The Irrational Side of Change Management

Most people don’t like change, and most change programs fail. Kotter’s research revealed that only 30 percent of change programs succeed. (Aiken). Colin Price suggests that four basic conditions are necessary before employees will change their behavior, a) a compelling story, because employees must see the point of the change and agree with it; b) role modeling, because they must also see the CEO and colleagues they admire behaving in the new way; c) reinforcing mechanisms, because systems, processes, and incentives must be in line with the new behavior; and d) capability building, because employees must have the skills required to make the desired changes. The prescription is rational, but when the managers implement the prescription, they disregard some irrational but predictable elements of human nature.

Creating a compelling story

Communicating the change story to employees is a good advice, but in practice, there are some pitfalls to achieving the desire impact. Actually, what motivates you doesn’t motivate most of your employees. Change leaders need to be able to tell a change story that covers all the things that motivate employees. For example, there was a cost reduction program at a financial service company where I used to work. The program started with a change story that ticked the conventional boxes related to the company’s competitive position and future. Three months into the program, management was frustrated with employee resistance. The change team worked together to recast the story to include an element related to society (to deliver affordable housing), customers (fewer errors), the company (expenses are growing faster than revenues, which is not sustainable), and individuals (more attractive jobs). This relatively simple shift in approach lifted employee motivation and the program went on to achieve efficiency improvements— a run rate far above initial expectations.

Role modeling

Unfortunately, leaders take action that role model the desired change does not necessarily deliver the desire impact. Sometimes leader believed mistakenly that they are already in the change, because they don’t count themselves the ones who needs to   change. The fact is that human beings consistently think they are better than they are. Whereas conventional change-management approaches surmise that top team role modeling is a matter of will or skill, the truth is that the real limit to role modeling knows what to change at a personal level. ( Keller)

Reinforcing mechanisms

Conventional change management emphasizes the importance of reinforcing and embedding desired changes in structures, processes, systems, target setting, and incentives. To be effective, these mechanisms must take into account that people don’t always behave rationally. In making any changes to company structures, processes, systems, and incentives, change managers should pay what might strike them as an unreasonable amount of attention to employees’ sense of the fairness of the change process and its intended outcome. Particular care should be taken where changes affect how employees interact with one another and with customers (sales stimulation programs, call center redesigns)

Capability building

Good intentions aren’t enough. Good skill-building programs usually take into account that people learn better by doing than by listening. For instance, there are programs are replete with interactive simulations and role plays, and commitments are made by participants regarding what they will “practice” back in the workplace. But come Monday morning, very few keep their commitment is because nothing formal has been done to lower the barriers to practicing new skills. The time and energy required to do something additional, or even to do something in a new way, simply don’t exist in the busy day-to-day schedules of most employees.

By taking into account those counterintuitive insights about how employees interpret their environment and choose to act, managers will know the aspects they can avoid, and company will be more efficient in management change.

 

Reference:

Team Technology. Change Management. Retrieved July 11, 2011, from http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/changemanagement.html

Aiken,C&Keller,S.(2009).The irrational side of change management. Mckinsey Quarterly. Issue 2, p100-109, 10p.Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.kwantlen.ca:2080/ehost/detail?sid=a5ee1477-7311-42e3-9b34-322cbceb31ad%40sessionmgr13&vid=1&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=buh&AN=37817229

Organizational Design: Mechanistic vs Organic Organization

How does a manager choose among organizational design alternatives? How does he, for example, decide how precisely to define duties and roles? Organization design tries to identify the organizational structures and processes that appropriately “fit” the type of people in the organization and the type of task the organization faces. Organizational design determines what the structures and processes of an organization will be. By means of contrast, the mechanistic and organic models of organizational design can be thought of as occupying two ends of a hypothetical spectrum.

