Dealing With Resistance to Change

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

David Sands

Managing Change:

Introduction

The Oxford dictionary defines change as ‘making or becoming different’, this statement is very open and broad but so is change. People all around the world experience change’s every day be it the weather, a change of clothes or more importantly major social or economic changes. An example of a large change in recent times is the conversion of major European currencies to the Euro. A change like this affects every one from a major multinational company the newsagents on the corner of the street, thus causing businesses to rethink and change how they are run. However we look at change it is inevitable, continual and will always be there, good or bad.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how companies can manage change and try to decrease the complications that arise from it. What is change and why is it so difficult? This sounds quite a simple question but I assure you when you begin to think about it, it’s not. The opening part of this paper will be dedicated to answering the question. I shall include a detailed description of the meaning of change, how it affects everyone involved and sometimes not and also attempt to find out why companies fear the word ‘change’.

Once a business knows what change is they need to know what it incurs and how to manage it? This will be the focal point of the second part of this research document. There are three basic stages to changing a business; research, change and aftercare, obviously the biggest section to this programme is change, which is why it must be managed correctly. This paper will go through some of the correct and incorrect ways that a company can deal with and manage change, starting with research. When a big or small company has done the market research and realises change is inevitable for there company they will need people to lead the changes. It is pretty much agreed by everyone that I’ve researched that having skilled frontline leaders (discussed in greater depth in the forth section of the paper) is the key to a successful and largely painless change regime.

Change is a very difficult time for a company so there are certain things that can be done to relieve the strain from the manager(s) and workers. These large programmes of renovating businesses can be made easier by encouraging involvement from the staff, this also helps to make them feel more stable in there job during this difficult time. The third section of this paper will go into a great deal more detail about how to cope with change and make it a much more positive experience for everyone involved. Managers (especially in large companies) hire frontline leaders in an attempt to make the change process a smooth one, but why are they really so important, isn’t it just part of everybody’s job description? These are questions not everyone seems to agree on. Within this paper I shall put forward the case for both sides of the argument in an attempt to reach a conclusion of my own.

The aim of the paper is to reach a conclusion on a number of questions; will change always be around as it is today? Why and how should we get more used to change?

What is the best strategy in dealing with change? Some things are clear before we get to the conclusion, people do fear change, be it as part of a business or just in everyday life. People fear change because they don’t understand how and why it happens, this means that more education is needed on the subject to try and prevent incompetence and mistakes in future.

What is Change?

Change is the process of going from one state to another, be it a subtle or total difference. When a company brings in a systems analyst to model the existing structure they are more than likely going to want a new system implemented, thus creating change. For example when the Internet was first introduced most computer systems had to be re-networked to embrace it, thus creating a giant change in companies across the globe. A more recent example of change was IBM taking over IT facilities at Boots. This forced change on the staff as their Boots contracts were ended and re-drawn out under IBM. Although this was seen as a technological advantage the Human Resource Management (HRM) and system analyst members of staff resented the change. From this instance change was a positive thing and took the company forwards but it did bare consequences, such as losing important members of staff.

Change can be a risky, but the same as with any gamble there are huge rewards to be made, the trick is to calculate the risk so you don’t lose. Below is a simple change diagram calculating risk;

The diagram shows that the greater the interactivity, scope or distribution, the riskier the forecasted change will be. On the other hand, the more reversibility or mature, the less risky it will be.

It is a common reality in life that humans resist things they do not understand, change is no different. If a company is ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Change can be a risky, but the same as with any gamble there are huge rewards to be made, the trick is to calculate the risk so you don’t lose. Below is a simple change diagram calculating risk;

The diagram shows that the greater the interactivity, scope or distribution, the riskier the forecasted change will be. On the other hand, the more reversibility or mature, the less risky it will be.

It is a common reality in life that humans resist things they do not understand, change is no different. If a company is changing its system, members of staff might feel that there jobs are being threatened, especially by the implementation of a new computer system. This is why good change management is so important as without it, it’s very easy to make a huge loss from sudden, unplanned changes. If your company is prepared for change however, then you will have a distinct competitive advantage. In the modern, competitive world we live in today changes occur all the time so it’s inevitable that businesses must roll with them and adjust there systems regularly to keep up.

There is added pressure coming from EU leaders since the March 2000 summit in Lisbon. Here leaders called for employment in the EU to be at 70% by the year 2010, currently this figure is at 63.2%, whilst unemployment is around 8% (figures taken from the European Policy Analyst, March 2002). This means that all businesses across the European Union must ask themselves, what is change? and act accordingly.

“Managing change has become a concept designed to facilitate change.”

I think that this is a clever way of saying that because change is inevitable we must automatically ‘change’ the way we think in order to accommodate ‘changes’ in our lives and places of work.

