Develop change management
“We do not have to change, because staying in business is not compulsory.” (W. Edwards Deming, 1900-1993) Putting more bluntly about W. Edwards Deming’s view of change, management guru Tom Peters points out “change or die” (Jick and Peiperl, Pxv). That is, if the firm chooses not to die, it must change, though there may be much to criticize about many of these efforts. Change can occur at almost any time within organizations. When the manager find their incremental change strategies were no longer moving at the same pace as forces in the environment (Jashapara, A., 2004), the organization needs a change. As an example, Clifford Chance’s partners need a successful change management program. This article begins by examining of personal response to change, and then analysis the requirement of leadership skills in the change. Finally, explore successful change management strategies especially in human resource. The purpose of this article is to discuss how to develop a successful change management programme at Clifford Chance.
In order to manage change effectively, partners need to understand how change affects people at an emotional and cognitive level, because this response can lead to considerable resistance to change. There are seven transition phases that people encounter to exercise control over a new situation, including shock, denial, depression, letting go, testing, consolidation and adaptation (Hayes 2002). People began to deny the change by individual clinging to the past and their everyday routines, in addition, the highest level of resistance to change leads to a defensive reaction like sabotage of the change process (Jashapara, A., 2004). The reasons for resistance are considered in four aspects. Parochial self-interest, people feel that they will lose something of value through the change, and most people prefer routine because it enables some control (Jick and Peiperl, Pxxi). Misunderstanding and lack of trust, due to poor communication between senior managers and staffs, individuals do not know clearly about how the change will affect themselves and lack of trust leads people refuses to submit to the decision of managers, they cannot confirm if the decision is really good for the organization or themselves, even they infer the change will results in adverse consequences, so they refuse to change. Different assessments, the individuals have conflicting views of change process. The last reason is individuals have low tolerance for change especially when it means job losses or relocation (Kotter and Shlesinger, 1979). For all these reasons, employees at all levels defend against change. In this transition phase of people’s emotional response, leadership and change management strategies are very important. First, great leadership skills and effective change management strategies can let people begin to accept the change though they do not necessarily like it. This represents a turning point in the change process. And then proceed to try out new behaviours and ways of working, finally, the individual response tends to be “Things are changing, let us work with it” and the change will finish successfully (Hayes 2002). The following parts analyze and explore how to get great leadership skills and effective change management strategies, which can direct organization to complete the change successfully.
It is clear that outstanding leader can play a vital role in the change process and particularly in enabling effective transformations to occur (Jashapara, A., 2004). Different from the manager, leaders are more concerned with establishing a direction, aligning, motivating and inspiring people (Senior 1997). They should have two main skills for managing people in the change process as follows, getting the right people in the right places in the change program which seems as an important approach to “refreezing” and will be analyzed in the later part, the other is having great leadership skills and goal commitment. Great leadership skills includes offering a vision of what is possible that mobilizes, energize and empower people to reach that vision, articulating accepted goals and expectations, and playing a role in gaining commitment to the goals in the change process (Jashapara, A.2004). Worth mentioning, leadership must be improved if Clifford Chance wants to achieve change management. The current situation of leadership the firm is terrible as it is said in memo, “nearly everything that can go wrong in a knowledge-based business.”
The change management process follows three phases, unfreezing, moving and refreezing (Lewin, 1951). The three phases form a cycle and an effective change management strategy should adopted follows this cycle and using a variety of interventions to reduce the resistance to change (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979). Leadership and human resource interventions are the two approaches to affect the cycle and assist this process achieve successfully. The requirement of leadership in the change management process and how it intervenes to reduce the resistance to change have been analyzed in the previous part, so this part mainly explore the human resource interventions to the cycle. The first phase is unfreezing and loosening current set of behaviours, mental models and ways of looking at a problem. As forenamed, the reason for change management programme is that current strategies were no longer moving at the same pace as forces in the environment and the purpose of change is to find effective strategies to improve the current situation. So unfreezing the ineffective current sets of behaviours is the first and necessary thing has to do. But doing it seems not as easy as saying it. “Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.” (Richard Hooker, 1540-1600) When the change happens, it must face to a heavy resistance, the reasons were stated in the foregoing analysis. However, there are a number of approaches for managing resistance to change in human resource field. Communication. Some purposes of communications are designed to be persuasive (Torrington, P100). Persuading the staff to accept the change includes explain the cause and result. One of the reasons about resistance to change is the misunderstanding and lack of trust. Misunderstanding is easy to avoid as long as leaders spend time to explain the problems and issues concerned with current working practices and how the change management programme can benefit individuals, groups and the organization as a whole (Jashapara, A., 2004). However, trust depends on the background of relations between senior management and staff. It forms for a long time communication. ACAS (2000) suggests that good communications can improve decision making, employee commitment and help develop greater trust (Torrington, P100). But how greater trust can intervene to reduce the resistance to change? In the theory of human resource, it goes by the name of “halo effect” (Torrington, P105). For example, when we are listening to somebody in whom we have confidence and who has earned our trust we may be predisposed to agree with what they say because we have placed an imaginary halo around their head. Through the communication, senior managers should place a “halo effect” around their heads. Furthermore, communication also can provide an emotional support for employees to get over fear of change. Worth mentioning, improve communication is very important in Cifford Chance. The terrible relation between partners and juniors, associate lawyers is a big obstruction for change management process. Training. Most of people resistant to change because they think they will loss something of value or they cannot control the new things as the old ones. So this problem can be overcome by offering individual opportunities for training. There is a gap between the knowledge, skills held by the individual and those required for a new job or new situation. Hence, a good design of training is the summation of all the individual training needs or gaps in order to deliver performance objective (Jashapara, A., 2004). There are a number of analytical techniques that can be adopted in a change management programme to identify training needs at individual (Reid and Barrington, 2000). Leaders should choose appropriate training for their employees so that it can get an effective evaluation after training.
The second phase is moving by making changes in the way people do things, new structures, new strategies and different types of behaviors and attitudes. Training provides an opportunity to people on changing the way they do things. In addition, reward and recognition schemes are an important tool in the change management process to increase employee motivation and gain commitment (Jashapara, A., 2004), it also can encourage employees to change their behaviours. To set a standard of reward, leaders need to clarify what it is that the organization wishes employees to do which may be different from what they are currently doing. Such changed employees behaviours should be consistent with what the organization is seeking to achieve thorough its business strategy. The aim of the reword is to contribute to the generation of these changed employees behaviours (Redman and Wilkinson, p115).
The last phase is refreezing by stabilizing and establishing new patterns and organizational routines. As it mentioned before, different from manager, leaders are more concerned with establishing a direction and aligning (Senior, 1997). Great leadership skills can establish the most appropriate patterns. Selecting the right person is more than purely their skills and abilities. It is about their motivation and attitudes about the role. Getting the right people in the right places in the change programme is one of the main skills for managing people in the change process. That is, leadership’s fatal effect in the phase of refreezing.
Special Considerations about gain commitment
The special consideration, need to be taken into account to gain commitment from knowledge workers at Clifford Chance is fairness and trust. Fairness can build trust and commitment, and all of them are the major assets for the firm.
Different from other production companies, Clifford Chance is knowledge based company, because it depends on the commitment and ideas of their employees. Meanwhile, most employees in Clifford Chance are knowledge workers, who are different from ordinary workers, they know more about their jobs than their bosses did. They cannot be managed as the same model as Ford or Taylor. Their work needs independent judgment, creativity to suit the circumstances. The commitment from knowledge workers, which company needs this not just only “I do” or “I know”, but “I will”, represents employees’ attitudes towards their work. Hence, the commitment of knowledge workers is very important for the Clifford Chance and a special consideration need to be taken into account about how to gain the perfect commitment from employees at Clifford Chance.
Fairness relates to the level of equity in the way people are valued and rewarded for their contributions. The role of a fair process becomes crucial as it affect attitudes and behaviours of individuals to achieve superior performance (Jashapara, A., 2004). Employees will commit to a manager’s decision even though they may disagree with it as long as they feel that the process has been fair (Kim and Mauborgne, 2003). People need a fair working environment. Due to the fairness, employees can share their knowledge, knowledge sharing is a good way for knowledge workers to improve their skills, when they share their own knowledge, and they also can gain the knowledge from others. The consequence is, knowledge sharing let all the numbers in integer improve together and the integer becomes stronger at the same time. On the other hand, people like to contribute their ideas and have them taken seriously (Jashapara, A., 2004). However, though knowledge sharing exactly has a crucial useful effect on companies and people really like to share their knowledge, knowledge sharing still cannot be carried out in some knowledge-based companies. The reason should be that employees feel that there is something deceitful in a manager’s actions or a general lack of respect (Jashapara, A., 2004). Clifford Chance is a good example. 2,420 billable hours let employees think the firm encourages “padding” which is a deceitful behaviour for customers. Partners never greet their juniors and the associate lawyers expresses lack of respect. The relation between partners and juniors, the associate lawyers is terrible. From the above phenomenon, it can be sure that knowledge sharing cannot exist in Clifford Chance. Strong Knowledge sharing is more likely to occur in a fair and trustful process. Employees choose to trust fair leaders and commit to their decisions.
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