The following presents a discussion of organization change. Topics discussed include overcoming resistance to change and transforming organizations and reasons for failure. This is followed by a summary and conclusions.
Organizational change is a process that is typically met with disgruntled employees facing the changes. People resist change and behave accordingly. Change includes new adaptations to environmental circumstances and this leads to fear and frustration. Blame is another component of the change process. Kurt Lewin (1952) presented a change theory that helps explain what goes on in the organization seeking to change. Human beings seek to create an environment that is safe and secure and change is a threat to this safe place. People need to be taught the new in a manner that deals with the stages that they are going to face as they change. People need to be motivated to change in order to unfreeze their current status. Once they accept the new they must again strive to set up their environment to be a safe and secure place which requires a new freezing at the new level.
Coch and French (1948) pointed out that there are ways to help people accept change. These authors presented their classic study of worker participation in decision-making (Bartlem & Locke, 1981). These authors provided a demonstration of theories by Lewin (1952). Coch and French divided workers whose jobs were to be changed into three different groups. For the first group, employees were told by the management that the changes would be made. In the second group the reasons for the changes were provided and workers were invited to choose representatives to devise retraining programs. For the third group, reasons for job changes were provided and the whole group was invited to design and plan the new jobs and training. Findings showed that the second and third groups improved production and the first group declined in production. ...