Managing Organizational Change

Organizational change can be a difficult process for any organization, but especially one to manage. Organizational change is when a company makes a change or transition from its current state to a future state that is different. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing some sort of change in an organization. The process can be difficult as managers must make sure that they do not upset the employees while at the same time they maximize the effectiveness of the change.

In today’s globalized world, change is something that happens almost constantly. Globalization is something that has daily effects on organizations. Other aspects that affects this is the rapid change in technology which forces organizations to change at an instant. Other issues may force an organization to change rapidly, such as a natural disaster that affects an organizations overseas operations. They must quickly figure out how to het production back up to where it was.

Types of Organizational Change

All companies need people with the skill sets of leadership and management, while they are distinctly different, they complement each other nicely. Leaders ensure that the company is doing the right thing, while the managers make sure that the company does the right things that the leaders want. Leaders are the ones that are supposed to cope with change, while the managers are the ones that cope with the complex issues of the company.

As markets and technology change, companies require leadership that can recognize these changes and adapt the company to these changes. Adaptive Change is largely reactionary in that some shift in the markets, or new technologies require companies to change. Leaders and managers of company need to continually be auditing processes and organizational structures to be sure that they can adapt well to any change. Companies that adapt well to change usually are successful and continue to grow. This type of change would be the most common for your company, as you are reacting to a new product that your competitor has come out with.

Change that happens over time and happens to ensure the survival of the company is called evolutionary change. Evolutionary change is either brought about by external forces such as the markets or government regulations, or it is brought by incentives. Leaders and managers alike recognize when evolutionary change is happening. Companies that have survived for years have changed with the times. Either they saw the changes in the markets, or saw their competitors change as well.

Change that occurs as a radical transformation to their product or service is considered revolutionary change. Companies do this type of change in an effort to surpass their competitors and become the best in their field. In most cases revolutionary change happens when a company anticipates market changes before they happen, and therefor get a competitive edge on their competition. However, there are many companies that are on the edge of revolutionary change, but due to management or leadership, they are unwilling to change. Your company may also want to do a revolutionary change. This would happen if you came out with a better product ahead of your competition. This would give a great competitive edge ahead of everyone else.

Reconstructive change is undertaken to completely change the way a company operates. Usually if a company does a reconstructive change, then there are many initiatives that are implemented all at once. This type of change is often done as a reaction to changing competition. In some cases this type of change is unexpected and can happen at any point. What if you could not produce a new product though that gave you a competitive edge? You may want to do a reconstructive change to try and get a competitive edge above your competition.

Personnel change is a new type of change that has been recognized. This has been recently added to the types of organizational change due to the fact that many organizations have done massive layoffs, or sending positions overseas. Due to massive layoffs, the personnel and culture of organizations has had to change. The danger of this type of change is that the remaining employees may have low morale or become distrustful of management, and therefore productivity may suffer.