Managing Change
Transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to a desired future state. Managing change in the workplace can be a challenging task. Understanding why that is and developing tools to do so will be helpful when I am a manager. When starting a new business venture I predict that there will be a number of changes that take place and if I am managing employees I will need to know how to best deal with change as far as they are concerned. In this chapter I have included article and exercises that can help to manage change. Employees and managers view change differently and are affected differently by change, having the ability to understand change from all perspectives will be a valuable tool as a manager. I have included slides at the end of this chapter highlighting the key points of the articles and exercises.
Articles on managing change:
Transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to a desired future state. Managing change in the workplace can be a challenging task. Understanding why that is and developing tools to do so will be helpful when I am a manager. When starting a new business venture I predict that there will be a number of changes that take place and if I am managing employees I will need to know how to best deal with change as far as they are concerned. In this chapter I have included article and exercises that can help to manage change. Employees and managers view change differently and are affected differently by change, having the ability to understand change from all perspectives will be a valuable tool as a manager. I have included slides at the end of this chapter highlighting the key points of the articles and exercises.
Articles on managing change:
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why_employees_resist_change_hbr_article.pdf | |
File Size: | 966 kb |
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Why do Employees Resist Change?
Paul Strebel
This article provided me with insight on why employees resist change and how to make that transition more appealing for everyone. This is a necessary skill for all managers on every level because managers and employees view change very differently. Managers are focused in the fact that the change is an opportunity to strengthen the business by aligning operations with strategy, take on new professional challenges and risks, and advance their careers. Employees tend to view change as disruptive and intrusive, upsetting the balance. Generally change is not sought after or welcomed from an employees stand point. This is explained in detail throughout this article and the information will be very helpful when starting a new business I predict change will be very frequent in the new stages of business and continue as the business grows/expands in new directions. The article is based on the idea that an employment relationship has three dimensions: formal, psychological, and social. It explains how change alters the terms of the personal contracts that employees have with the organization effecting these three dimensions. The goal for employers is to define and persuade employees to accept the new terms as they affect all three dimensions of the work relationship. If this is not done it is unrealistic to expect that workers will fully buy into the change effort. Employers must put themselves into their employees shoes to understand change from their perspective to be successful. This article also notes that alignment between a company's statements and management's behavior is key in relation to the social dimension and that a manager's credibility, once lost, is most difficult to recover. This article explains that unless the revision of personal compacts is treated as integral to the change process, companies will not accomplish their goal. Without this employees will remain skeptical of the change and distrustful of management, likewise management will be frustrated by employee resistance. It is necessary to acknowledge that change is different for managers than for employees and that process need to be handled with though and care to be successful. This will be an important tool when running my own business.
Paul Strebel
This article provided me with insight on why employees resist change and how to make that transition more appealing for everyone. This is a necessary skill for all managers on every level because managers and employees view change very differently. Managers are focused in the fact that the change is an opportunity to strengthen the business by aligning operations with strategy, take on new professional challenges and risks, and advance their careers. Employees tend to view change as disruptive and intrusive, upsetting the balance. Generally change is not sought after or welcomed from an employees stand point. This is explained in detail throughout this article and the information will be very helpful when starting a new business I predict change will be very frequent in the new stages of business and continue as the business grows/expands in new directions. The article is based on the idea that an employment relationship has three dimensions: formal, psychological, and social. It explains how change alters the terms of the personal contracts that employees have with the organization effecting these three dimensions. The goal for employers is to define and persuade employees to accept the new terms as they affect all three dimensions of the work relationship. If this is not done it is unrealistic to expect that workers will fully buy into the change effort. Employers must put themselves into their employees shoes to understand change from their perspective to be successful. This article also notes that alignment between a company's statements and management's behavior is key in relation to the social dimension and that a manager's credibility, once lost, is most difficult to recover. This article explains that unless the revision of personal compacts is treated as integral to the change process, companies will not accomplish their goal. Without this employees will remain skeptical of the change and distrustful of management, likewise management will be frustrated by employee resistance. It is necessary to acknowledge that change is different for managers than for employees and that process need to be handled with though and care to be successful. This will be an important tool when running my own business.
