In the spectrum of organizational change, which is the most radical type of change: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, or paradigm shifts?
“Change is an absolutely critical part of business. And yes, your company does need to change—preferably now and not later, when you have no other choice.”
By:Jack Welch & Suzy Welch
The problem is that people hate it when their bosses announce a “transformation initiative.” They run back to their cubicles and start frantically e-mailing one another, complaining that the changes are going to ruin everything
People love familiarity and patterns. They cling to them. The phenomenon is so entrenched it can only be chalked up to human nature. But while managing change can sometimes feel like moving a mountain, it can also be incredibly rewarding, particularly when you start seeing results.
Ultimately, implementing change comes down to embracing the following four practices:
1. Attach every change initiative to a clear purpose or goal. Change for change’s sake is stupid and enervating. Change should be a relatively orderly process, but for that to occur, people have to understand why change is necessary and how changes will affect them. This is easier, of course, when the problems are obvious—earnings are collapsing or a competitor has dropped prices 20 percent. But sometimes the need for change isn’t immediately apparent. Competitive threats seem to be emerging, but you don’t know for certain, and still, you have to respond. In those cases, relentless communication about the business rationale for change, reinforced with lots of data, is the best ammunition you have.The larger your company, the more challenging it will be to communicate the need for change. In big companies, calls for change are often greeted noncommittally. After all, if the company has been through enough change programs, employees will assume you’ll go away if they just wait long enough. Stick to your guns—your solid, persuasive business case. Over time, logic will win out.
2. Hire and promote only true believers and get-on-with-it types. Everyone in business claims to like change. To say otherwise would be career suicide. But by my estimate, less than 10 percent of all businesspeople are true change agents. Once the next group—about 70 to 80 percent of people working in business—is convinced that change is necessary, they’ll say, “OK already, get on with it.” The rest are resisters.To make change happen, companies must actively hire and promote only true believers and get-on-with-its. But with everyone claiming to like change, how can you tell who is for real?
Luckily, change agents usually make themselves known. They’re typically brash, high-energy and more than a little paranoid about the future. They often invent change initiatives on their own or ask to lead them. Invariably, they are curious and forward-looking. These people have a certain fearlessness about the unknown. If they fail, they know they can pick themselves up, dust themselves off and move on. They’re thick-skinned about risk, which allows them to make bold decisions without a lot of data.
3. Ferret out and remove the resisters, even if their performance is satisfactory. This is the hardest of the four practices to implement. It’s tough to let anyone go, but it’s particularly difficult to fire people who are not actually screwing up and may in fact be doing quite well.But in any organization, there are people who will not accept change, no matter how sound your case is. They are so invested—emotionally, intellectually, or politically—in the status quo that they cannot see a way to improve anything. These people usually have to go.That may sound harsh, but you’re not doing anyone a favor by keeping resisters in your organization. They foster an underground resistance and lower the morale of the people who support change. They’re wasting their own time: They’re working at a company where they don’t agree with or share in the vision, and they should be encouraged to find one where they do.
4. Look at car wrecks. Most companies capitalize on obvious opportunities. When a competitor fails, they move in on their customers. When a new technology emerges, they invest in it and create product line extensions.But to be a real change organization, you also have to have to look at bolder, scarier, more unpredictable events, assess the opportunities they present and make the most of them. Fostering this capability takes a certain determination, but the rewards can be huge.Take the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Currency traders certainly capitalized on this awful event; they live on exploiting change. But they’re not the only ones who should do this. GE had real success buying undervalued Thai auto loans in this period. Others prospered by buying real estate at fire sale prices.Bankruptcies are another type of calamity that reveals all kinds of opportunities. Of course, they’re tragic to the employees. Jobs are lost, and pensions disappear into thin air. But jobs and futures can also be created from the cinders. With all the noise out there about change, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and confused. But these are the only four practices that matter. That’s it. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
TERMINOLOGIES
Organizational change
This phrase refers to the overall nature of activities, for example, their extent and rate, that occurs during a project that aims to enhance the overall performance of the organization. The activities are often led by a change agent, or person currently responsible to guide the overall change effort. The activities are often project-oriented (a one-time project) and geared to address a current overall problem or goal in the organization. (A relatively new phrase, capacity building, refers to these types of activities, as well.)
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems (such as numerical control, programmable logic control, and other industrial control systems), in concert with other applications of information technology (such as computer-aided technologies [CAD, CAM, CAx]), to control industrial machinery and processes, reducing the need for human intervention.[1] In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Processes and systems can also be automated.Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities.
