Organizational change is an essential part of today’s globalized work life. Since being part of a large automotive organization, I have personally experienced some of the pro’s and con’s that come with organizational changes in such a vast company. “With any business, change is not only inevitable, it’s also unavoidable” (Smith, 2019). While a company may brag about how they still produce their products “just like the old days” as Smith says, there are many different processes and procedures that confine in that product’s creation and distribution that ultimately acquire change throughout time.
Let’s begin with some of the pro’s. Change is an important factor to keep up with industry trends. Working in Supply Chain with my organization, certain processes were very stagnant and were being done the same way for years on end without any enhancements. It was only when a change in leadership was made to the organization that accelerated a force to set the bar higher for ourselves as a company and for our consumers. Ultimately, we were faced with a challenge. The employees on my team as well as myself were able to acquire new skills, new opportunities and exercises that tested our creativity in ways that eventually supported the organization through extra ideas and increased commitment.
However, along with the positive changes came some hardships. When a major organizational change takes place, the impact of transformation can also create complicated challenges. With any sort of change, there can be certain risk factors that a company should keep in mind as some result of it. Certain aspects with a negative end result can be costly may not have recovery such as time, money, human resources, or equipment. With the organizational change that my company faced, it required developing new systems, hiring new employees for additional support, and develop 6 month training programs for the new-hires. During this process, three out of six employees hired did remain with the company and the new system’s developed needed to be completely re-designed. This created a burden on the mentioned aspects as the loss of the employees waste considered a waste of time and the system change slowed our new process down significantly.
To put this into perspective, organizational change by no means is easy. However, is it important? Absolutely. “It is known that human nature oppose change, especially if it is perceived to influence one’s lives adversely” (Smith, 2019). Understanding how to handle some of the challenges and adapt to organizational change is the key focus to turn any anticipated hardships into success. Some key focuses to take into consideration when undergoing through one is keeping the motivation and end goal in mind at all times. Create strategies that with help you and your team to better adapt to the possible changes, and most importantly, a positive attitude.
References
Moran, R., Abramson, N., & Moran, S. (2014). Managing cultural differences (9th ed.). Routledge.
Smith, C. (2019, April 7). Change Management Pros and Cons. Retrieved from
https://change.walkme.com/change-management-pros-cons/.
Jamie Miller says
You bring up some very valid points in your blog. Change is inevitable, and without change, business, process, products, employees, etc. would become stagnant and mundane. Our world and our societies are changing at lightning speed. One interesting concept that I wanted to explore further is why people resist change. Is it ingrained in our make-up, or is it a learned behavior?
What I found is most often it is fear-driven. For example, people who have change surprised them with no warning often resist it because they don’t know how it will impact them (Kanter, 2018). Another reason is loss of control, people in general what to feel like they have some control over what they do, and when change threatens that their natural reaction is to resist it (Kanter, 2018). Further explanations are that people think the change will create more work, that there is a concern can they learn what is changing and incorporate it or perform it well, and lastly leadership can feel that they did not lead if they did not think of the change first (Kanter, 2018).
Taking all of these into account and relating them to the findings in your blog, we can see why people have a real fear of change. However, as leaders, we need to take advantage of the information that is available to us to incorporate change successfully. For Instance, SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) is a great resource. They have multiple change management best practices matrix’s that outline activity, processes, benefits, risks, and resources. Some of the ideas that I found most helpful in how to move forward with change was defined future state, a clear picture of what is changing, the gap between the current and future organization impacts by the change, develop the vision that will support the change and how you will communicate that vision (SHRM, 2019).
In conclusion, your blog got me thinking about how I can identify changes that need to be made in my organizations, as well as how they can be thoughtfully planned out so that they are not resisted and are successful. One last important takeaway is that for change to be successful, as leaders, we must be willing to receive input from those around us that could be impacted by the change. When people can contribute and be involved in the development of the change process, they take pride and ownership to see that it will work. As we know, change is hard, and leaders who have the support of their employers and employees make the challenge less daunting.
References:
Kanter, R. (2018, September 26). Ten reasons people resist change. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from https://hbr.org/2012/09/ten-reasons-people-resist-chang
SHRM. (2019). Change management best practices. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from https://www.shrm.org/learningandcareer/learning/pages/cm-lrt.aspx