Discuss the seven (7) actions that managers can take to overcome resistance to change
Organizations are constantly changing in their modes of operation in order to adapt to their competitive environments. Managers, being the overall individuals who oversee and implement change within their organizations, are obliged to the following actions. Managers should ensure involvement of a variety of employees in the planning, decision making, and monitoring stages of the change strategy; this will ensure more support from the employees in the entire change process and efficient adaptability of the entire change process.
There is need for timely and regular communication about the change that is to be implemented. This will ensure that no members are caught by surprise after the change has been adapted and implemented and prepare the employees on what to expect and hence the employees make regular adjustments. In addition, motivation of employees by explaining the reasons propelling the need for the specified changes that are being proposed within the organization will enable motivation of the unwilling members of staff to embrace the changes (Robbins 25). Moreover, managers should liaise with strong members of staff who possess greater influence on other staff members so as to assist in convincing others of the merits of the desired change strategies. This makes them strong proponents of the desired program.
The managers should design a flexible plan involving all the processes required to implement the stated and desired changes within the organization. The plan should have well defined boundaries that are well understood by the members of the organizations. Inclusion of compensation, promotional and reward schemes should be reviewed and included in the change strategy as this will increasingly motivate the members to embrace the forth-coming changes within the organization.
The process should be open to allow for member participation through discussions and other educative forums to ensure collective efforts from the members. Their suggestions should be given priority by the managers.
What is political behavior? Discuss at least three (3) individual and three (3) organizational factors related to political behavior.
Political behavior refers to the private activities that may not be consistent with the interests of the organization, although they influence the distribution of majority of the advantages and disadvantages within the organization, where the organization is a system of government, which is inclined towards authoritarian or democratic forms of rule. Political behavior involves cultivating influential allies, controlling the flow of information and influencing decisions through the informal use of power. It is directly linked to decision making through strategies of bargaining, compromising, and trading support for information and resources.
Political behavior influences both individual and organizational factors. The individual factors influenced include individual recruitment, which involves the enrollment of an individual to a given opportunity within the organization. The recruited individuals come with a variety of experiences, attitude, and values, which help in defining their relation with other members within the organization. This is in addition to promotion and appointment to senior position within the organization because of the overall performance of the group and their contribution to the defined goals of the organization.
Payment disparities within the organization between the different groups of workers are also politically influenced resulting in inequality in distribution of income among the individual workers.
Organizational factors related to political behavior include; the entire decision making process within the organization centered on power and politics influenced by the top management who assume complete consensus in relation to the overall goal. They are responsible for the entire decision making process on whatever activities are to be carried out within the organization in conformity to the expectations and objectives set. Rules and principles used in designing the operations of organizations. Organizational structure that formally unites the members into a well-integrated team that is fully dedicated to the pursuit of common set goals (Knights and Wilmott 312).
Discuss the difference between a work group and a work team. Include examples of where each would be used. In addition, describe and discuss what a self-managed team is and explain the advantages and disadvantages of this type of arrangement
Work group refers to an associative social unit of small number of people working in a collaborative style with individual input and accountability style. It is an ensemble of people sharing certain interests and passions, or perhaps simply enjoy each other’s company. The common interest shared includes activities such as participating in class quiz, answering questions, with a main goal and objective of combining their knowledge to eventually win the activity at hand.
The processes within the different groups are usually guided by known and linear rationality, which is characterized by high emotional content in terms of hate, love, fear, or anxiety. The individuals in a group combine and associate in instantaneous, inevitable, and instinctive ways. Such powerful emotional drives within the group can lead to diverting and obstruction of the activities of the group.
Assumptions within a group include dependency, where majority of the group members are completely dependent on a leader member of the group who has the powers of running and managing the group, pairing of one or more people to provide hope and solution to all the problems and issues of the group, and fighting to keep insecurity at bay. Group processes involve communication, decision-making, power and influence, and conflict resolution in terms of the person who solves the processes (Knights and Wilmott 123).
