Resistance to Change
Resistance to Change
Organizational change is the movement of an organization away from its present state and toward some desired future state to increase its effectiveness. (George et al, pg 567) Organizations need to change in the modern day market place. New technologies, globalization, foreign trade, investments and constantly shifting marketplaces demand the need for flexibility, adaptation, and change. The downside to this is in an organizations employees. People by nature resist change. In a workplace environment, where familiarity is present with an employees set of tasks and processes, change becomes more difficult to introduce and accept. There are basically three groups associated with a resistance to change. They are on an organizational level, group level, and individual level. I will address these different areas and offer a solution as to what I believe is the best way to deal with this resistance. The first group is on an organizational level. Many forces inside an organization make it difficult for the organization to change in response to changing conditions in its environment. (George et al, pg 571) One such force is that of power and conflict. The basis for this resistance is if a change within an organization benefits one group, but hurts another, the benefiting group will push hard for the change while the group that is hurt by this change will resist it and fight against it. The conflict between the two groups will slow down the change and may even prevent it from happening. Differences in functional orientation are another area that may cause resistance to change. Different functions and divisions of an organization tend to see the source of a problem with “tunnel” vision. In other words, because of their own viewpoints, these divisions see problems as they see them rather than looking at the problem unbiased. The result is organizational inertia, because the organization must spend vast amount of time to secure an agreement about
Organizational change is the movement of an organization away from its present state and toward some desired future state to increase its effectiveness. (George et al, pg 567) Organizations need to change in the modern day market place. New technologies, globalization, foreign trade, investments and constantly shifting marketplaces demand the need for flexibility, adaptation, and change. The downside to this is in an organizations employees. People by nature resist change. In a workplace environment, where familiarity is present with an employees set of tasks and processes, change becomes more difficult to introduce and accept. There are basically three groups associated with a resistance to change. They are on an organizational level, group level, and individual level. I will address these different areas and offer a solution as to what I believe is the best way to deal with this resistance. The first group is on an organizational level. Many forces inside an organization make it difficult for the organization to change in response to changing conditions in its environment. (George et al, pg 571) One such force is that of power and conflict. The basis for this resistance is if a change within an organization benefits one group, but hurts another, the benefiting group will push hard for the change while the group that is hurt by this change will resist it and fight against it. The conflict between the two groups will slow down the change and may even prevent it from happening. Differences in functional orientation are another area that may cause resistance to change. Different functions and divisions of an organization tend to see the source of a problem with “tunnel” vision. In other words, because of their own viewpoints, these divisions see problems as they see them rather than looking at the problem unbiased. The result is organizational inertia, because the organization must spend vast amount of time to secure an agreement about
References: George, J & Jones, G, Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior, 2005, Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ Schiffman, Stephan, The 25 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople, 1994, Published by Adams Media Corporation