Implementing organizational change: strategies and challenges

Organizational Change

Implementing Organizational Change

Change is a necessary process that all organizations need in order to survive and compete in the market. However, planning, implementing and managing a change is one of the greatest challenge even for the most successful organizations. This paper will explain the three phases of organizational change that were given by Kurt Lewin and the reasons of failure of Concord Bookshop in bringing a successful change.

Kurt Lewin stated following three phases of organizational change (Marquis and Huston, 2009):

Unfreezing: This is the first phase of organizational change process which involves preparing the organization to accept the necessary change. This requires breaking down of the existing status quo so that new system can be introduced. This step is the creation of motivation to change as change cannot occur without motivation.

Change: After unfreezing, the next phase is to bring the change by developing new beliefs, behaviors and attitudes according to the new direction. This is only possible after the resisting forces have been properly investigated and minimized in the unfreezing stage. This is the phase of adjusting the position of equilibrium in the organizational change process.

3. Refreezing: When the people have started using the new ways of working, it is time to refreeze which means to make sure that these new methods are used all the time and in routine business. It is the time to institutionalize the changes, create leadership, maximize employee's behaviour and adapt the new methods forever.

Concord bookshop, a 64 years old store of New England was not able to bring a successful change because it only recognized the need for bringing a change. It was not able to properly implement the change because it did not correctly follow the organizational change process. It failed on all three levels of the change process and as a result losses were faced the by the bookstore owners.

The first and most important reason behind the failure of Concord bookshop in bringing a change was owner's inability to unfreeze the organization. Owners failed to communicate its employees the vision and need of bringing a change. They did not share the benefits of change with the stakeholders and even did not address to their concerns and issues. Due to lack of communication, rumors spread between the employees and they became dissatisfied.

Change decision was taken without considering the abilities and skills of the employees. The experience of and views of employees were not taken into consideration and they were given the option of accepting the change or leaving the job. As a consequence, three top managers and five old employees resigned and several others were left de-motivated as they were not motivated to accept the change. In short, the management failed in the unfreezing phase and was not able to start the unfreezing process.

The unfreezing phase of organizational change process was also not properly used by the owners because they did not work on the unfreezing stage. Employees were confused, not sure about the goals and directions of the bookstore as owners simply jumped in with new plans and did not consider the management and employee's consent. The behaviors and attitude of employees towards the new method of working was not enthusiastic as they were not aware about the benefits of the change. They resisted the change and owners failed to successfully implement the ideas and ways of working.