Change is a necessary evil

Discuss the above statement critically, supporting relevant concepts with examples within UK-based organisations, challenging the norms, and conclude with a detailed opinion from your research or observations.

1. INTRODUCTION

Change is resistance. Change is melancholy. Change is imperfection and adaption too. Change is the beginning, and yet the end .Change is submission. Change is fear

And yet the hope .Change is the essence of pessimism and Optimism of grief of retrospection and Growth.

Coz all said and done, Change is the only thing constant in life. CHANGE., after- qw w qn;q;odddq is is IS IS A NECESSARY EVIL.

When we talk about change the very first question that comes to our mind is’ Why do we need change?’ People start thinking that they will have to come out of their comfort zone and you start to get the following outcomes from your employees.

“it’s not my job”

“I haven’t got time”

“the boss doesn’t care anyway”

“I’m keeping my head down this time”

“if it’s such a good idea, why didn’t we do this the last time management changed its mind?”

“it will all change again next month”

“when the MD makes his mind up, I might do something”

“nobody told me about it…..”

And then you come to know that the change is not being managed in the way that it should have been. People are used to what we called the culture of the company and not ready to come out of it. It is true that strong culture makes strong organisation but a successful culture is one which the culture adapts itself to the fast moving and unpredictable environment. As we move forward towards the twenty first century our entire global society is continuously changing. All major institution has to adapt to this change and undergo successful change management in order to stay alive in the global market and successfully continue to mee the need of their customers They have to start thinking of ways to restructure their objectives and policies so that they increase their effectiveness and flexibility with the changing global market. For every successful organization, the meaning of change management differs but eventually means the same which is defining and implementing procedures, policies restructuring their goals and/or technologies to deal with changes in the business environment at global level and to profit from changing opportunities.

“it is not the strongest species that survive, nor the

most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive

to change” Charles Darwin

2. CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Different major organisational bodies have accepted different approaches to manage change at their workplace. Change management does not have a distinct discipline with well defined boundaries rather it depends on a no. of different social science disciplines and well known traditions. In order achieve a distinctive balance the central plank on which the change management stands will be limited to the following three schools of thought.

The Individual Perspective School

The Group Dynamics School

The Open Systems School.

2.1The Individual Perspective school:

The supporters of the above type of school are divided into two groups: The Behaviourists and the Gestalt-Field psychologists. According to the behaviourists an individual’s behaviour is the outcome of one’s interaction with the environment. On the other hand Gestalt-Field psychologists think that it is the product of one’s interaction with the environment and reason. In an experiment by Pavlov (1927) he proved that any individual’s actions are conditioned by their expected consequences by discovering that a dog can be taught that when the bell rings it is time for food,coz every time the dog came to eat he rang the bell and associated the bell with the food.

2.2 The Group dynamics School

This is a school with the longest history and originating with the work of Kurt Lewin. It mostly emphasis on bringing organisational change through teams and group works rather than work being done by individuals.

2.3 The Open Systems School

In contrast to the above two types of change management where the focus is on individual and groups, this type of school mostly emphasises on the organisation in its entirety. It sees organisations composed of a number of interconnected sub-systems and any change made to any of the sub-systems will have an impact on the other part of the system.

2.4John P Kotter’s ‘eight steps to successful change’

In one of his best books of his Dr John Paul Kotter pens down the eight steps to successful change. He also emphasises on the fact that if any one of the following step is ignored the entire change management might fail. According to him leadership skills are different to that of management skills and for a successful implementation of change management we need 70 to 80% leadership and 20 to 30% management skills.

Following are the eight steps for a successful implementation of change management.

Act with urgency

Develop a guiding coalition

Develop a vision for change

Communicate the vision

Empower broad-based action

Generate short-term wins

Don’t let up

Make it stick in the organizational culture

The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything or nothing” – Lady Nancy Astor

BARRIERS TO CHANGE

While Implementing change it must always be taken into consideration that change always will not have a positive effect it might go the other way round and turn things around. So while change is being managed managers need to keep in mind the mindset of their employees. There may be several reasons for failing to successfully implement change in an organisation, but if we carefully look into it , it comes down to the following four factors.

Lack of good and consistent leadership

Staff not aware of the fact that there is change taking place and WHY?

Shortage of Finance and overstressed staff.

Lack of risk taking that is ‘to do something different’.

The pace at which change is increasing – with the advent of internet ,particularly with the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter people are so advanced with new technologies ,new ways of doing business and also different new ways of conducting one’s life that it has almost become compulsory to keep up to the sentiments of people. It is important to know your target population and understand their sentiments in order for successful implementation of change at workplace.

UK BASED ORGANISATION.

Following are few examples and case studies based on organisations in UK highlighting their approach to the changing environment and how the adjusted by making necessary changes to their policies, goals, and culture which they practised.

CORUS: A Steel giant formed previously by merging of British Steel plc and a Dutch company Hoogovens, now a subsidiary of TATA group and Indian based organisation.

The following case study is a wonderful example based on how a company tries to implement certain changes in the organisation and how it overcomes the barriers faced on the course of action. Corus has three operating divisions and over 40,000 people worldwide making the family of Corus

CORUS FAMILY

Corus Strip products UK (CSP UK) is based on South Wales and is one of the leading manufacturers of steel in strip. In 2005 CSP UK introduced a culture plan called ‘The Journey’. It mainly focussed on the value and belief of its people and was not only limited to its employees but also to its contractors, suppliers and other partners. By early 2007 the decided to communicate the plan to its employees by handing over a booklet to them which outlined values of ‘The Journey’ and what was expected out of them. Now why did the management suddenly planned to make? What were the reason for change?

INTERNAL FACTORS

The growing strength of external competitors.

Health and safety issues within the organisation.

Delay in delivery resulting in loss of business

Competitiveness: Steel produced in UK could be more expensive compared to other country.

High wastage due to failure in manufacturing the right product in the right time.

Lack of motivation amongst the staff.

EXTERNAL FACTORS

New competitors

Changing customers requirements

New technology meant better expectation.

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) was previously introduced to improve the productivity and competitiveness.

BARRIERS TO CHANGE

As mentioned above every organisation trying to implement change will have to face its barriers. Change may challenge the ability, experience and practice of employees and this can create a barrier successful implementation of change. For example if job roles are changed in the organisation the the employee might feel that they are losing their status or if there is job cut then the existing employees might feel insecure. Corus has a traditional culture which the followed which made it more difficult for the change to take place.