5 Comprehensive Organ't Change Approaches

8/14/2019 5 Comprehensive Organ't Change Approaches

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Comprehensive organizational changeapproaches There are three specific but comprehensive

approaches to organizational change.

The first is organizational development (OD), which

is an approach with strong behavioral and peopleorientation.

The second is the more engineering based

approach called reengineering.

The final is organizational learning.


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The organizational Development (OD)

approach to change The essence of OD approach to change is its

emphasis on planned, strategic, long-rangeeffortsfocusing on people and theirinterrelationships inorganizations.

Better explanation:

Organizational development (OD) approach to

organizational change that has strong behavioraland people orientation, emphasizing planned,strategic, long range efforts focusing on people andtheir interrelationships in organization.


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The OD approaches to change tochange

Grew out of behavioral science research as far back

as 1930s and 1940s.

Aimed at improving the communications and quality ofinteraction among individualsin groups.

Researchers put together groups of individuals in sessionsaway from the workplace in what were termed basic skillstraining groups, or, as they came to be called for short, T-groups.

T-groups: group of individuals participating inorganizational development sessions away from theworkplace; also called basic skill training groups.


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The OD approach to change

The T-group orientation over time broadened into focus on

interpersonal relationships throughout the larger organization,and hence, the attention to organizational, not just group,

development.

Values and Assumptions

The early formulation of what eventually evolved in the OD

approach place particular importance on certain values andassumptions, and they have remained at the heart of thisapproach to change to this day.

First is the assumption that people are the cornerstone ofsuccess in any organizational endeavor.

A second value or assumption is that most people desireopportunities for personal growth and enhancement of theircapabilities.


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The OD approach to change Another basic value belief about people that

underlies this approach to change is that theiremotions are as important as their rational thoughts

and that, therefore, the open expression of these

emotions can be critical in facilitating real change.

Fundamental assumption about organizations in the

OD approach is that they are systems composed of

interdependent parts and thus

A change in any one part can have a major effects on other

parts.


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The OD approach to change

Another assumption is that the way

organizations are designed and structured

will influence the interpersonal relationship

among people in them.

In other words, the behavior of people in

organizational settings flows not just from their

intrinsic nature but also from conditions they

encounter in these contexts and these

conditions can be changed.


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Basic approach to the process of

changeLewins basic OD approach to organizational changeinvolves three seemingly simple steps:

Unfreezing

Changing Refreezing

These steps are easy to state and remember, but

they are not especially easy to put into practice.


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Basic approach to the process ofchange Unfreezing emphasized the need to get people to examine critically

and openly their current attitudes or behavior pattern.

In effect and using a force filed analysis, the unfreezing processis designed to decrease the restraining force of existingviewpoints and customary ways of doing things.

In one sense we can think of the unfreezing stage as an effort tolower resistance to change rather than focusing on specificresources of resistance.

Therefore, in an OD approach to change, the initial challenge isto unfreeze existing behavior patterns by getting people not totake them for granted but to question them and look at their

effects. For e.g when a certain mine decided to use OD techniques to

reduce its accident rate, the first necessary step was tochange existing attitudes about safety.


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Basic approach to the process of change This was accomplish by changing the organizational climate

concerning safety.

Managers began to emphasized safety as a goal and theyallocated funds to improve specific hazardous conditions.

They also made a point to emphasized that every member of the

company was responsible for safety.

Employees are encouraged to meet and discussed safety issuesand come up with ways of doing tasks that would help them bymaking their work safer.

All these steps helped to convince the miners that managementwas serious about improving safety conditions and it primed themto accept and implement required procedural changes.

Results of the OD intervention demonstrated a 50 percentreduction in on-the-job injuries.


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Basic approach to the process of change In the traditional OD approach, both the first and

second steps, unfreezing and changing, involve theuse of change agents.

Change agents individuals who are responsible for

implementing change efforts; they can be either internaland external to the organization.

That is, either from inside the organization, often the humanresources department or they can be from the outside.

These groups of professional can be a consultant, someone withexperience, expertise in helping groups see the need for changeand in making change,


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Basic approach to the process of change The changes themselves are achieved by the

use of one or more interventions, that is, setof structured activities, or action steps,

designed to improve the organization.

Some of these interventions, such as fact

finding, begin in the unfreezing stage, and

others, such as team building andcoaching/counseling, take place in the

changing stage.


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change The priority in the second change stage is exploring

new form of behavior and relationships.

Particularly important at this point is an emphasize

on behavioral processes, such as leader-grouprelations, decision making, inter-group cooperation

and the like.

This behavioral process orientation is a keydistinguishing feature of the OD approach to

organizational change.


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change Merely engaging in new and different ways ofbehaving, relating and interacting is not enough forchanges to have lasting effects.

This is why Lewin included the third stage,refreezing (transforming a newbehavior pattern into the norm

through reinforcement and support mechanism)

The intent of this third stage was to make sure that thechanges stick and that behavior and relationship donteasily return to their former less effective states.

This means that the new patterns must become, in effect,new habits that are not easily dislodged by a tendency toreturn to old routines.