Mechanistic organizational units are the traditional pyramidal pattern of organizing. In a mechanistic organizational unit, roles and procedures are precisely defined. Communication is channelized, and time spans and goal orientations are similar within the unit. (Michael). The objective is to work toward machine-like efficiency. The mechanistic form is efficient and predictable. For people with a low tolerance for ambiguity, it provides a stable and secure work setting. Under what conditions is this pattern of organization appropriate? When the organizational unit is performing a task that is stable, well-defined, and likely to be programmable, or when members of the organization prefer well-defined situations, feel more secure when the day has a routine to it, and tend to want others to supply direction, the mechanistic pattern is applicable. (Michael) For instance, few customers would want a McDonald’s employee to use creativity in preparing their hamburger. Instead, the repetitiveness and stability of the procedures needed to cook a hamburger are more efficient when the employee follows established procedures and customers can trust that each hamburger they purchase will taste the same. However, the mechanistic form is less flexible: once a direction and procedures have been set, it is hard to change them.

In contrast to mechanistic units, organic organizational units are based on a more biological metaphor for constructing social organizations. The objective in designing an organic unit is to leave the system maximally open to the environment in order to make the most of new opportunities. An organic form is useful in the face of an uncertain task or one that is not well enough understood to be programmed. The organic form is also appropriate for people who like the disorder of an ambiguous setting, for people who prefer variety, change, and adventure and who grow restless when they fall into the same routine day after day. A prime example for an organic company is Google. Fortune magazine has ranked Google number one of the 100 best companies to work for in 2007. Google’s headquarter, the “Googleplex”, resembles a playground for employees including a corporate recreation center. Its organization structure stresses innovative teamwork, flat hierarchies and decentralization in the sense that teams have the necessary autonomy to make decisions for themselves without interruption from middle management. (Sweid) However, the organic form is often waste of resources. Not having precisely defined authority, control, and information hierarchies, time can be wasted in search activities that duplicate the efforts of other members. Furthermore, the stress of uncertainty and the continual threat of power struggles can be exhausting.

Organizational design choices are tradeoffs between good fit to the task environment and people characteristics, to monetary and human costs, and to short-term and long-term consequences. Such a design is never perfect or complete. Organizational design seeks to build knowledge about and provide guidelines for- designing more efficient and more human organizations.

Refrence:

Michael,B.(1974) An introduction of organizational design.California Management Review .Retrieved from:http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11&hid=126&sid=cd2666d6-84db-4b5b-ac53-7d3b2121b4fb%40sessionmgr110

Sweid,E.(2008) PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS (POPS) IN MECHANISTIC AND ORGANIC ORGANIZATIONS. Retrieved from:http://arno.unimaas.nl/show.cgi?fid=14769

 

 

 

Managing Culture

The term culture has many different interpretations. In our view, culture is a set of communally held norms and beliefs, as well as certain behaviors that naturally result from those norms and beliefs. (John) When different behavior is required in a changed environment, as it almost always is, there is no guarantee that the existing culture will support, or even be consistent with, those new modes of behavior. Cultures that can be a liability to an organization include those that create barriers to change.

Research suggests that when the direction of change and the way it is handled are not compatible with cultural understandings and meanings characterizing the organization, culture-based resistance to change efforts arise especially in the implementation stage. The failure of many organizational changes is traced directly to employee resistance. Resistance to change has been treated as a key topic in organizational studies. For instance, an organization’s culture values of high power distance, being orientation, and determinism among employees as sources of resistance to self-management. For them, employees with strong cultural emphasis on high power distance, being orientation and determinism resist to change. It is because that self-management, in which individuals set goals, self-monitor, and self-evaluate, is incompatible with such values. It seems that when employees are not culturally ready for organizational change, they usually foster resistance to change.

There is another example. I used to work in an organization; their mission is to provide expert customer service. Yet the strong hierarchical structure means the employees are not empowered to assist customers by providing creative solutions or don’t have the required authority to provide responses or results, there is disconnect. To reduce hierarchical culture, for example, begin by empowering staff to provide suggestions and to help implement their new ideas. Manager should also empower staff to make more decisions for their own areas of expertise. Reward staff of particular service areas who respond to changes in customer demands through developing new programs or services.

