OrganizationChange
Question1
Substantialchange occurs when organizations modify their overall successstrategies. It also happens when the management decides to enhance amajor department or do away with some business practices throughamending the nature of a firm’s operations. Change occurs when anorganization goes through its development lifecycles as humanssuccessfully evolve over time. The key characteristics of organicorganizations include decentralization, flexible and broadly definedjobs, independence of the employees and units as well asmultidirectional communication. First, an increase in the complexityand uncertainty within the environment provokes the evolution ofchange in an organic business. The firm faces novel opportunities andcopes with unexpected problems. Due to the rapid change of events,the company is forced to modify its ways of operation. Besides, theorganization has to ensure that the effected changes are sustainable(Burke, 2002).
Thesecond cause of change is the need for flexibility and sharedauthority. The rapid change in an organization’s environment callsfor the ability to make fast decisions. Consequently, organizationsdecentralize their decision-making processes and create independentunits of operation. Besides, the management reduces the number ofregulations, rules, and policies. Sometimes, the rules and policiesexist in broad terms as opposed to precision. The rules are alsoinformal as opposed to being written (Singh, 2010).
Thethird cause of change is the human element. The dynamic nature ofhumans’ needs plays a significant role in organic businesses. Theyinclude the need for increased employee empowerment and participationin decision-making as a means of motivating the staff. Besides, theorganization changes its structures to ensure it provides the humanneeds for responsibility, autonomy, esteem, challenge, socialinteraction as well as employee development. The empowerment ofemployees enables the organization to take advantage of the humancapital intellect (Singh, 2010).
Question2
Theprimary strategic development approach for an organization to managechange is by enhancing the role of the executive. The administrationis entrusted with the task of setting directions and the goals forthe business and ensuring they are achieved. The management shouldformulate long-term and short-term strategies, as well as, plan thework structure to support the new policies (Singh, 2010).
Singh(2010) provides that change leadership is a systematic, process andengagement-oriented approach to management of organizational change.It calls for collaboration between the administrators and the staffin the implementation of changes in business processes andtechnology.
Thefirst intervention of change leadership is the application ofparticipative leadership in a firm. The management approach instillscorporate values and control behaviors that increase the employees`commitment to the business goals. It cultivates better relationshipsbetween the management and the staff. Besides, it bridges the chasmexisting between the managers and the staff (Wang, 2005).
Thesecond intervention is empowerment. The approach requires designingof organizational conditions that enhance employee’s involvement inchange initiatives. It calls for a business to provide appropriatedecision-making responsibilities among the staff, the management, andsupervisors within various circumstances (Kennedy, 2007).
Thefourth intervention is systems thinking. It is the consideration thatorganizations are dynamic systems affected by changes in the internaland external environment. The perspective is a conceptual frameworkdeveloped by various academics to help enterprises appreciate theinterdependence of their processes. Consequently, minuteinterventions on a single part may cause unanticipated effects toother segments. Accordingly, the unpredictable nature of the resultsrequires an organization to be ready with tools, techniques, andmethods that focus on groups as opposed to individuals. In systemthinking, a strategy focused on the whole group improves theemployees’ awareness of other parts of the organization, as wellas, the interdependence that exists between various parts (French,Bell & Zawacki, 2005).
Question3
Thefirst essential skill of a change manager is the ability to definethe vision of an organization. The concept entails the broadshort-term objectives of the business as well as the required actionsto achieve the goals. It is also essential for the leader to come upwith the desired core values, such as the expected behavior of theemployees and the level of practice of the organization’sprocesses. The leader should possess extensive knowledge of anorganization’s business, which is supported by a rigorousevaluation and a good grip of the company’s operations (Wang,2005).
Second,change leadership calls for the ability of a principal to communicatethe transformation to his or her team. The manager should beconvincing enough to earn the trust of the team. The capacity topaint a picture of the desired change in the mind of employeesenables them to work towards the achievement of the primary goals.Besides, a leader should communicate the long-term, as well as, theshort-term actions for supporting change. Open communication with theemployees is essential during change since the director should be asopen as possible. Besides, the manager should offer responsibilitiesduring the change process as opportunities for the team todemonstrate how well they understand the processes required toachieve the anticipated transformation (Yolitz, 2012).
