Organizations that move ahead to change have competitive edge as change ability develops the core competency of improving every aspect of business performance (Anderson & Anderson, 2010). There are different models that organizations use to bring successful change.
Lewin’s Unfreez-Change-Freez Framework
First framework is the Lewin’s change management model that the organizations use to bring change. It was developed in 1950s by Kurt Lewin. He identified that most of the individuals are inclined to work within specific safety zones. He indicated important phases of change process, such as unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. Unfreez refers to the creation of motivation and readiness to change in a company. This step is started when a balance of a company is destabilized. Moving refers to the course of evaluation of change and determination of appropriate propagation framework. In addition, refreezing is the final step of change process in relation to Lewin’s three step model. It is the integration of change into a company and resuming of transposition. It involves actions a company takes to regain its balance. The limitation of this model is the presence of company-wide politics and conflicts (Liu, Akram & Bouguettaya, 2011).
McKinsey 7-S Framework
This framework of alternation provides a general approach to a company and is developed in 1978. They identified 7 factors that operate as collective force of change. Strategy is considered as an important S of change process. It is documented means by which a company attempts to get competitive edge over the competitors. Systems should be living as well as evolving but should not be diluted intentionally. Structure can be functional or matrix or militaristic chain of command. Other factors include skills a company have and style that is related to the manner in which a company operates. For instance, Apple has corporate style that distinguish it from others. Moreover, two of the factors include staff and shared values as staff is the key asset of the company and shared values refers to the strategy used by companies by developing measurable business value through identification of social issues relative to business (Michaluk, 2008). According to Michaluk (2008), McKinsey 7-S framework of change management provides an effective way to understand a company and helps to implement change at all levels of a company. The benefits of this models are that it adds coherent and responsive elements and all elements are integral. The disadvantage of the framework is that in case of alternations in one area, all areas change. The main reason is that all elements are interlinked to each other. In addition, variances are not taken into consideration in this framework due to complexity and this model mostly leads to disaster.
Kotter’s Eight-Step Change Framework
The framework is developed by John Kotter, who distributed change process into eight steps. First step of change implementation is to increase change insistence. It is important to create urgency to get attention and commitment of managers by change leader. Second step is to build a dedicated team to change. A dedicated team can bring successful change by aligning company and employees’ needs. Third and fourth step are the development of change vision and communication of perquisite for alteration. A clear vision and effective communication reduce the risk of conflicts and role ambiguities. Empowerment of staff and creation of short goals are the fifth and sixth steps. Other steps include persistence and to make permanent change. In comparison to other models, this model is more beneficial to bring successful change to be competitive. It is due to the fact that this process is easy and step by step. In addition, the motivation is to prepare and accept change. Moreover, change leaders can easily make evolution with the use of Kotter’s 8-step framework. Furthermore, its limitations are that steps cannot be skipped and process is time consuming (Sabri, Gupta & Beitler, 2006).
References
Anderson, D., & Anderson, L. A. (2010). Beyond change management: How to achieve breakthrough results through conscious change leadership. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Liu, X., Akram, S., & Bouguettaya, A. (2011). Change management for semantic web services. USA: Springer Science & Business Media.
Michaluk, G. (2008). The marketing director's role in business planning and corporate governance. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Sabri, E. H., Gupta, A. P., & Beitler, M. A. (2006). Purchase Order Management Best Practices: Process, Technology, and Change Management. USA: J. Ross Publishing.