There is no such thing as a perfect culture. An organization’s culture is unique and special and it evolves from all the experiences, growth, and development that have already occurred. So while there is no ideal to aspire to, what we want to do is set in place characteristics that will help your organization adapt to whatever comes its way. There’s a saying that “the only constant is change” which has some truth to it, so every organization needs to encourage values, beliefs, and structures that support change.

 

Work cited:

Jay, W.( 1986,winter). Managing Culture: The Invisible Barrier to Strategic Change. California Management Review. Volume XXVIII, Number 2.Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=47be068f-50ee-41b3-8ad7-33bd04cc138b%40sessionmgr104&vid=29&hid=110

 

Debbie, S. (June, 2005) .The importance of understanding organizational culture. Information outlook. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FWE/is_6_9/ai_n13822461/?tag=mantle_skin;content

John, S. Culture and Performance-Overcoming the Hidden Barriers to Transformational Change. Retrieved from http://www.thomasgroup.com/eLibrary/White-Papers/Culture-and-Performance-Overcoming-the-Hidden-Barr.aspx

Barriers to effective communication

Communication is everywhere in our daily life. When sender expresses his or her ideas, receiver get the messages, then give feed back to senders. That is the process of communication. Different styles to communicate can lead to different results. However, not all the people know how to communicate with others effectively and properly. Some are natural factors, like introverted people shy to express their ideas, or people don’t hear others very clearly.

 Here, we are discussing some subjective barriers to effectively communication.Like, info overload, filtering, language, stress and defensiveness. For example, language barrier is that two communicator speak different languages, they don’t even understand each other, no need to say to communicate. Another barrier like selective perception, selective perception means we interpret information selectively based on our own interests. Facing the same information, different receiver will selectively pick up the piece of information that interests him, leading to certain information more impressive to us while others are not (Michael).

Defensiveness is also a barrier to communication. Defensiveness is defined as a somewhat hostile, emotional state which causes people to either partially or totally reject incoming messages and other stimuli which they perceive as being incorrect or contradictory to their point of view(William).  I used to work in a bakery, and I found my manager doesn’t know how to communicate. When I was in training, I not that familiar with everything in the store, especially when there is busy. Once the manager asked me to bake, I forgot to add water before, and then I hurry to help my colleague to pack the  bread, since there is very busy in the store. Few minutes later, my manager talked to me with a serious face: Why you forget everything? You are just slow and you don’t know how to multitask.You need to be fast or you are not going to make it here! I felt so offence, and of course , I quit the job , actually the manager very soon.

Defensiveness occurs when one perceives threat. This defensive behavior prevents the listeners from objectively concentrating on the message being received. (William) My manager’s words didn’t make me act better on my job, but make me refuse to receive her idea, and become defensive. It appears that defensiveness causes distortion inboth message receiving and sending and that defensiveness in none individual tends to cause defensiveness in others.

By knowing the barriers to effective communication, we can intentionally do something to lower the barriers. Though it is not that easy to eliminate all the barriers due to tons of reasons, knowing more about it is always better.

Work cited:

William.(1981). Defensiveness in Communication: Its Causes, Effects, and Cures. Retrieved from Business Source Primier database.  http://www.kwantlen.ca/__shared/assets/APA_citation8199.pdf

Micheal. Barriers to Effective Communication. Retrieved May28, 2011, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Barriers-to-Effective-Communication&id=3505393

 Communication blog. Defensive communication. Retrieved from http://www.people-communicating.com/defensive-communication.html

The Effect of Empowerment on Employee Intentions to Quit

Empowerment means creating an environment where people are equipped and encouraged to make decisions in autonomous ways and to feel that they are in control of the outcomes for which they are responsible.(Don)  High staff turnover is one of the organizational problems that managers need to put an end to before it gets out of control because it has a negative impact on the bottom line of the organizations. Studies have shown that low degree of employee empowerment and low levels of employee retention lead to organizational performance problems such as poor quality of customer service, low productivity, and high labor costs. The retention of customers depends on the quality of service, which in return, depends on service employees who might provide poor services because of their intention to leave the organization.