Arealistic change leadership and management model concede that thereare difficulties in well-planned and organized organization change.It is, consequently, necessary for leaders to motivate their teams.Specifically, the head should be resilient enough to steer the squadduring the times of adversity. Although challenging, it is essentialto customize the motivation to influence the crew towards thedirection of the perceived change despite the existing problems inthe process. Various forms of motivation can be used to increase thelevel of decision making and responsibilities accorded to theemployees (Wang, 2005).
Question4
Alteringthe culture of an organization requires the administration to focusobtaining, analyzing data and generating transformative information.First, organizations should strive to identify the right sources ofdata. Data modeling is currently a universe of countless sources. Thevolume of data has increased, and the opportunities for expandinginsights have burgeoned as well. The current external sources of dataavailable to an organization entail the internet and social media,data from market surveys, weather forecasts, reports from varioussectors of the government, non-governmental publications, andsyndicate services. The organization can also utilize informationfrom its internal sources such as the accounting results (from thedepartment of finance), sales report (from the marketing department),production reports (from the manufacturing department), as well asother miscellaneous information of internal critical processes(Kennedy, 2007).
Theability to source significant amount of data gives a panoramic andgranular view of the business environment. Consequently, themanagement can make the requisite alteration to oversee the change inthe organization. The ability of the organization to view what waspreviously invisible enhances the operations of the company, thecustomer operations, and the overall change strategy (French, Bell &Zawacki, 2005).
Secondly,change in an enterprise requires managers to source their datacreatively. There are times that the organization’s leaders possessthe information to lead the business, but lack the insight on how toexploit the information to the advantage of the firm. For example,operation managers may lack the grasp of how the daily or hourlyproduction rates affect the customer service of a company. Therefore,businesses should define the specific commerce problems andopportunities that require being addressed to encourage a morecomprehensive analysis of the data that they possess (Wang, 2005).
Besides,it is imperative for organizations to install the necessaryinformation technology (IT) support. IT infrastructure can hinder theefficient integration of stored information and the management of rawdata. Although a full resolution of IT may take years, anorganization’s leadership should make efforts to address theshort-term data requirements of the business. It means that that theenterprise should set up a structure that favors a rapididentification of sensitive data and connections for a smoothoperation. The system should have the capacity to synchronize, mergeoverlapping information, and identify any ensuing gaps (Yolitz,2012).
Inaddition, organizational change requires models that optimize theoutcomes. Despite the importance of data, it is crucial to improvethe extant data analysis models to enhance the management capacity toforecast and predict outcomes. The most efficient way to improve thestandards entails understanding the type of information anorganization requires. Besides, the management should identify theavailable business opportunities and determine how the data analysismodel can enhance performance. The approach generates rapid outcomesof practical models that are well understood by the managers (Yolitz,2012).
Organizationsshould also transform the capabilities of administrators to deal withthe large quantity of data. Information management problems emanatefrom a mismatch between an enterprise’s culture and the emergingtactics of successful data exploitation. The lack of alignmenthinders the idealization of the organization’s goals. Data analysistools are perceived as being the domain of modeling experts asopposed to frontline managers. Consequently, few managers find themodels engaging enough to support their use. The use of huge amountof data requires an organization to make a considerate transformationof its managers’ capabilities (Burke, 2002).
References
Burke,W. W. (2002). Organizationchange: Theory and practice.ThousandOaks, CA: Sage Publications.
French,W.L., Bell, C., & Zawacki, R.A., (2005). Organizationdevelopment and transformation: Managing effective change.New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kennedy,G. (2007). Strategicnegotiation:An opportunity for change.Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate Pub.
Singh,K. (2010). Organisationchange and development.New Delhi: Excel Books.
Wang,S. (2005). Managingorganization change: A case study of state-owned enterprise HRMpractices in China.Sheffield:University of Sheffield.
Yolitz,B. D. (2012). Organizationchange: Is the United States air force doing it right? Placeof publication not identified: Biblioscholar.