LEADING CHANGE

Organizational Behavior and Management

Organizational Behavior and Management

Significant change has grown tremendously in organizations during the past two decades due to powerful macroeconomic forces. Whenever human communities are forced to adjust to shifting conditions, pain is ever present. Some of the most common errors when transforming an organization are:

(1) Allowing too much complacency, (2) Failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition, (3) Underestimating the power of vision, (4) Under communicating the vision by a factor of 10x-100x, (5) Permitting obstacles to block the new vision, (6) Failing to create short-term wins, (7) Declaring victory too soon, (8) Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture.

These errors amplify in a rapid moving competitive world. These errors can be mitigated and possibly avoided(Kotter, 2001). The key lies in understanding why organizations resist needed change and the multi-step process to achieve it, and how leadership is critical to drive the process in a socially healthy way.

There are many factors necessitating organizational change including technological, international economic and opening market forces. They create both more hazards and opportunities for organizations. Useful change tends to be associated with a multi-step process that creates power and motivation significant to overwhelm all the sources of inertia and is driven by high quality leadership, not just excellent management. The eight stage process follows from the errors in leading change:

Step One: Create Urgency

For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it. Develop a sense of urgency around the need for change. This may help you spark the initial motivation to get things moving.

This isn't simply a matter of showing people poor sales statistics or talking about increased competition. Open an honest and convincing dialogue about what's happening in the marketplace and with your competition. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself.

What you can do:

* Identify potential threats, and develop scenarios showing what could happen in the future.

* Examine opportunities that should be, or could be, exploited.

* Start honest discussions, and give dynamic and convincing reasons to get people talking and thinking.

* Request support from customers, outside stakeholders and industry people to strengthen your argument.

Kotter suggests that for change to be successful, 75% of a company's management needs to "buy into" the change. In other words, you have to really work hard on Step One, and spend significant time and energy building urgency, before moving onto the next steps(Grieshaber, 2007). Don't panic and jump in too fast because you don't want to risk further short-term losses - if you act without proper preparation, you could be in for a very bumpy ride.

Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition

Convince people that change is necessary. This often takes strong leadership and visible support from key people within your organization. Managing change isn't enough - you have to lead it.

You can find effective change leaders throughout your organization - they don't necessarily follow the traditional company ...