CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Change Management



Change Management

Introduction

Organizational change normally involves some threat, real or perceived, of personal loss for those involved. This threat may vary from job security to simply the disruption of an established routine. Furthermore, there may be tradeoffs between the long and short run. As an individual, I may clearly perceive that a particular proposed change is, in the long run, in my own best interests, and I may be very interested in seeing it happen, yet I may have short-run concerns that lead me to oppose particular aspects of the change or even the entire change project. (Caldwell, R. 2003, 12-54)

The rate of change is escalating in virtually all organizations. The pressure is intense on anybody connected with the health-related world to focus time and attention on understanding the forces driving the changing environment and develop or implement the information systems needed to support the altered environment. The phrase change management is very common in management articles as well as newspapers. Moreover, managerial interest in the topic has been stimulated by the comments of Peter Drucker as to whether one can manage change at all or merely lead or facilitate its occurrence within an organization. Nevertheless, using the traditional terminology, what is meant by change management, how did it evolve, and why has this concept become so important? Change management is the process by which an organization gets to its future state, its vision. While traditional planning processes delineate the steps on the journey, change management attempts to facilitate that journey. Therefore, creating change starts with creating a vision for change and then empowering individuals to act as change agents to attain that vision. The empowered change management agents need plans that provide a total systems approach, are realistic, and are future oriented. Change management encompasses the effective strategies and programs to enable those change agents to achieve the new vision.

Today's change management strategies and techniques derive from the theoretic work of a number of early researchers. (Caldwell, R. 2003, 12-54)

Literature review

Examples of Core Theories from Other Disciplines

In 1974, Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch published their now classic book, Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution. Theories about change had long existed. However, Watzlawick et al. found that most of the theories of change were philosophical and had been derived from mathematics and physics. Watzlawick et al. selected two theories from the field of mathematical logic on which to base their beliefs about change. They selected the theory of groups and the theory of logical types. Their goal of reviewing the theories of change was to explain the accelerated phenomenon of change that they were witnessing.

Watzlawick et al. concluded that the earlier theories explained first-order and second-order changes. First-order change is a variation in the way processes and procedures have been done in a given system, leaving the system itself relatively unchanged. Some examples are creating new reports, creating new ways to collect the same data, and refining existing processes and ...