Example Essay on CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Q) What are the strengths and weakness of Kotters 8-stage model, Lewins Planned Change Model, and the Positivist Model? “Change management is a planned process for changing a core function or organization of an enterprise. Interestingly, the process of developing taxonomy can result in the need for change. See Quality Assurance” (www.twason.com/glossary.html)

Change management is important in every project and this change management will help the project to be successful in any business or organization. There are three models which help change management to be successful in an organization or business and further help them to handle them carefully.

The three models which explain about the change in an organization are:

Lewin’s model.

Kotter’s 8-stage model.

Positive model.

Lewin’s model

There three steps of change management in the Lewin’s model.

Unfreezing.

Change.

Refreezing

Unfreezing is a starting process in an organization in which we determine the need of the change, understand and explain why the change is going on and communicate the vision in order to handle change in an organization. In this starting stage of change, the organization should explain the employees why the change is taking place. When this process starts there may be a crisis in the company and the company should balance everything and it is difficult to maintain it among the employees.

The second stage is Change and this is a process in which the employee tries to look forward for new ways to do their work and try to accept the new change. This entire change cannot be done overnight and this is a long process.

The third stage is Refreeze which helps to re-shape the organization and employees and also find new ways to work in the organization and it also help the organization to gain a change in every- day business life. There should be benefits to the employees who are trying to find new ways to work and the feedback should be taken from the employees regarding the change in the company.

Strengths and Weaknesses of lewin’s model are.

The main strength of the lewin’s model can be specified as easiest and simplest model to implement in any organization. It also helps employees to face new problems and to overcome those. When the change is taken place, the communication between every individual will increase and they work in teams in order to overcome the problems.

The weaknesses of this model lead to the crisis in the company and the entire change cannot be done overnight and there may be lot of confusion in the employees and they need to find new ways to do their work. The weaknesses of this model are not in detail.

Kotter’s 8- stage model

The 8- stages of kotter’s model are

Create urgency.

Form a powerful coalition.

Create a vision for change.

Communicate the vision.

Remove obstacles.

Create short-term wins.

Building on the change.

Anchor the changes in corporate culture.

These are 8-stages of kotter’s stage model.

The first stage of kotter’s helps the organization to find out the changes to be taken place in the organization and helps to find the threats and defaults in the company and also rectify them and this stage shows the opportunities to overcome these. Finally this stage helps the organization in becoming strong.

In the second stage, form a powerful coalition which helps to build teams or groups to lead the changes in the organization and also helps to encourage the teams.

The third stage creates a vision of change. That is to “Create a vision to help direct the change effort” (MINDTOOLS, 2006). This also helps to develop the strategies for achieving the goals.

The fourth stage is communicating the vision. This stage shows how to communicate the new strategies and new ways to every individual in the organization.

The fifth stage is removing obstacles. This stage shows how to remove the obstacles when changes take place and helps to Change systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision. (MINDTOOLS, 2006).

The sixth stage shows the Plan for visible performance improvements and creates those improvements (MINDTOOLS, 2006). There should be rewards and benefits to the employees who perform well in the organization.

The seventh stage is same as the “Change” in lewin’s model.

The eighth stage is same as the “Refreezing” in the lewin’s model.

Strengths and weaknesses of the kotter’s 8-stages are

Strengths:

The strengths of the kotter’s 8-stage is model is very simplistic and easy to understand rather than lewin’s model.

The strength of this model is, it can easily identify the problem and it also helps to clear the problem in very short period.

This can be successful when all the employees are communicated well in all the stages.

Weaknesses

The major weakness of this model is that it may lead to wrong assumptions.

Another weakness of this model is, the model itself. This model is not flexible once this model starts it’s process than it is difficult to change its way.

This model is difficult to communicate to the employees and which may lead to frustration among the employees to find the new ways to handle the change occurring in the organization.

POSITIVE MODEL

Change models are not only having high success in implementing but also have the failures equally. They also have the negativism in planning their organizational change. The positive model helps to criticize the negativism in the organizational planning. This positive model also guides the organization whether it is going in a right way or not and helps the organization to develop.

There are 5 stages in this positive model. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley, 2009)

Initiate the inquiry: In this phase the organization team finds out the issue which is going to be change in the organization. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley, 2009)

Inquire the best practices: In this phase the organization team gathers the information about which is the best policy to implement the change. The organization team members collect the information from every individual of the organization and choose the best one to do. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley, 2009)

Discover the themes: In this phase they gather information and stories from each and every employee about their experience this is done by interviews and meetings. This kind of information helps the organization to overcome all the obstacles. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley, 2009)

Envision a preferred future: In this phase the gathered information from the employees is taken into consideration and then the organization support these ideas into the program. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley, 2009)

Design and deliver to create the future: In this phase, the design and deliver for the future is processed. In this phase, slight changes can be made in order to achieve the goals of the organization. (Thomas G. Cummings, Christopher G. Worley, 2009)

Strengths and weaknesses of the positive model:

Strengths:

The strength of this model is, it helps to find out the negativism in the organization when the change is taken place.

The employee satisfaction is taken as a main theme in this model.

This model is flexible and slight changes can be done during this process.

Weaknesses:

The weakness of this model is that it will not create urgency in the change process.

There may be conflicts between the employees in decision making.

There is no specialty in this model. It is same as the remaining models.

Conclusion

I finally conclude that all the models have their own strengths and weaknesses. The lewin’s model is the easiest model but it is not explained in detail and it is complicated. Positive model is same as the remaining models and it is slightly different when compared to remaining models.

I strongly recommend that kotter’s 8-stage model is the best model among all the change models as it is explained in detail and it is flexible in changing process and the communication between the employees when compared with the other models. So I finally conclude that, though all are the best models according to my research, but I strongly say that kotter’s 8-stage model is the best model.