relations in determining the bank’s operation status. Through this program, employees formed the epicenter of performance measurement through their participatory role of suggesting strategic measures necessary to facilitate economic performance of the financial institution. The program aims at creating a sense of ownership to the employees that they were accountable for every commitment they invest in their activities, and the same would reflect in the final output of the bank. An internal team of workers was mandated to conduct the assessment thus rendering the workers as secondary contributors. The approach not to involve employees directly bleeds the adverse effects of complexity theory where workers amass contradictory forces against the change agents based on the mere notion that the principle of equity has not been endorsed. Additionally, conflict interest among the quality indicators and the management inhibits the success of the program. For instance, there was no defined criterion under which the quality indicators were identified among the workers, and the coordinators were selective in implementing their suggestions to the final strategic plan. Quality improvement plan requires equity and impartiality in adopting other party’s sentiments. Moreover, a definite set of parent values and objectives should be weighed against the bank’s performance to enable inclusive formulation alternative improvement techniques to achieve the set goals.
Merging retail Lending banking section
Every business’ objective is to attain reasonable economic profit, quality output, and customer satisfaction under minimum cost. The bank management resolved to harmonize the home loans and personal lending departments without retrenching workers. The noble course was to reduce conflicting interest and overriding of responsibility that resulted in below par performance. Use of Top-bottom approach created a situation of punctuated equilibrium where consultations were reserved for a few departmental representatives at the expense of other workers equal representation welfare. Despite remarkable cost-efficiency in harmonizing the departments, mental and emotional resistance from workers continued to build up. Fredrick Taylor; managerial theorist, demonstrated through his scientific management theory that management is a system that demands coordinated interaction of immediate stakeholders in solving organizational problems.
In My Bank situation, the management recruited new regional lending managers who had no previous experience of the banks performance; a factor that demoralized the workers and created managerial disconnection with departmental managers. The change failed to consider a change as a continuous process whose cycle of events is successively dependent on each other. He claimed that there should be an equal platform where workers should interact with the management without interrupting forces. On the contrary, the bank used regional lending managers who expanded the gap between effective communications (Dawson & Cameron 2003) It would be economically healthy if the management enhanced equal participation in its top-bottom approach in order to foster cohesion and innovative culture in the workplace. For instance, some workers lost motivation when their respected colleagues faced elimination without notice contrary to the banks policy.
Review the case study looking out for Organisational changes, and then analyze that change using models and theories.
Every organization performs its tasks based on a systematic approach that derives its mandate from the outlined ethical principles and the set objectives. Employees inherit these principles and utilize them towards realizing the organization’s goals. These work-cultural beliefs help the workers to integrate harmoniously during decision- making thus enabling the organization to promote an innovative culture of economic efficiency and quality output. According to change management theorists, rational people will continue to think about the present situation and devise advanced approaches to accommodate the dynamic nature of the society. The management at My Bank felt the current operation strategy incurred high operation cost and therefore needed overhaul to institute an efficient strategy that would eliminate waste and improve operations (Dawson & Cameron 2003). Normally, business competitiveness is one of the driving forces of an organization to review its performance strategy. The bank management may have been influenced by failing profits, which act as a reflection of an organization’s economic performance to the stakeholders.
Change theorists cite the reactive force from population ecology where slow rival companies would capitalize on low-receptive organizations thus dominating the market. The management countered the looming market challenge by introducing a quality-improvement program; a continuous managerial approach to assessing organization’s operations and recommend necessary strategies to the problem. The quality improvement program has been hailed as one of the most effective organizational programs especially in the health sector due to its platform of upholding the subjective approach of individuals’ input rather than focusing on the overall output. The essence of every change is communication. The management sought assistance from an outside consultant whose mandate was to enlighten the middle management on the aspired impact of the program in the organization. This was a manifestation of transformational leadership that lay emphasis on involvement of all stakeholders in the process of solving organization problems.
According to Kotter’s N- Step model, Communication of the organization strategy to the stakeholders is essential to promoting cohesion and formidable deliberations to identify the appropriate solutions (Kotter 2001:89). The management strategy to communicate the improvement strategy for the employees portrays its value for the organization’s shared beliefs and cultural aspects. Communicating the intended change to the employees invokes the expression of divergent opinions from the proposers thus prompting the management conduct consultative mechanisms to harmonize all parties. Therefore, listening to the dominant coalition during strategic making is paramount in formulating a comprehensive and acceptable performance strategy. Additionally, identification of quality coordinators among the general staff is a cautious approach to maintaining cohesion at the workplace. It demonstrates the power of victim’s involvement in solving their problems. Their role was confined to facilitating consultation among all workers and devising appropriate recommendations based on the harmonized suggestions. The strategy complements Kotter’s N step model that indicates that management should form a formidable coalition by selecting a high lead team from the staff that would help unravel the ailments of the organization’s dismal performance. For instance, communication and participatory strategic formulation relaxed the adamant stance of several employees who subsequently accepted the initiative, leading to improved performance.