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Basic approach to the process ofchange

Since the time of Lewins formulation of this three-stage changeprocess many years ago, the goal of refreezing has beenconverted into the objective of organizational renewal.

Organization renewal: a concept of organizational change thatproposes a goal of flexibility and capability for continual change.

This new focus takes into account the fact that in contemporary,fast-changing, competitive world,new habits and patterns rapidlybecome old andoutdatedthemselves and may need to bereplacedafter relatively short periods of time.

Therefore, the emphasis has shifted from refreezing todeveloping a capacity for renewal, a goal that incorporatesflexibility and the ability to change more or less continually.


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Basic approach to the process of change The OD legacy survives in various forms in

many organizations today but other, newercomprehensive approaches to change hasattracted increasing attention from manymanagers in the last decade or so.

Two of these are:

Reengineering

Organizational learning


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Reengineering Business process reengineering is a radical redesign of business

processes to achieve (intended) dramatic improvements.

Sometimes also known as restructuring.

Information technology, of course, often plays a central role in suchreengineering efforts.

But human and managerial issues related to reengineering are alsoextremely crucial to its success in organizations.

Breadth of reengineeringmeans change in terms of redesign of a set ofprocesses across a complete business unit rather than achange in a single,limited process.

and depth of reengineeringmeans a change in a related set coreorganizational elements such as roles and responsibilities,structure,incentives, shared values and the like, rather than any one or two of theseelements.


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Reengineering Adequate breadth and depth by themselves are not enough for

reengineering to succeed.

A major commitment must come from the top of the organization,that is, from key executives (of the total organization or of itsmajor units) who can supply the necessaryresources toimplement these activities and who can take the time todemonstrate personal involvement in the entire redesignprocess.

Like any comprehensive change approach, for reengineering tobe successful requires enormous energy, planning, coordinated

effort, persistence, and attention to detail.

Without substantial backing, it is likely to fail.


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Organizational learning (OL) OL has become a major focus in approaches to organizational

change and renewal.

OL: exhibited by an organization that is skilled atcreating,acquiring and transferring knowledgeand at modifyingitsbehavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.

The central idea is that organizations that emphasize thisperspective are:

Attempting to change and improve continuously, not justperiodically.

Basing these improvements on a foundation of new knowledgethey have learned.


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Organizational Learning Several factors have been shown to facilitate

learning by organizations:

Existing and well-developed central, corecompetencies of current personnel.

An organization culture that supports continuousimprovement.

The availability of organizational capabilities (e.g.managerial expertise) to be able to implement thenecessary changes.


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Organization Learning Clearly, managers and organizations cannot simply

decide or declare, that learning should take place.

The elements listed above need to be in placeas astarting point if organizational learning is going tolead to any real benefits.

Then, a number of activities need to take place toimplement fully an ongoing learning process inorganizations.

Five of the major important are explained here:


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Organization Learning

1. Systematic, Organized and Consistent

Approach to Problem Solving

Similar to the emphasis on scientific methods in

the TQM approach, a learning process inorganizations requires the continual collection of

factual data, rather than reliance on assumptions

or guess-work, to aid problem solving and

decision making.


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2. Experimentation to Obtain New Knowledge

Learning organizations do not simply solve problem.

They experiment with new methods and proceduresto expand their knowledge and gain fresh insights.

They engage in a steady series of small

experiments to keep acquiring new knowledge

consistently and to help employees become

accustomed to change.


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3. Drawing Lessons from Past Experiences

Enterprises with strong learning cultures pay

particularattention to lessons from both past

failures as well as past successes.

Its not having the experience is important, its

what you have learned from the experiencethat is important.


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4. Learning from the Best Practice and Ideas of Others

Organization and their managers that are stronglycommitted to learning are also humble in a certainrespect.

They do not assume they already know how to doeverything better than other organizations, whether theyare competitors, enterprises outside their own industry orsphere of operations, or customers.

They consistently spend resources to scan theirenvironment to gain information and knowledge from avariety of external sources. One common form of this is benchmarking, where the

best practices of competitors are identified, analyzed

and compared against ones own practice.


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Organization Learning Benchmarking: identification, analysis and comparison of

the best practices of competitors against an

organizations own practices.

5. Transferring and Sharing Knowledge

Another core activity of an organizational learningapproach is to make sure that the new knowledge that isgained is actually disseminated widely throughoutrelevant units of the organization.

This requires that managers be alert to both the need forinformation sharing as well as ways to do it.

Would include such activities as distributing reports,developing demonstration projects, initiating training andeducation programs and rotating or transferring thosewith the knowledge .


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Organization learning

As an approach to change, an organizational learningperspective has much to offer.

It places the emphasis on constant attentionto the possible needfor changes, and it embodies the goal of renewal, of pushingorganization or units within them to continue to reinventthemselves in one way or another through the purposeful and

persistent acquisition of new knowledge.

Since environments never stay the same, successfulorganizations can never stay the same.

One of the best ways both to keep up with changingenvironments and to keep ahead of them is for managers tofocus intently on instilling a learning culture in their areas ofresponsibility.


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End of lecture

5 Comprehensive Organ't Change Approaches

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