modified heart of change

Organizational Approaches to Change The ability to change and adapt is extremely important for any organization to reach its full potential. Influencing people to change is more dependent on showing them a truth that influences their feelings, rather than shifting their thinking (Kotter & Cohen, 2002, p. 1). If leaders can change the behavior of members of an organization, the successful large-scale change they are seeking will more likely be realized. According to Kotter and Cohen, in order to achieve successful large-stage change, there are first eight stages that must be followed. These steps are: increasing urgency, building the guiding team, getting the vision right, communicate for buy-in, empower action, create short-term wins, don 't let up, and making change stick (Kotter & Cohen, 2002, p. 6). While organizational change does not necessary require each of these steps to occur, or in the exact specified order, they provide a basic pattern for leaders to use to influence behavior and create change (Kotter & Cohen, 2002, p.7). An alternative to the eight steps suggested by Kotter and Cohen is the Model of Organizational Change and Development. This model operates in this way: forces for change affect performance outcomes, which are the focus of diagnosis of the problem, which leads to the selection of appropriate methods, as constrained by impediments and limiting conditions, followed by implementation of the method, which is the provision for program evaluation, and lastly feedback is provided to begin the change process over once again (Ivancevich, Konopaske & Matteson, 2014, p. 514). Operating in a similar manner to the eight steps used in Heart of Change, the Model of Organizational Change and Development also uses specific steps that have been considered essential to successful change management (Ivancevich, Konopaske & Matteson, 2014, p. 513). In both approaches to change, the need for change is ever present for organizations to achieve success in

References: Ivancevich, J. M., Konopaske, R., & Matteson, M. T. (2014). Organizational Behavior & Management, Tenth Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Kotter, J. P., & Cohen, D. S. (2002). The Heart Of Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.