Critical thinking skills and applications

¶ … Resistance to Change

Change is one of the most predictable forces in any organization today. With competition reaching cutthroat levels and organizations struggling to gain greater market share, it is only practical to expect change. Change can be in many forms. A firm may come up with a different strategy for selling its products or increasing its production or an organization might decide to introduce new technology to enhance productivity. But as certain as change is, resistance to it is also a given. When change is introduced in any form, people who are already accustomed to the old ways are more likely to resist changes. They would want to do anything in their power to stick with the old ways of doing things and this can create friction, resentment and overall performance degradation. To minimize risks of resistance and to overcome it, there are several methods that consultants advocate. Some of them are more general in nature and thus are applicable to every organization regardless of the industry in which it operates but others are more specific and thus target specific organizations. Here we shall be discussing two important and general methods of overcoming resistance to change.

Method 1

Creating awareness:

This is by far the most effective and successful method of overcoming resistance. When change is introduced or when it is being planned, it is extremely important to educate the people about the reasons why change is needed. One reason why change is so vehemently opposed is because people do not see a reason why it is being introduced and feel threatened by something that appears alien to them. They must therefore be taken into confidence and explained why changes are crucial for success of the organization. The employees must be educated about market forces and competition. They should know who the competitors are and if they are ahead, what are the reasons behind their success. Then this must be translated into awareness about change as Grazier notes:

In today's competitive world economy, more and more people are becoming aware of the need for improving the way or organizations work. However, if we really want to turn up the heat on change, we must discuss internally the specific challenges facing our organization.

Method 2:

Benefits: