Change Management

Companies and organizations are changing continually to be more efficient in what they do. Change is not always readily accepted. Many people like to stay where they are and become comfortable with their current position. Business writers and managers have stated that unless organizations continue to change, they will become stale and inefficient. There have been many change management initiatives such as Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, and the Japanese Kaizen. Although these initiatives carry different names and slightly different processes, they all have a few elements in common. The most important elements for successful change management, as emphasized by the course text Human Resources Management in Canada and John P. Kotter’s article Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail, are time, sufficient communication, and understanding the urgency for change.

Change is gradual; it takes time for things to change. It has been said that, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” This is true for the business world as well. We simply cannot expect things to change overnight. Kotter has argued that it would more reasonable to allow a few years in order to fully allow the change process to unfold. Management should give themselves a large window of time to schedule in change. If they believe that they can make a large change over-night, they are merely fooling themselves of their capacity to manage. No matter how good a manager or executive may be, they must allow change to happen over a prolonged period of time.

It is often argued that the success of a significant change within an organization is weighed upon the extent to which there is sufficient communication. The key element that both the text and the article point out is usage of communication channels. In Kotter’s article, he states, “In more successful transformation efforts, executives use all existing communication channels…they turn boring and unread company newsletters into lively articles about the vision.” I currently work for the university in the computing department and we have gone through considerable change over the last couple of years. As Kotter has observed, communication can be effectively transmitted through existing channels. In my department, the boring weekly newsletter was changed and it now contains a wide array of small articles that has relevant and interesting content. We did not necessarily have to waste efforts on creating a new channel of communication; rather, we only had to modify one that already existed. Effective communication allows all members of the organization to understand and act according to the vision; it creates unity in attitude and is the cornerstone for successful change.

Both the text and the article by Kotter put considerable emphasis on the quality and commitment of the leader for the planned change. They both state that the leaders need a high sense of urgency.