A Study On The Adkar Model Management Essay

The purpose of this report is to understand the change management and the models which the organisation faces now. The report will also provide the recommendations for the organisation that can makes the organisation become less destructive while carry out the change and provide the tools of change. The structure of the report will consist 3 parts which are literature review, case study, and recommendation.

Literature Review:

Kurt Lewin know it’s important to form an integrated approach to bring about change at the group or organizational levels and contribute a 3-step change models. Lewin (1947a) stated that change process involved three steps in order to change efficiency and they are stage 1 (unfreezing), stage 2 (moving), and stage 3 (refreezing) (Lewin, 1947).

Unfreezing step means make the correct situation for change to happens (London Management Centre, n.d.). Lewin argued that the stability needs to be weakened which means unfrozen (take away the old behaviour can be that lead to a new behaviour successfully adopted). Schein (1996) argued that the key for unfreezing is to recognise the individual or group level change and it were a profound psychological dynamic process’.

Moving stage is to create inspiration to learn but does not essentially control or predict the direction (Schein, 1996). Organisation should find out all the forces at work and identify and evaluate in order to get all the available options from trial or error basis (Lewin, 1947a). However, Lewin (1947a) also recognized that, without reinforcement, change will not last forever.

The last stage of the model is refreezing. This stage is to recreate a stable atmosphere and elevates comfort levels by reconnecting people back into their familiar place (London Management Centre, n.d.). This is important as changes to individual behaviour will not be sustained unless group norms and routines are also been transformed and set. Therefore, it often requires changes to organizational norms, culture, practices and policies (Cummings and Huse, 1989).

3 steps model gives manager a framework that how to implement a change efficient, which can make the change process carried out fluently. The Kurt Lewin model can help a leader do the following three steps that helps to minimize the disruption of the structure’s operations, make a radical change, and make sure that the changes is sustainable (Morrison, 2010).

Many have is argued that Lewin’s planned approach is too simplistic and mechanistic as organizational change happens everyday and open-ended process nowadays (Dawson, 1994 &e Garvin, 1993). Lewin is seen as advocating a top-down, management approach to change and ignore the situations that require bottom-up change (Dawson, 1994).

Lewin’s 3 steps change model can be used if there is a short term goals to meet and celebrate (Kotter, 1996). This is because people will start to resist to change if there is no short term wins. Lewin stated that organisations should establishing the goals and objectives. Organisation should reward people that involved with recognition, promotion or money (Kanter, 1993). 3 steps change model is more construct than content driven, describing competence using language such as team working, problem solving, and effective communication (French, 1999).

Prosci had published ADKAR change model in 1998. The ADKAR model is used to know the change at an individual level and this will helps the organisation increase the successful rate for the changes (Hiatt, 2006).

The model consist five elements that makes the changes successful:

Awareness of the necessarily for change.

Desire to do the change.

Knowledge on change.

Ability to carry out new skills and behaviors.

Reinforcement to maintain the change.

(Warrilow, 2010)

The ADKAR model can helps to find out why changes are not functioning and help the organisation take the essential steps to make the change successful. Organisation will be able to break down the change into parts that can understand where the change is not functioning and address that impact point (Change Management Learning Center, 2007).

The limitation for ADKAR model is fails to see the macro level of programme management (Warrilow, 2010). The author points out that the business environment now the restructuring, refocusing and re-engineering is only the start. Business leaders have to face the equally as it will have more problems of getting the staff to deliver their new vision that achieve the revenue forecasts. The fact is that people are not similar in the ways they behave.

In this case, I will use Prosci’s ADKAR model. This is because Lewin’s 3 step model is too simple as what Dawson and Garvin highlighted and it’s not suitable for a big organisation that has high innovation. Therefore, it’s important for the organisation to identify the change element in order to make the change become efficient.

Case Study:

The model that the organisation used is the Prosci ADKAR model. Stuart Young dare to make the big change while the other organisations do not. Stuart Young consist of the 5 elements of ADKAR models which are awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement.

The people within the organisation have the awareness of the need for change. Stuart makes the organisation struct become “flatter”. This helps the communication become more efficient. There are only less people beneath them. There is no foreman and supervisor. The team leaders will have the meeting with their group members and talk about the work that they done yesterday. People need to analyse it and then have the change. Commitment can be build easily by this way and make sure the people aware to change for better quality.

The people within the organisation have the desire to change. For an example, the manager will not criticise their workers. This makes them have more responsible. They need to do well for motivate the people. The motivating will makes the employee have more desire to change when there is needed.

The individuals of the organisation have the knowledge of how to change. Management personnel at Interlock are all expected to undertake re-training at least the course per year. The people will be trained and put at the right position. This will make the change become more efficient as the people have the knowledge and work at the place that are most suitable for them.

The people must also have the ability to change and the employee have the ability. The employee has more responsible to do their job. This means that they need to deal with more problems. This makes them know how to do more things and have the ability to change when needed. The education systems also help to improve their ability. This is the reason Stuart Young believe in his employee.