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leading_and_managing_organizational_change_initiatives.pdf | |
File Size: | 144 kb |
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Leading and Managing Organizational Change Initiatives
Claudia Peus, Dieter Frey, Marit Gerkhardt, Peter Fischer, Eva Traut-Mattausch
Although necessary for continued success and growth, organizational changes are often met with resistance. The ability to quickly and adequately adapt as the environment changes is crucial for the success of your business. Leading employees to support change can be a challenge but us critical for the success of any business. Explanations for this resistance include uncertainty, loss of control, fear of failure, and disruptions in sense making. Negative reactions to change can have serious implications for the organization. I found this article to be all very thorough when discussing organizational change. Some of the key topics/points in this article include: the way that the organizational change initiatives are managed and led is hugely important for their success and the degree to which employees embrace organizational change is largely dependent on their trust in management. This article explained that employees have to perceive the process underlying the change as fair and feel that they have been treated appropriately and given adequate information about the changes and the reasons for them and also the quality of that information (i.e. timeliness, accuracy, perceived, usefulness) is important in determining employee reactions. An inspiring vision (which justifies sacrifices on the way to achieving it) is important to achieving positive employee reactions to change. A transformational leadership style has been found to be effective in leading organizational changes. Employees in core positions should be chosen carefully and under consideration of variable that are relative to their ability adapt to change. People who have a high need for achievement have a more favorable view of organizational change and see them as an opportunity. Also noted, implementing a series of small changes and celebrating victories is useful, changes of high magnitude are more likely met with employee resistance. All of the information in this article will be of use when I am making changes from a managerial position, currently I can use this information to build on my strength of viewing change as an opportunity.
Exercises for managing change:
The following exercise will help me to develop a healthy view and attitude toward change. It will also help me to develop a further understanding of why employees react the way they often do to change in the workplace. It was interesting to practice this exercise with my peers at work in the context of our upcoming computer conversion. This exercise can help me to become a better manager of change.
Exercise 1:
Face the Fear: A Change Management Exercise This exercise is designed to allow individuals to share their fear of an upcoming event or change anonymously with their team, promoting open and frank discussion. Best for groups of six to ten people. Allow one hour to one hour 30 minutes for completion.
Aim This exercise is designed to allow individuals to share their fear of an upcoming event or change with their team, promoting open and frank discussion. Allow between one hour and one hour 30 minutes for completion (depending on the size of the group).
Learning Objectives Participants will be able to …
-share worries and concerns -generate solutions as a team
Facilitator Guidance In this exercise, participants write their personal fears (anonymously) on sheets of paper which are then collected in a hat and read aloud. Each person in the group describes their thoughts about what might be contributing to the fear. The idea is that an open discussion is generated, and potential solutions found. Best for groups of six to ten people. No separate task sheet is required.
Suggested Resources
-pens or pencils
-writing paper
-a hat or similar sized container
What to Do When you are ready to start, explain that the purpose of the exercise is for participants to share any fears or worries they have about an upcoming event or change. There are a few ground rules which participants should observe:
-no fear or worry is too small to be shared
-every point shared should be treated with equal respect
-participants must be honest and upfront
1. Give the participants five minutes to think about what is concerning them and ask them to write it on a bit of paper.
2. Once everyone has added their paper to the hat, the trainer should read the first of them out.
3. Moving clockwise around the group, ask each participant to share what they think about the concern. For example, if the concern raised was 'I'm worried that I don't know enough about our new technology to perform well', participants' responses might include:
-this person is worried that they haven't received enough information about how the technology will change -this person is worried that they haven't understood how to use the new technology
-this person is worried about not having received any training
4. Once everyone has shared their thoughts, encourage the group to suggest things that could help assuage this fear. Suggestions may include:
-ask for more clarification from a team manager -ask another member of the team to support or buddy them through the change in technology
-request some time to practice
5. Once all the fears in the hat have been discussed, encourage the group to identify any similarities or trends and agree any actions. For example, if a gap in knowledge is consistent across the group, do they need more information, or perhaps more training? Once actions have been identified, ask for volunteers to ensure each action is addressed.