Examples of work groups are Christian union groups, seminar groups, at university among others. In a work group, the members have individual goals, and overall performance is a summation of each individual contribution. There is individual responsibility and their products are individual work. The skills involved are random and the primary motive of interaction of members is to share information.
Work teams refer to a small number of interdependent individuals with “complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable” (Knights and Wilmott 123). Such teams are involved with work and activities such as experiments, reports, both of which are specific towards a certain purpose. The team is responsible for the management and delivery of a project or a service. Examples of work teams include the team-based project for course work at the university working on a specified project. Such a team is responsible for the management, delivery, and presentation of the outcomes of the entire project at hand.
In a work team, all the members have a common goal and performance is collective and greater than individual inputs. Both responsibility and accountability is individual in nature. Overall leadership is shared among the team members and the purpose of the team is specific requiring a collective effort, the work of the team is a collective work from all the members.
Self-managed team refers to a team where “much of the responsibility and authority for making management decisions is turned to a group of people who perform interdependently in order to accomplish assigned tasks” (Merritt and Reynolds 17).
Such an arrangement proves much productive to the team, as it allows the teams to be cohesive and efficient in their service delivery. However, the disadvantages include the difficulty of implementation, the risks of failure when used inappropriately where there is insufficient leadership and support. The arrangement threatens future employment of individuals in organizations due to layoffs. There is also a high rate of absenteeism and turnover rates (Merritt and Reynolds 17).
Explain the difference between job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. In addition, what are the three dimensions to organizational commitment?
Work and employment in organizations is concerned with a series of rational and economic issues that relate to the productivity and efficiency, and at the same time pain, suffering, and disappointments. Job satisfaction refers to the overall feeling within an individual concerning performance, outcome, and interests that an individual possesses towards the performed daily activities. Satisfaction is influenced by factors such as extraversion, anxiety, independence, tough mindedness, and self-control.
The integration of the above factors influences the level of an individual’s satisfaction within the job being performed. Negative affectivity and control seem to take a bigger share in the determination of job satisfaction. The tendency of individuals to have negative emotions independent of the situation is negative affectivity, which results into a decrease in job satisfaction, unlike an individual having positivity, which enhances job satisfaction within the organization at all levels of participation.
Job involvement refers to the way members perceive their jobs in relation with the working environment, the job itself, and the entire livelihood of the members. Job involvement can be influenced by such organizational phenomena such as power struggles, conflict, and inequality within the organization being brought by the influence of the authorities within the hierarchy (Cooper and Robertson10).
Organizational commitment refers to strong identification and loyalty for the organization that members work for and the willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization. There needs to be maximum commitment of the members within the organization to ensure quality leadership, productivity, and stimulation of improved management among both the managers and the staff. Such commitment ensures maximum performance of the overall members within the organization (Cooper and Robertson10).
The commitment is related to the attitudes and behaviors in the workplace in relation to employee behavior, performance effectiveness, and attitudinal, affective, and cognitive constructs of job satisfaction, employee responsibility, and age and job tenure. There are three dimensions of organizational commitment – affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Generally, the former provides a sustainable linkage between the employees and the organization in relation to attainment of the organizational goals and objectives.
Continuance commitment involves the tendency of employees having untenable loyalty to the organization, mainly due to strong attachment to various benefits such as strong inter-employees bonding, personal investments in terms of career and development and acquired experience among other benefits that would be attract high exit cost or loss. Lastly, normative commitment refers to the feeling of obligation of the members to their workplace. Such is natural feeling of moral obligation of the members to the organization.
Works Cited
Cooper, Cary L. and Robertson, Ivan T. International review of industrial and organizational psychology. Volume 19. NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2004.
Merritt, Edward and Reynolds, Dennis. “The Effect of Self-Managing Teams on Manager Commitment and Organizational Tenure in Private Clubs.” Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 16, 1-9. 2003. Web.
Knights, David and Willmott, Hugh. Introducing Organizational Behaviour and Management. London: Cengage Learning EMEA. 2006. Web.
Robbins, Stephen P. Organizational Behavior and SAL 3. 0 CD-ROM. Edition11. NY: Prentice Hall, 2005.