Lastly, there is a reinforcement to sustain the change. Stuart Young knows how to reinforce their employee although there are no incentive programs. Instead of the incentive programs, Stuart Young ensures the employee’s job security as job security is foremost in workers’ minds nowadays. This will make the employee willing to change while maintain the quality.

A good leadership is needed in order to makes the changes become more efficient. This will also utilise the ADKAR model. Transformational leadership style should be used in order to make the changes efficient. Transformational leadership is leaders who encourage people to transcend their own self-interest and who are capable of having profound and extraordinary effect on their staff (Robbins, Millet, & Waters-Marsh, 2004).

According to Chemers (1997), transformational leadership have 4 factors:

-Individualise consideration (degree to which the leaders treat each followers in a way that is equitable and satisfying, but differentiated from other followers).

– Inspiration motivation (reflect the quality and emotional appeal of the leader’s vision rather than what public said).

– Intellectual stimulation (leader encourages the follower to question past ideas and supports subordinate to think independently and creatively).

– idealized influence / Charisma (reflects follower perceptions that the leader is trustworthy to achieve an important vision).

Transformational leaders make the vision or mission of the group become clearer that will generate satisfied and innovative culture within workplace and personalise their interaction with others (Parry, 1996).

Many people might like the transactional leadership style. The transactional leadership style has totally difference style compare to transformational leadership style. Transactional leadership style is to lead or stimulate people by clarifying the role and task requirement (Robbins et al., 2004). However, transformational is more towards the intangible factors while transactional leadership style is more tangible factors. Therefore, it’s better to have the transformational leadership style instead of the transactional leadership style as the people will always demand more. A research shows that transformational leadership style is better than transactional leadership style (Chemers & Ayman, 1993).

In this situation, the 4 factors of transformational leadership will improve the five elements (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement) and thus makes the changes become more effective.

The organisation has the ability to change. If the organisation can implement the transformational leadership style well, the organisation will sure change efficiently as the leadership can lead the organisation to have the particular elements to change well.

Recommendations:

Every organisations need to change when needed. However, it’s impossible for the organisation closes their business and carries out the changes. Therefore, some actions need to be taking in order to become less destructive.

Change is a messy business that filled with complexity, multiple factors and many things that can lead the organisation towards failure. There are 3 broad areas that need to be included in any successful change initiative and have less destructive to the organisation, which are:

Leadership that directly addresses the different dimensions of those affected by the change, and the motivation.

Address the multiple factors of the models which is ADKAR models.

Action management that can helps people on the matter that is useable for the change.

(Warrilow, 2010)

In order to do well in this, the tools of change can be used to make the change become better.

There is a tool that can managing meeting and collecting ideas is brainstorming. Brainstorming is a technique that enables a team to generate lots of ideas in only a few minutes without criticism and judgement (Queensland Health, 1999). Brainstorming encourages people in identifying the cause and solutions to the problems. This can get a large group to work constructively together and solve the problem during the change process.

Total Quality Management (TQM) is other tool of change. TQM refers to a management process directed at establishing organised continuous improvement activities, involving everyone in an organisation in a totally integrated effort toward improving performance at every level (Almaraz, 1994: 9). This will makes organisation make the change with full force that makes the change become more efficient.

The implementation of TQM involves:

• focus on work processes

• explicit identification and measurement of customer (both internal and external) requirements

• analysis of variability

• use of cross-functional teams

• management by fact

• learning and continuous improvement

• use of process-management heuristics

The other tool is organisatinal development. The term organisational development (or OD) is a set of behavioural science-based theories, values, strategies, and techniques aimed at the planned change of organisational work setting for the purpose of enhancing individual development and improving organisational performance, through the alteration of organisational members’ on-the-job behaviours that are definitely helps a lots for the change process. (Porras and Robertson, 1992: 722)

OD interventions view different aspects of this setting as levers for change that are able to prompt desired behaviours. These include:

• organising arrangements which include goals, strategies, structure, policies and procedures, administrative systems

• social factors which include culture, management style, interaction processes, individual attributes

• physical setting which include ambience, interior design, space configuration,

• technology which include IT, tools, equipment and machinery, job design, work flow design, technical expertise, technical systems and procedures.

With enough development, the people will always have the sufficient skill that will helps them manage well in change process.

Conclusion:

The report had provides the 2 difference change models which are Lewin’s 3 step model and Prosci’s ADKAR model.

The case shows that the organisation has the ability to change well. It’s better for them to have transformational leadership to make the change become more efficient.

The recommendations that provided are:

Less Destructive ways

Leadership that directly addresses the different dimensions of those affected by the change, and the motivation.

Address the multiple factors of the models which is ADKAR models.

Action management that can helps people on the matter that is useable for the change.

Tools of change

Brainstorming

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Organisational Development