Managing Change

The overwhelming conscientious is that in order to bring about successful change there must first be planning, then implementation and finally aftercare. There are many different theories about the amount of stages that take place in change management, arguably the most famous of which is Kurt Lewin’s model, which can be found below. He says that organisational change can occur at three main levels; structures and systems, climate or style (a direct change) or individuals. On most occasions change would affect all three of these levels, I can refer back to the example of IBM taking over Boots’ IT system again. Here the companies system was changed which created a knock on effect automatically varying the style of the business and certainly disrupting the workforce, some more than others. Once again Lewin reinforces the opinion that the first step of changing a system is to face the confrontation that change brings about.

The idea behind this concept is that organisations need to get rid of their existing values and polices before they can move onto implementing a new one. The first stage of the model is to ‘unfreeze’ or alter the current way in which the system works. Change is obviously the implementation of the new system, staff or whatever else it may be. Finally ‘refreezing’ the system means stopping and stabilising the change and settling with the new regime whatever it may bring. Many think today, quite correctly in my own opinion, that ‘refreezing’ shouldn’t / doesn’t happen because change is a continuous cycle.

In order to save on expenditure some companies implement changes in a rush, only to quickly find out that it’s all wrong and have to start again. This is why good change management is so important as it can save your department a great deal of money and time in reversing incorrect policies, unreliable operations and system downtime.

“Change management … is simply the art of managing change rather than letting change manage you.”

“… to bring positive results, change has to be managed.”

To prevent these damaging chains of events affecting your business, many people have come up with sets of rules that can be followed to help ensure that your changes go smoothly. Some of these sets of rules are simpler than others, for example Kurt Lewin’s model has been so successful because of its simplicity, where as Derek Pugh’s understanding of organisational change goes into a great deal more depth. The following rules (based on Pugh) are six steps to effective change management:

Rule one – Companies must first establish where and why change is needed. Although this sounds obvious it often causes problems due to a lack of communication at the first stage. For example a change in one department might upset another if they aren’t properly informed about it. This is easily overcome by trying to keep major changes to things that will affect the whole company, for example general policies or customer care. If a manager makes it look like no one single department is being singled out everyone will instantly feel more secure in their workplace.

Rule two – It’s important for managers to consider every angle of change and how it will affect everybody involved. Each employee will see changes and look for his/her own benefits or losses, without really thinking change through at the initial stages many people might feel threatened. To prevent resistance from staff its important managers ask themselves and his/her employees how change will alter their job descriptions? Will it alter group or individual status levels? The answer to all these questions is to give a full explanation and discuss the proposed changes with staff before they happen.

Rule three – The last part of rule two leads directly into to this one, saying that change should be gradually introduced by use of thing like discussion groups. Acting on their feedback and allowing them to get more involved will increase employee confidence in the management. These initial discussions will help to determine whether dramatic change is actually necessary and if so where?

Rule four – Part of effective change management is to actively encourage those with concerns to voice them. If objections aren’t heard people may feel disgruntled and lose confidence in their own abilities and workplace. From this the objection should not just be ignored but acted on in its own right, in the form of reassurance or maybe test runs.

Rule five – During the changes, managers (and other leaders) must be prepared to alter the way they work themselves.

“Modern managers cannot afford the luxury of believing that ‘change is for other people’.”

Managers must be willing to stray from their initial plan of change after listening to ideas in the discussion groups. By accepting and implementing employees ideas, the workplace will become a much more confident place. A more radical opinion is that why should change be initiated from the managers? The key to a company accepting a good change scheme from lower down in the business is to have an open minded manager. He must be willing to accept change from a source other than him/her self, if the idea is good enough why not use it?

Rule six – After implementing change keep a close check on it, even strengthening it from time to time. A month after a change has occurred a problem(s) might be seen following a review programme, if so try to make small alterations to solve them. There would be chaos if a major change were to be implemented again too quickly. Everyone involved in the company must be informed on how the changes have gone especially if they have been successful, for example if productivity and profits rate have gone up tell everyone.

The important point made throughout all of the six rules is to keep communication levels with employees high at all times, this way there will be a much lower resistance to change throughout the process.

The figures below are based on a survey sent out to around 30 public and private sector organisations in the East Midlands area.

92% of replies agreed “all managers require a good understanding of change management and principles”
79% of replies believed that change management isn’t a specialised area and doesn’t require professional staff to deal with it
61% agreed with the statement, “my effectiveness in helping to implement change is a regular feature of my performance appraisal”
91% thought that knowledge of change management is important at all levels of an organisation

This survey was conducted in the year 2000 and I wager if it were to be re-done the percentage for number two would be a great deal lower, as people must be realising change management is a big task. Hopefully numbers one, three and four would have higher percentages, especially number three. Maybe with surveys such as this companies are beginning to realise change management isn’t easy and there will be resistance unless the properly is conducted.

Coping With Change

“While the only constant may be change, dealing with change hasn’t changed much.”7

Once an organisation has resigned to changing their system (or such) they must make sure that all the employees cope with the changes made and feel safe in their jobs. In this section of the paper I shall go through the steps needed to cope with change management and ways to alleviate the emotional pressures that change brings. The best way to cope with change management is to use the following five steps as a guide:

Accept change - Just a way of saying the sooner we let go of the past the sooner we can progress to bigger and better things, thus change is universal and inevitable.