The next exercise highlights the importance of employee input/feedback during transitions. Having the opportunity to share your thoughts, negative and positive, is helpful during the change process.
Exercise 2:
Employee Input Activities
The third exercise I have used is to help yourself ant others gain a better understanding of the change that is taking place and why, this exercise will hopefully help your employees gain an understanding of the need and benefits of change. My group found this exercise enlightening and helpful for employees that may be resisting change.
Exercise 3:
Purpose This exercise helps the delegates to examine our changing world and provides an opportunity to discuss what it means for future. You can use this as part of a change management course or to run it for staff who are subjected to a change management program.
Objective Discuss the evolution of change on a particular topic based on the images provided.
What You Need
Activity: 10 min * 3 rounds = 30 minutes
Group Feedback: 10 minutes
Discussion What do you think of change? Is it inevitable? How does it affect us all? What should we do to survive a change? What areas do you expect to be most challenging in the future in terms of change and what can you do about them now to stay one step ahead?
Claudia Peus, Dieter Frey, Marit Gerkhardt, Peter Fischer, Eva Traut-Mattausch
Although necessary for continued success and growth, organizational changes are often met with resistance. The ability to quickly and adequately adapt as the environment changes is crucial for the success of your business. Leading employees to support change can be a challenge but us critical for the success of any business. Explanations for this resistance include uncertainty, loss of control, fear of failure, and disruptions in sense making. Negative reactions to change can have serious implications for the organization. I found this article to be all very thorough when discussing organizational change. Some of the key topics/points in this article include: the way that the organizational change initiatives are managed and led is hugely important for their success and the degree to which employees embrace organizational change is largely dependent on their trust in management. This article explained that employees have to perceive the process underlying the change as fair and feel that they have been treated appropriately and given adequate information about the changes and the reasons for them and also the quality of that information (i.e. timeliness, accuracy, perceived, usefulness) is important in determining employee reactions. An inspiring vision (which justifies sacrifices on the way to achieving it) is important to achieving positive employee reactions to change. A transformational leadership style has been found to be effective in leading organizational changes. Employees in core positions should be chosen carefully and under consideration of variable that are relative to their ability adapt to change. People who have a high need for achievement have a more favorable view of organizational change and see them as an opportunity. Also noted, implementing a series of small changes and celebrating victories is useful, changes of high magnitude are more likely met with employee resistance. All of the information in this article will be of use when I am making changes from a managerial position, currently I can use this information to build on my strength of viewing change as an opportunity.
Exercises for managing change:
The following exercise will help me to develop a healthy view and attitude toward change. It will also help me to develop a further understanding of why employees react the way they often do to change in the workplace. It was interesting to practice this exercise with my peers at work in the context of our upcoming computer conversion. This exercise can help me to become a better manager of change.
Exercise 1:
Face the Fear: A Change Management Exercise This exercise is designed to allow individuals to share their fear of an upcoming event or change anonymously with their team, promoting open and frank discussion. Best for groups of six to ten people. Allow one hour to one hour 30 minutes for completion.
Aim This exercise is designed to allow individuals to share their fear of an upcoming event or change with their team, promoting open and frank discussion. Allow between one hour and one hour 30 minutes for completion (depending on the size of the group).
Learning Objectives Participants will be able to …
-share worries and concerns -generate solutions as a team
Facilitator Guidance In this exercise, participants write their personal fears (anonymously) on sheets of paper which are then collected in a hat and read aloud. Each person in the group describes their thoughts about what might be contributing to the fear. The idea is that an open discussion is generated, and potential solutions found. Best for groups of six to ten people. No separate task sheet is required.
