Organisational Change

Key Concepts | Key notions/ ideas/ points | Comments | InertiaWhy is it difficult to change? | To understand why there is organisational inertia and why it is difficult to change, it is necessary to first identify them so that they can be individually addressed. This can be done by categorising the inertias identified into ‘socio-technical’, ‘cultural’, ‘political’ and ‘economical’ with the ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’ scenarios mapped out for each category. (refer to Appendix A for notes on the various type of organisation inertia)When the social and technical factors do not create conditions that are necessary for joint optimisation, it will create resistance to change. Therefore, by identifying the socio-technical inertias, it will allow the change management team to improve/ train the areas/ skillsets that are lacking. Also, as culture is often deeply entrenched, cultural inertia tend to cause people to react defensively and do not see a need to respond to a change in the environment. Thus, a clear communication of the ‘why’ and the expected desired behaviours of the change initiative is necessary for the sceptics.Change inevitably involves winners and losers. Some will gain resources and prestige and others will be lessened and this will result in a tussle of political inertia. Thus, to counter against this, management should encourage buying in to the change initiative with the identified political groups and form coalitions so as to create ownership and reduce their resistance. Finally. To overcome the lack of resources that may hinder the change process, management needs to address this economical inertia through heavy investment or changing the cost centres to profit centres. | In my organisation, it is mandatory that the CEO is changed every three years. With every change in reign, there will bound to be organisation-wide changes in terms of top management team’s profile/information systems and performance measurement tools. Recently, the organisation