Anticipate change - As a manager it’s important that you anticipate change before anyone else, it’s a good idea to actually look for change, that way you can’t be surprised when it happens. Studies show that younger managers can anticipate and embrace change better than there older counterparts.

Encourage teamwork - Teams offer a company so many advantages especially when it comes to communication up and down the hierarchy of a big business. When in a team you don’t want to be embarrassed so individual involvement, commitment and pride in work increases. They also make the workplace a friendlier environment. All these factors help to increase production and ease the resistance and pressure change brings about.

Invite involvement - Allowing staff to actively get involved in change management leads to increased commitment and security in the workplace. If someone puts forward an idea and it is put into practice they are going to support all the way. Involvement can be in the form of meetings, questionnaires, interviews or just questions and answers sessions.

Open communications – Managers cannot afford to forget the staff working around him/her, as changes are planned it is a good idea to keep everyone informed. When it comes to people’s jobs they don’t like surprise, whether it’s good or bad news they would rather know what’s coming and what is going to happen.

The emotional pressure of change management can be eased in a number of ways, the underlining theme is always communicating with everyone. Going back to the survey mentioned earlier in the paper people found it ‘good to talk’ and more importantly ‘being able to talk’. Also if someone has the title of ‘Change Leader’ added to there job description, the emotional burden that it brings must be recognised and even exceptions made for them. However, if someone can’t handle being a ‘Change Leader’ then the role must be taken away from him or her for the good of the company. If this is to be done it is vital that the employees self esteem and confidence is left intact so they can continue performing their existing job to a high standard. The point of all these precautions is to help businesses and employee’s cope with the added pressures that change brings.

Frontline Leaders

“… the role of the change agent is itself changing.”

The job of a frontline leader or change agent used to normally be done by a full time external consultant, today existing employees are having this extra title added to there job description. Although this saves the company money it does often backfire in the long run as staff struggle to cope with the pressures and skills demanded by being a change agent. They may end up forging a resistance and resentment towards the changes. This section will continue to expand on the responsibilities of frontline leaders, whether they are external to the company or an existing employee.

When staff begin to feel the contentment, confusion and denial that change brings they will instantly look to their area manager or frontline leader for guidance. For smoother change management, leaders must set up the chance for staff to communicate freely about organisational and personal issues. People must also have a chance to physically get involved in the changes at all times. In other words employees must be supported all the way through the change process and even afterwards, this is ideally done by a designated frontline leader.

Frontline leaders must have some information superiority to perform their job to a high standard, he/she is better placed to answer peoples questions if he/she has already received the information from the manager. A common form of communication is now through email and intranet devices, whilst this is efficient it does make ‘conversations’ informal, which can often hinder the information given and create tension. Also, often when emails are sent out they are so to everyone in the company, this then takes away the information superiority needed by the frontline leader. Without information superiority a frontline leader is just another employee, unable to add any real assistance to the project.

Frontline leaders play a key role in reducing the resistance to change, they are able to provide easy and accessible communication for the employees, which we have already said improves change management.

“… leaders can make or brake change projects …”

Conclusion

Based on the findings of this paper change management appears to be a relatively simple task if certain precautions and procedures are followed, yet the majority companies still get it wrong. This is because in an attempt to economise on the project they will often not hire a comprehensively qualified Human Resources (HR) consultant to lead the changes. This produces a knock on effect, in that employees then find it harder to feel and get involved in the project, also it means a decrease in communication. If there is no frontline leader then existing, unqualified staff, have to take on duties they can’t handle, which leads to pressure that they often can’t cope with.

People can’t continue to fear change, it should be embraced, after all if it wasn’t for change we wouldn’t be as technologically advanced as we are today. We must learn to accept and roll with the positives that change brings to us, especially in the workplace. If this isn’t done resistance will increase and take over, making progress impossible. The key to resisting change is allowing everyone to communicate with each other at all time before, during and after change. Normal people have extraordinary ideas everyday, let us hear them.

Overall, yes change is everywhere and resistance is a threat, but it is a threat that can be overcome if companies hire and allow professional change agents to do their jobs. If companies do this and follow the steps documented for successful change management, resistance will all but disappear and leave the way clear for an effective progression into the future.

Bibliography

Beaumont, P.B. (1993) Human Resource Management, Key Concepts and Skills. SAGE Publications Ltd
Redman, T and Wilkinson, A (2001) Contemporary Human Resource Management. Prentice Hall
Doyle, Management (2002) From change novice to change expert.
Tizard, J (2002) Managing Change. The Empower Group
Bony, E.de (2002) Managing Change. The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd
Feldman, J (2001) Managing Change.
Dunn, R.L. (2000) Managing change hasn’t changed.
Pugh, D (1993) Implementing Strategic Change: A Practical Guide. Kegan Page
Reference Kurt Lewin from
Reference Kurt Lewin from (Slide 10 of 33 web page)