Management's Change Challenge

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Organizational change management is the process of enforcing change within a company to meet its short and long-term goals. Let's take a look at what this change looks like, the different change management strategies to apply, communicating the plan to team members, and aligning the right processes to implement it. All companies undergo an internal review to understand how to improve their operations, especially their daily routines. This self-examination is called the dynamics of change, and it centers around how to better understand employees before any change can take place. Knowing how their employees think and feel about their work makes it easier for management to create long-lasting change. To understand how employees think and feel, consider the seven individual dynamics of change, developed by management consultant Ken Blanchard. As change occurs, people may feel awkward, ill-at-ease, self-conscious, or fearful, focus on what they have to give up, feel alone, even if everyone else is going through the same change, feel that they can only handle so much change, be at different levels of readiness for change, be concerned that they don't have enough resources to cope with the change, and revert to their old behaviors if given the opportunity. When your boss hands you a new project to complete, you may feel awkward or insecure. You want to perform well, but you're concerned that it's your first time working on this type of project and your skills may be inadequate, or you could be added to a team to complete a project, and all you can think of is how the team will regard you and your capabilities. The second dynamic of change is based on how quickly employees react to change in work operations. When met with change, employees might wish for things to go back to the way they used to be. Being skilled in the old method made them comfortable and secure, but change has taken away their confidence. Blanchard's third example suggests that when a company implements change, employees complain, but not as a group. Instead, it's the individual employees who see change as a personal obstacle. They not only complain about the change, but they may also believe that they were singled out for it. Then there are some managers who believe that there's a limit to how much change employees can handle. These managers don't have much confidence in their staff's ability to adjust to any type of change, so they will only implement change in small doses. Remember that each employee has a personality and skillset that's different from that of their coworkers. Some adapt to change easily, while others only accept change when they have no other choice. Some employees, when faced with change, may worry that they won't be able to keep up with the company's changing environment. They may feel irrelevant, or past their prime. And if a manager rejects change, their staff will revert to their old way of doing things, since employees take cues from their manager. The dynamics of change show how employees perceive and navigate change often in a negative light. In fact, each dynamic of change suggests that employees don't take kindly to it in the first place, but they don't consider that change could also push them towards learning something new. In fact, change is a beneficial opportunity. In these next lessons, we'll explore why.