Organizational Behavior and Communication

Organizational Behavior and Communication

Change Management

Reason for Resisting Change

The adoption of new ideas and techniques at the organizational level is not an easy task and it also does not occur naturally but resulted because of the hard work of management. Therefore, it is essential for the management to adopt effective communication channels to promote innovation. In this regard, the role of change agents at this point is very much critical because they are responsible to bring innovation for the user by examining the different outcomes of the change that actually management planning to implement. Yet, management face numerous problems in deploying change, therefore, in this part, numerous reasons highlighted for resisting change in the organizational environment.

Employees Perspective

From employees' perspective, following are the reasons for resisting change;

Lack of understanding

The research showed that normally employees resist change because they are unable to understand the primary reason and vision behind the particular change project. Employees did not understand why change is planned nor do they possess adequate knowledge regarding change itself. General resisting question that rose is 'what is for me in this change?'

Comfortable with status quo

The research revealed that normally employees want to be complacent or in other words the current organizational way of doing business is place for long time (Prosci, n.d.). Therefore, the employees seemed fine with current business operating procedures. That is the reason they opposed the change since it force them out of their comfort zone.

Opposition to new technologies, process and requirement introduced by change

Another reason for resistance to change is that employees feel the change will bring more work and performance load on them. Similarly, the change is seen as adding unwanted work, accountability and responsibility.

Manager Perspective

Following are the reasons that manager resistance to change;

Loss of Power and Control

The main reason behind resisting change is the fear of losing power and control. Normally, change history is that it eliminates something that manger actually enjoying, for instance power and control or in other case, management introduced something else that is beyond the control of manager. Therefore, manager perceive change as infringements on their autonomy, whereas, managers perceive change as personal attack on their integrity.

Overload and Pressure of daily tasks

Change is seen as an additional burden by the managers with limited resources compounded the problem. The change initiative is observed as an extra work and resource strain at a time when the pressures of daily activities were already high (UWM, n.d.).

Strategy for Leading Change

A 'one-size-fits-all' approach is not effective for implementing change; therefore a strategy must be developed that cover all the different aspects of change implementation.

Following are the different characteristics on which change leading strategy based on;

Situational Awareness

The beginning of change leading strategy starts with understanding because change can be seen as formalized projects, strategic initiatives or even the small adjustments in the organization. Therefore understanding the change characteristics is essential. Secondly, need to understand the groups and employees that actually ...