Suggested Resources
-pens or pencils
-writing paper
-a hat or similar sized container
What to Do When you are ready to start, explain that the purpose of the exercise is for participants to share any fears or worries they have about an upcoming event or change. There are a few ground rules which participants should observe:
-no fear or worry is too small to be shared
-every point shared should be treated with equal respect
-participants must be honest and upfront
1. Give the participants five minutes to think about what is concerning them and ask them to write it on a bit of paper.
2. Once everyone has added their paper to the hat, the trainer should read the first of them out.
3. Moving clockwise around the group, ask each participant to share what they think about the concern. For example, if the concern raised was 'I'm worried that I don't know enough about our new technology to perform well', participants' responses might include:
-this person is worried that they haven't received enough information about how the technology will change -this person is worried that they haven't understood how to use the new technology
-this person is worried about not having received any training
4. Once everyone has shared their thoughts, encourage the group to suggest things that could help assuage this fear. Suggestions may include:
-ask for more clarification from a team manager -ask another member of the team to support or buddy them through the change in technology
-request some time to practice
5. Once all the fears in the hat have been discussed, encourage the group to identify any similarities or trends and agree any actions. For example, if a gap in knowledge is consistent across the group, do they need more information, or perhaps more training? Once actions have been identified, ask for volunteers to ensure each action is addressed.
The next exercise highlights the importance of employee input/feedback during transitions. Having the opportunity to share your thoughts, negative and positive, is helpful during the change process.
Exercise 2:
Employee Input Activities
- When workplace changes are on the horizon companies can institute employee input activities, such as satisfaction surveys, feedback questionnaires and the solicitation of new ideas for the structure of the workplace. Employee input activities make workers know they are part of the transition and that their opinions matter. When you give employees the chance to speak their minds about something, they may feel more valued, which is essential to the culture of the workplace during restructuring or other changes.
The third exercise I have used is to help yourself ant others gain a better understanding of the change that is taking place and why, this exercise will hopefully help your employees gain an understanding of the need and benefits of change. My group found this exercise enlightening and helpful for employees that may be resisting change.
Exercise 3:
Purpose This exercise helps the delegates to examine our changing world and provides an opportunity to discuss what it means for future. You can use this as part of a change management course or to run it for staff who are subjected to a change management program.
Objective Discuss the evolution of change on a particular topic based on the images provided.
What You Need
- Pictures that represent change. These are sets of images from past to present on a particular topic. Here are some examples:
- Evolution of telephone, from old dial phones, to landlines, to brick cordless phones to mobile phones to smart phones.
- Computers
- Cars
- Bicycles
- Fashion
- Music players
- Hair styles
- Singers
- Actors
- Movies
- Interior design
- Shopping behaviour
- Overall attitudes in society
- Roles (from being a daughter, to a sister, to a wife, to a mother and to a grandmother)
- Divide the delegates to groups of 3 or 4. Make sure there is an age variation in each group.
- Give one set of images on a particular topic to each group at random.
- Ask the groups to discuss the changes that took place in that topic based on experience and memory while getting inspired by the images.
- Naturally, those who are older can talk about the past and explain how they had to deal with the change at each stage.
- Encourage groups to discuss the significance of these changes in the society and also specifically in their own lives.
- Encourage groups to talk about the future of that topic, what they expect to happen next, how it would impact their organisations, what they should do to prepare for it.
- Allow 10 minutes for this part.
- Collect all images and distribute a different set of images to all groups.
- Repeat as before for another 10 minutes.
- Repeat for a third round and then bring back everyone together.
- Follow with a discussion.
Activity: 10 min * 3 rounds = 30 minutes
Group Feedback: 10 minutes
Discussion What do you think of change? Is it inevitable? How does it affect us all? What should we do to survive a change? What areas do you expect to be most challenging in the future in terms of change and what can you do about them now to stay one step ahead?
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managing_change_presesntation.pptx | |
File Size: | 79 kb |
File Type: | pptx |