Empowerment can be a very important factor to avoid employee intentions to quit. Firstly,  empowerment offers a great promise to improve employee self-esteem and to lower power distance, which in turn, lowers the employee intention to quit, that empowerment enhances feelings of self-efficacy among employees through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness. The feelings of self efficacy in turn reduce employee intention to quit .

Secondly, empowerment minimizes locus of control and other minor work related problems by increasing employee discretion and flexibility. The increased discretion and flexibility experienced by empowered employees are likely to make them feel better about their jobs, which is to say, reduce their intention to quit. Which measures the degree to that manager encourages initiative, give employees freedom, and trust employees to use their own judgment.

In order to empower employees successfully to reduce their intention to quit, managers should:

i) Explain to employees what empowerment is and how it could have an impact personally. Managers should provide examples of what kind of authority the employee now has in making decisions. For example, will empowerment include the ability to resolve customer complaints such as poor quality food items, cash refund, change shifts without notifying shift manager, etc.

ii) Change their behavior to create an empowered work environment.

iii) Select right employees (e.g., employees who possess initiative and the ability to get along with other people) for empowerment.

iv)  Communicate expectations clearly.

v) Train employees to make good decisions and work closely with others

vi) Align reward and recognition programs.

vii) Have patience and expect problems such as wrong decisions made by empowered employees.

 All of the above require managers to internalize the importance of showing genuine concern and respect for employees and their work. If employees perceive that their managers are empowering them at higher level, their intention to quit is will be perceived as lower level.

 

Work cited:

 Amarjit, G. (2011). The Effects of Empowerment and Transformational Leadership on Employee Intentions to Quit:A Study of Restaurant Workers in India. International Journal of Management, 28.

 Don Morgan. Organizational Empowerment. Retrived from http://www.morganmanagementconsulting.com/org_empowerment.html

Succeeding at Succession

On  executive succession, many CEO  believe that they should avoid major decision making in this period for fear of interfering with the plans of their successors. This, however, is said to conflict with the CEO’s goal of leaving a company or organization in the best possible situation before leaving, which is seen as best accomplished by functioning as an active manager until the moment of actual succession.

Some departing CEO afraid to make decisions. For example, the CEO of a major high-tech firm retired without establishing clear strategic priorities for the next few years, the company was lagging so far behind competitors it had to be restructured.; The CEO not bothers to fire the people in leadership team, that decrease the profits of the companies; the departing CEO not pay attention to the company’s internal and external changes, his successor had a far more manageable cost base when he came in. All these problems are crucial to company’s growth and new CEO’s succession.

There are some tips for both organization and two CEOs. For companies, Create a debriefing outline. Even if the two executives know each other – in fact, especially if they do – a thorough agenda for their meeting will be valuable. Arrange the meetings, ideally, these meetings would take place between the departing and arriving CEOs and would have the tone of engaged conversation, not empty bureaucratic procedure. Carve out a legacy project. When the departing CEO is retiring, assigning him or her some official duties, to commence immediately after the new leader takes office, is a solid way to ease the transition and ensure continued goodwill.

For the two executives, communications is important. First, Make the first move. In the absence of any protocol compelling the two CEOs to meet, it is up to them to agree to talk. A gracious incoming CEO will initiate the conversation, in a gesture of respect. But he or she probably has the busier schedule. Rather than stand on ceremony, a departing CEO who hasn’t been approached should make contact .) Second, Meet as equals. Each executive should put himself or herself in the other’s shoes, They should understand that and behave generously toward each other. Third,,Talk about the big picture. Conversation between the old and new CEOs should not be restricted to short-term initiatives. Rather, the agenda should include any matter on which an experienced CEO would have a unique and useful perspective – for example, the workings of the board, the characteristics of its individual members, the strengths and weaknesses of the managerial team.

With adapting to these suggestions, a leadership transition can enable the new and the exiting CEO – as well as the business ,to move forward successfully.

Work cited:

Caspar, Christian,2011,Making the most of the CEO’s last 100 days, http://bit.ly/ksjYp6

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