Summary
With the competitive nature of businesses today, organizations require well-thought-out mechanisms to face the numerous political, economic, and social challenges of their external environment. Alongside these pressures, organizations are faced with challenges caused by globalization, international legislation changes, technological innovation, acute skill shortages, and financial forces. Therefore, to remain productive and competitive in such an unstable environment, transformational change becomes inevitable. Transformational change is a necessary gradual process that causes alterations to particular areas within an organization and creates a need for behavioral change among employees. The most vital asset in the determination of the success or failure of transformational change within any organization is the ability to manage the change.
When any form of change is introduced to people, the leadership experiences a major challenge of managing the fears and expectations of the people. This, if not handled accordingly, could lead to resistance, a natural reaction for people, especially if they are unaware of the final results. While five transformational paths lead to a successful change process, this paper discusses two key ones that are arguably pillars of the entire journey: creating a framework for change and building a leadership team.
Creating a Framework/model for Change
It is important for the leaders planning to enact change to be equipped with the right tools. The reason for this is that implementing change means battling the company’s culture, human psychology, and organizational momentum. The right tools, in this case, the correct model or framework, increase the chances of succeeding in enacting the change by connecting business strategy to action (Clarke, 2019). A framework for change management refers to the structure leaders may follow when seeking comprehension and a change plan for their organization and helps them to gain input into a change plan. Leaders should use assessments such as Lean Coffee and Force Field to acquire insights.
An example of a model under the Lean change management framework is Kotters Model, which describes an eight-step process necessary when implementing organizational change. The eight steps are: create urgency, establish a strong coalition, have a clear vision for the change, communicate the vision, eradicate all obstacles, build on the change and anchor the change in corporate culture (Bustinza et al., 2018). This model is recommended as it is straightforward to follow and implement, even among beginners. It emphasizes involving the employees in every step to reduce resistance and the process of acceptability more than the actual change process. While it offers a great structural balance, its workability has been questioned by the likes of Peters and Waterman, who emphasize the need to think about more than just the structure, which is the main focus of the Kotters model (Baloh et al., 2017). Being a step-by-step model means that sipping even a single step could have serious repercussions on the organization.
Currently, there is not enough information that has explicitly manipulated or tested the process of developing a framework of change. While this process has been proven through empirical and experiential reviews to play a significant role in implementing change, more systematic evaluations are needed. With this, leaders will have a better understanding of what exactly motivates employees to unite and address common challenges and goals.
Building a Leadership Team
A leader who is either the person in charge or the agent of change ought to be competent to be successful in the process of organizational change. More organizations understand the paramount role their leadership plays in the success and continuity of their operations. It is for this reason that most do not only look at the academic qualifications of senior employees but skills and personal attributes as well. Regardless of these efforts, 70 percent (Carucci, 2021) of organizational changes fail to accomplish their goals. This shows that there is still a lot to be done in terms of getting effective and highly competent leadership that can analyze and identify the organization’s true state and address the issue most appropriately.
According to the pieces of literature reviewed for this paper, it is clear that leaders who are most likely to implement organizational change successfully are those who use a vision and innovative approach. Vision allows one to remain motivated and inspired and develop mutual responsibility for the success of the organizational change (Al Deeb et al., 2019). It further encourages people to make smart choices as everything they do is geared towards the results. A visionary and innovative leader understands the need to bring people together to work in a better environment to achieve common goals. The leader needs to be able to look into the future and still align the team with this vision and then inspire them to work towards accomplishing the desired goals. In other words, a leader leads their team to turn the company’s dreams of a better work culture, more productivity, and a market lead into a reality. All these can only be achieved if there is a proper communication structure, which allows the flow of reliable information down to the lowest employee (Al Deeb et al., 2019). Proper communication fosters respect, unity, motivation, acceptance, and high rates of productivity.
In conclusion, organizational change is inevitable if organizations are to remain productive and relevant in today’s competitive scenario. The change process is a complex one, which requires a proper framework and capable leadership to succeed. As different frameworks work for different circumstances, an organization needs to acquire the right tools/framework. An organization can never achieve a successful transformation if its leadership does not involve all the employees. The greatest enemy of change is people: change is uncomfortable, and most people are not ready to embrace it unless they are convinced that it is beneficial to them.
References
Al Deeb, H., Al Dossary, W., & Al Ahmed, A. (2019). How the Activation of the Organizational Change Could Be Affected by the Transformational Leadership? An Applied Study from Bahrain. International Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences, 4(2), 243–252. Web.
Baloh, J., Zhu, X., & Ward, M. M. (2017). Implementing team huddles in small rural hospitals: How does the Kotter model of change apply? Journal of Nursing Management, 26(5), 571–578. Web.
Bustinza, O. F., Gomes, E., Vendrell-Herrero, F., & Tarba, S. Y. (2018). An organizational change framework for digital servitization: Evidence from the Veneto region. Strategic Change, 27(2), 111–119. Web.
Carucci, R. (2021). How Leaders Get in the Way of Organizational Change. Web.
Clarke, T. (2019). Developing Global Institutional Frameworks for Corporate Sustainability in the Context of Climate Change: The Impact upon Corporate Policy and Practice. Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Change, 161–175. Web.