The Organization System

CHANGE

Definition of change

Change is a circumstance that disrupts ordinary patterns of association and calls for new contributors to endorse new patterns.

In what ways change agents can contribute to change resistance.

The role of change agents to resistance goes further than the labeling that consequences from their own sense making to breaking agreements and violating trust, communication breakdowns, misrepresentation, and their own resistance to change.

Broken agreements and violation of trust

Change agents add to recipient reactions by breaking agreements both prior to and all through change and failure to bring back the ensuing loss of trust. Agreements, including implied and psychological contracts are breached or broken when agents of the organization unknowingly or knowingly go against the promise or an understood and expected pattern of cooperation. Breaches happen when there are changes in the division and allotment of resources, the procedures and processes by which this reallocations are made or the way which superiors interact with sub-ordinates. When their colleagues and superiors treat employees in the right way, they tend to accept change easily, and on the other hand, if they are treated in justly they tend to resist change. This can result to negative behaviors such as lower productivity, stealing, less cooperation and lower work quality along with mistrust of obligation and satisfaction with the company.

Communication breakdown

Conventional management approaches declares that resistance is in fact the real enemy of any change. (Ismail, 2010). Change agents can also contribute to change resistance through communication breakdowns like misrepresenting of changes of success, failure to legitimize change and failure to call people to action. Resistance to change can be pointed with any individual or conditional factor. (Qian, Ohio University, 2007).

Resistance to change has been actually taken from the agent's perspective not from the client point-of-view (Parkin, 2009). Failure to legitimize change: change agents must provide discursive justifications and rationality of change adoption, creating readiness of change, and increase not only the likelihood of recipient acceptance and participation in the change but also the speed and extent of that acceptance. Recipient's acceptance to change and participation in the primary stages of a change have been shown to depend on recipient's assessment of how likely the change will bring personal and organizational benefits. If employees will gain financially if a certain change is implemented then they will accept it easily but if the change is going to bring more workload then it will be resisted.

Failure to call people for action: change is fundamentally about mobilizing action, and although talk is important, not all change leads to action. When change agents mistakenly assume that understanding is or should be sufficient or produce action, they are likely to emphasize conversations for understanding over conversations for performance and are consequently likely to see little or no action (Ford, Ford and DaAmelio, 2008).

Misrepresentation

Change agents might engage intentional misrepresentation to induce recipient's participation to look good or to avoid losing face and looking bad. Employees may involve in unethical behavior if there arises a vacant post and promotions are very likely. Where change is seen in a competitive context, like when agents believe recipients have engaged in deceptive behavior during previous changes or expect they will this time in order to get some type of concession, agents might misrepresent the benefits, costs or likely success of the change. Not all misrepresentation of change on the other hand are intentional. Since decision, makers have a bias toward optimism.

How can organizations use resistance to change as a change agent?

Change recipients reactions to change are not necessarily hindrances to successful change. On the contrary, recipient reactions can have value for the continuation, commitment and strength of a change helping as an asset and resource in implementation and successful accomplishment.

Existence value of resistance

Organization change involves introducing new conversations and shifting existing conversations and patterns of discourse. However, new conversations have a hard time competing with existing conversation and so the challenge for change agents is getting new conversation heard. This is where resistance can be of value. Resistance helps to keep the conversations in existence. Although talking negatively or complaining and criticizing have been viewed as resistance, it can be beneficial because it keeps the topic alive, giving other the opportunity to participate in the conversation.

Engagement value of resistance

Resistance is one possible form of engagement with change acceptance and ambivalence being others and might, in some cases, reflect a higher level of commitment than acceptance, because some resistance is thoughtful. Change recipients who are highly committed to the success of the organization but who disagree with proposed change because it threatens something of value to them might engage in the change process by expressing their concerns. Where recipients have a stake in what happens to their organization they may raise their objections (Ford, Ford and DaAmelio, 2008).

Strengthening value of resistance

Resistance is a form of conflict. In addition, since conflict has been found to strengthen and improve not only the quality of decisions but also participant's commitment to the implementation of those decisions. In simple terms, resistance can stand to provide a similar strengthening value during change.

What are ordinary mistakes managers usually make while trying to commence a change?

Permitting too much contentment

Failure to make satisfactorily influential guiding alliances

Accepting the influence of vision

Under communicating the idea

Allowing obstructions to slab the new vision

Failure to make instant wins

Announcing victory ahead of time