Paradigm shift
Paradigm shift (or revolutionary science) is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. It is in contrast to his idea of normal science.The term paradigm shift, as a change in a fundamental model of events, has since become widely applied to many other realms of human experience as well, even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the hard sciences. According to Kuhn, "A paradigm is what members of a scientific community, and they alone, share." (The Essential Tension, 1977). Unlike a normal scientist, Kuhn held, "a student in the humanities has constantly before him a number of competing and incommensurable solutions to these problems, solutions that he must ultimately examine for himself." (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Once a paradigm shift is complete, a scientist cannot, for example, posit the possibility that miasma causes disease or that ether carries light. In contrast, a critic in the Humanities can choose to adopt a 19th-century theory of poetics, for instance.Since the 1960s, the term has been found useful to thinkers in numerous non-scientific contexts. Compare as a structured form of Zeitgeist.
Business Process Reengineering Cycle.
Business process reengineering (BPR) is, in computer science and management, an approach aiming at improvements by means of elevating efficiency and effectiveness of the business process that exist within and across organizations. The key to BPR is for organizations to look at their business processes from a "clean slate" perspective and determine how they can best construct these processes to improve how they conduct business.
Business process reengineering is also known as BPR, Business Process Redesign, Business Transformation, or Business Process Change Management. Reengineering is a fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality, speed, and service. BPR combines a strategy of promoting business innovation with a strategy of making major improvements to business processes so that a company can become a much stronger and more successful competitor in the marketplace.
The Article
Clearing Up the Language About Organizational Change and Development
Written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Copyright 1997-2008.Adapted from the Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development and Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development with Nonprofits.
When a topic (for example, organizational change and development) becomes very prominent, it often takes on many different interpretations and meanings. The advantage is that that topic becomes very accessible, interesting and enlightening to many. The disadvantage is that it's also increasingly vague and difficult for many to make practical. To make this topic of organizational change and development useful, we should reference some common definitions. Even if not all people agree with the definitions, we at least have some definitions in common to disagree about -- that alone can enhance the communications about the topic. Having some understanding and discernment about the following phrases will help readers to benefit even more from literature about organizational change.
Organizational performance management
We're used to thinking of ongoing performance management for employees, for example, setting goals, monitoring the employee's achievement of those goals, sharing feedback with the employee, evaluating the employee's performance, rewarding performance or firing the employee. Performance management applies to organizations, too, and includes recurring activities to establish organizational goals, monitor progress toward the goals, and make adjustments to achieve those goals more effectively and efficiently.Note that, in contrast to organizational change projects, organizational performance management activities are recurring in nature. Those recurring activities are much of what leaders and managers inherently do in their organizations -- some do them far better than others. An organizational change project is not likely to be successful if it is not within the context of the recurring activities of organizational performance management.
Organizational change
This phrase refers to the overall nature of activities, for example, their extent and rate, that occurs during a project that aims to enhance the overall performance of the organization. The activities are often led by a change agent, or person currently responsible to guide the overall change effort. The activities are often project-oriented (a one-time project) and geared to address a current overall problem or goal in the organization. (A relatively new phrase, capacity building, refers to these types of activities, as well.)
Organizational development
This phrase refers to the evolution of the organization during the overall organizational change activities, for example, evolution of its members to be able to resolve a major problem, achieve an overall project goal and/or achieve overall organizational goals. Organizational development is an outcome of organizational change activities.
Change management
This phrase refers to the implementation of a certain approach or methodology to ensure the organizational change effort is successful, including to ensure a clear vision and/or goals for the project, and to modify systems in the organization to more effectively achieve the goals. Change management activities can range from a planned, structured and explicit approach (successful change efforts usually are) to unplanned and implicit.
Change agent
A change agent is the person who's currently responsible for the overall change effort. The role can be performed by different people at different times. For example, an effective consultant (internal or external) might first perform the role, but work in such a way during the project that the role ultimately is adopted by someone else inside the organization.
Organization Development (OD)
OD is a field of research, theory and practice dedicated to expanding the knowledge and effectiveness of people to accomplish more successful organizational change and performance. Different people often have different perspectives on the field, depending on their particular values and skills. Many people assert that, for OD projects to be highly effective, they must be systems-based in design and highly humanistic in implementation. (Occasionally, someone refers to the field as "organizational development," but for the sake of clarity in this topic, that definition will not be used in the Free Management Library.)Reflection: For me the most radical type of chenge in the spectrum of organization is the business reengineering because in this case we should be careful in analying our steps and ways in redesigning our organization.
References:
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/pf/17334-principles-of-organizational-change.htmlhttp://managementhelp.org/org_chng/keyt-terms.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shifthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_reengineering
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