CHANGE MANAGEMENT: AN ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

Change Management: An Organizational Context



Change Management: An Organizational Context

Introduction

People often say that the only thing in life that people can be certain of is change. The last half of the twentieth century brought great changes to organizations and organizational leadership. The initiation of total quality improvement programs (efforts designed to decrease production errors and waste or to improve services), the impact of globalization, changing demographics and worker values, a greater emphasis on participative and higher employee involvement strategies, new information, and manufacturing technology were just a few of the trends that caused organizations to focus on change management, which is the practices, models, and theories that leaders use to help individuals and groups adapt to changes in their environment.

Development of Change Management Theories

Kurt Lewin, a German sociologist, played a major role in shaping thinking about leadership and change management. Lewin was one of the first to describe organizational change processes in terms of a threestage model of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. Unfreezing can be understood as those processes designed to break up the status quo. Changing is the transition process from the old state to a new state. Refreezing is cementing the new changes in place, creating a new state of equilibrium. In addition, Lewin noted the presence of driving and restraining forces in relation to change (1951). Driving forces are those forces that support change, and restraining forces are barriers that inhibit the acceptance of change. Although his simple typology (classification) has been criticized since the 1990s as being inadequate to accommodate the rapid pace of change in the current environment, it has shaped the landscape of change management theories and practices. It has provided the backdrop against which future change management theories are reflected and measured. As the pace of technological and organizational change quickened in the last three decades of the twentieth century, a variety of conceptual models appeared. Among these might be termed the “organic models,” “the organizational stage models,” and the “interactionist models.” These models have likely reflected the disciplinary background of their proponents.

Organic Models

An emerging approach uses natural phenomena as metaphors for understanding how organizational change takes place. This approach has come in various forms, but it is based on how decay, growth, and adaptation take place in the physical and biological worlds. This approach can be seen in the work of Erich Jantsch, who examined the connection between biological concepts and their link to socio-cultural levels (1980). A related approach was used by Margaret Wheatley (1992), Lawrence G. Hrebiniak and William F. Joyce, which applied variations of evolutionary concepts to organizational life (1985). What have these models contributed? First, they have emphasized the complexity of change processes and the impact of interrelated systems. Second, they have served as metaphors or images to help leaders approach change management processes. For example, to entertain the notion that an organization or an industry might have a self-organizing capacity or to understand how cellular matter transforms itself by activities at the outer boundaries ...