In addition, amalgamation of home loans and consumer loans section was a substantial organizational change meant to eliminate principal-agent problem that result from conflict of job responsibilities. The aim was to dissolve the asymmetrical power relations cited by Radical postmodern theorists whereby conflicting managers exposes the company to performance hiccups leading to weak competitive strategy ( Dawson & Cameron 2003) However, the organizational approach overlooked the precepts of life-cycle approach theory in change management. A business is an interconnected cycle where different departments advance their strategies based on past and current situation. The plan to recruit new regional lending heads to oversee the changes was a subconscious act of the existing rapport with the senior and junior staff. The action ignited the power of dialectical theory where opposing forces prevail when a status quo exists. Further, sacking of obstructing managers contravened Kotter’s N-Step Model that proposes the removal of obstacles to accommodative strategy. Kotter’s noted that the consultation will enable the management to suppress repellant forces and direct them towards forging a common managerial goal.
Unfortunately, change is susceptible to resistance due to party’s divergent opinions and reluctance to adopt new techniques to solve life challenges. Conflicting interests of parties derail the implementation and efficiency of an organization strategy. The bank staff expressed reluctance to adopt the changes with a feeling that the old approach was the best. Dialectical theorists argue that change management system is likely to encounter opposing forces from parties that feel that feel the long-term orientation of the quality improvement program was vague and risky for their future job positions. This challenge is explained through life-cycle approach theory where an organization is alike a toddler that inherits basic characters and inscribes them in performing daily activities. Thus, complacency among workers and the uncertainty about the effectiveness of the program deters the success of quality improvement program in the bank.
Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory explained that the Uncertainty of Avoidance level was likely to be high when an organization introduces a different performance strategy. To counter the resistance, Teleological theory urges organizations to form inclusive rational goals through participatory process of all workers by accommodating their suggestions in the final strategic planning. Unluckily, the bank workers complained that the senior managers never included their recommendations for implementation; a situation that led to demoralization of employees in the bank. Further, replacement of the bottom-up approach with top-bottom approach creates resistance among workers because they were not involved in strategic change. As psychologists state, change is an outcome that cannot achieve Pareto-optimality in the society and therefore dissatisfaction is inevitable. Opposing forces express their dissent at the expense of the performance strategy and consequently affects the overall economic performance the bank.
Discuss how the insight of the change experienced in the case study can contribute to an understanding of the effective management of change in organizations.
Effective change management excels when impartial, ethical principles and organization’s objective exists. Change could be positive or negative and thus demands the need for formidable and active laws that would caution the stakeholders against initiating any misleading act in the company. The bank management ought to have enacted a universal manager-worker engagement platform in order to shield the work environment from demoralization and unnecessary disagreements. For instance, it would be logic for the management to enact bottom-up approach as the sole strategy to institute change management in order to safeguard the cohesive working environment in the bank. Therefore, universal laws act as a shield from personified management change at the expense of the bank’s performance objectives.
The bank case study reveals the gap that exists when either party is sidelined from the path of decision-making in an organization. In the top-bottom approach, decision making is centralized to selective employee’s thus causing dissatisfaction and demotivation in the workforce. Further, accommodative approach to decision extends to the point of including the stakeholder’s recommendations in the final strategic planning. Unfortunately, the bank management overlooks the worker's suggestions in favor of unilateral approaches (Dawson & Cameron 2003). Every stakeholder regardless of social rank should participate in strategizing the quality improvement program for the bank. The approach inculcates a sense of ownership in individual's mind thus promoting performance accountability among all workers.
Another learning feature is that external parties pose the challenge of effective communication and develop principal-agent problem in the organization. The strategic choice of upholding the influence of dominance coalition boosts organization development of an enterprise. The bank management erred in empowering excessive mandate to the regional lending managers who barely had the past information about the bank’s operations. The situation created a managerial gap in precussal perspective that views change management as driven by past, present and projected objectives of an enterprise. Change management should be undertaken by internal parties who bear all the performance trend information and can identify key loopholes that lead to the murky performance.
According to teleological change management theory, defining an organization’s objectives is appropriate for a company to strategize on the necessary managerial changes (Van de Ven A H & Poole M 1995) Setting objectives should be performed in tandem with the bank’s standards and economic focus. For instance, the bank management intention was to reduce the cost, promote efficiency and foster unprecedented customer relations. Goals should reflect the past, the current performance strategies as a platform to determine alternative changes that would steer the bank towards better performance level. The process should uphold the social-cultural practice where all stakeholders should have an equal chance to participate in managerial improvement and as a result collectivism among workers will prevail.
Conclusion
In addition, it is worthwhile noting that change management is a continuous and successive process that invokes past and current phenomenon in determining appropriate measures to achieve the set and projected goals of the company. Participatory approach, impartial rules, and setting objectives are the core pillars of enabling change management. All pertinent parties should play equal roles in the strategizing and implementation process. Continuous monitoring and anchoring the changing infrastructure into the banks culture will serve as a guide and reference point to the stakeholders for future adjustments as well as performance benchmarking. In summary, rational change is the precursor of advancing innovating culture in an organization for global penetration and market sustainability.
Bibliography
Dawson P & Cameron, A 2003 my Bank: A Case Study of organizational Change.
Jung D 2001 'Transformational and transactional leadership and their effects on creativity in groups', Creativity Research
Kotter J P 2001 What leaders really do, Harvard business review, 79(11), 85-98.
Van de Ven A H & Poole M 1995 Explaining development and change in organizations, Academy of management review, 20(3), 510-540.
Yontef G M & Fuhr R 2005 Gestalt therapy theory of change. Woldt, AL & Toman, SM.
