Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective

of an organization and on the individual level. A somewhat ambiguous term, change

management has at least three different aspects, including: adapting to change, controlling
change, and effecting change. A proactive approach to dealing with change is at the core of all
three aspects. For an organization, change management means defining and implementing
procedures and/or technologies to deal with changes in the business environment and to profit
from changing opportunities. The successful implementation of organizational change in
response to changes in an organization’s external environment can be one of the greatest
challenges top-level leaders face.

A useful definition of change management is:

'the coordination of a structured period of transition from situation A to situation B in

order to achieve lasting change within an organization'.
(BNET Business Dictionary)

Here, I have taken my own work experience to explain how change management process brought
changes into my organizations which in turn lost the destination of the company where it aimed
to go by bringing this management change. The reason behind choosing this change management
issue is to know how the firm should overcome the issues when the resistance for the changes
rises within the organization and also to focus the way of implementing the changes across the
organization.
E4e provides scalable and differentiated managed services to enterprises through innovative use
of technology and business-specific domain experience that not only results in improvement of
performance and availability of their business services but also helps reduce operational costs. I
worked as a Team Leader in E4e business solutions pvt ltd for about two years.
In 2006, E4e had got a project from Symantec ( Internet Security Software company) whose
projects were previously dealt with Sutherland Global services, a big competitor company in
service sector for E4e.(www.e4e.com)

Need for change

In 2006, when e4e signed a project from Symantec, e4e was having only eight small projects
including both Chennai and Bangalore branch. They were in a bad shape and wanted to keep this
big project with them. So, the top management team brought in a new manager who changed the
whole employee’s teams and work culture which in turn causes serious attrition and loss to the
company. His name is Sathish Kumar PJ and appointed as a program manager for the Symantec
Project.(this information has not been published in any website as it is maintained as company’s
confidential)
Communication:

Communication is vital to the effective implementation of organisational change (DiFonzo and

Bordia, 1998; Lewis and Seibold, 1998; Schweiger and Denisi, 1991). “The general importance
of communication during planned change has already been empirically demonstrated and
generally agreed among practitioners” (Lewis, 1999). Lewis (1999) focus is on which medium is
used in communicating change. Daly et al., 2003 states that internal communication is important
in communicating change. Others, focus on the constructional phases of change, where
communication is vital to mutual understanding of the problems organizations have to face in
order to meet the challenges, and need to change (Bennebroek Gravenhorst et al., 1999). Blake
and Mouton saw communication as the “foremost barrier to corporate excellence” in a survey
from 198 companies in Japan, Great Britain and the U.S. 30 years ago (Blake and Mouton, 1968
p. 4). The most pressing organizational challenges- leadership, empowerment, shaping
organizational culture, building effective teams and managing change- hinge on communications
activities (Auxley, 1996, preface). John Kotter claimed that “By any measure, the amount of
significant, often traumatic change in organizations has grown tremendously over the past two
decades,” effective communications must be recognized as the vital component for
organizational change.(Kotter,1996)

The new manager, who entered the firm wanted to extend the timings of employees without
having a proper communication with all the employees. Employees were confused on the mail
which he sent for the change of timings. Most of us did not have a clue for what the changes has
been made in timings. According to Kotter, the necessary condition for major change crumbles
without “credible communication- without a lot of it, employees’ hearts and minds are never
captured” (Kotter,1996, pp. 4-9). The employees resisted the change and we raised a complaint
against the new manager on the very first month on which he brought the changes. Kotter (1995)
lists eight steps that leaders of organizations should take in order to successfully implement
change. One of the most crucial steps in the process, and the step during which many attempts at
organizational change fail, is communicating the vision of change to the staff via every possible
means. And he also declares that a classic error made by leaders trying to implement change is
under-communication of the change to the staff that will be implementing it. Though the
resistance from employees, he brought in so any changes into the organization to improve the
quality of the work. He was a bit sure about what makes the organization stable when it was in a
bad shape, but not properly conveyed the need for change and new regulations which makes
company stable to the employees.

Communication about change aids in the unfreezing of old activities, the transformation during
which new behaviors are adopted, and the refreezing of the new activities into habit. In fact,
Ford and Ford (1995) claim that change does not occur except in that it is mediated by
communication; in other words, communication is the context within which change occurs.
Robertson et al. state that the change effort is dependent of the ability of the organization to
change the individual behavior of individual employees. If organizational change is about how to
change the individual tasks of individual employees, communication about the change, and
information to these employees is vital. Communication with these employees should be an
important, and integrative part of the change efforts and strategies. According to Robertson,
communicating the individual employee about the change and his/her task what the
organizational includes is important. (Robertson et al., 1993). But, the manager never arranged
for individual employees meeting and particularly concentrating on the stabilization of the
company rather looking on the internal communication and conveying the need for change in the
organization. This leads to the employees more resistant against the change the attrition of the
employees started to begin. Within 8 months, Symantec withdrew the project because of the poor
quality of the service. Since the attrition rate was high within 3 months from the change was
implemented, firm couldn’t manage to recruit specialized staffs and provide the good quality in
the service.

Organizational culture

Pettigrew (1979), who suggested that organizational cultures consist of cognitive systems
explaining how people think, reason, and make decisions (Pettigrew, 1979). Pettigrew also noted
differing levels of culture, arguing that at the deepest level, culture consists of a complex set of
values, assumptions, and beliefs that define the ways in which a firm conducts its business
(Pettigrew, 1990). Kotter and Heskett of the Harvard Business School define organizational
culture, "as an interdependent set of values and ways of behaving that are common to a
community and tend to perpetuate themselves, sometimes over a long period of time". However,
When we had a change in the manager for a particular project I supported, we saw changes in the
management style and achieving goals. The first quarter we had the manager managed the
process, we saw drop in performance because of factors such as background, management styles,
priorities which were not in line with the organizational goals , this affected the service level
agreement of the organization. This was because the manager was from a different industry
background and was not very comfort with service industry.

Robbins. S (1989) describes the culture of an organization as follows:

 It provides a boundary-defining role separating one organization from another

 It conveys a sense of identity.
 It facilitates the generation of commitment to something larger than ones own self
interest.
 It enhances social system stability. Culture is the social glue that helps hold the
organization together.
 It serves as a sense making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes
and behavior of employees. Culture defines the rules of the game

. Kotter (1996) says that the pressure created by organizational change will be relieved if the
change focuses on change issue, in addition to strategy and other organizational elements.
Sackmann (1991) notes that academic accounts are primarily concerned with understanding
culture in organisations, while practitioner accounts are frequently concerned with control and
prediction. Quirke (1995) views on culture is that, “The force of culture is for the status quo;
culture is the means by which we bring stability to the threat of change”. Quirke also claims that
the appropriate culture in the industry are in line, the change of culture inside the organization
resist changing the culture one form to another form in a short span of time. Since our manager
came from a different work background and work culture, the synchronization between the
employees and the manager were minimal which in turn leads the organization culture instable.
Conclusion

The author would like to conclude with the above explanation of two different change
management that led to the loss of the project and attrition of employees. Change management
undertaken by an organization should have strategic and critical analysis taken into consideration
before deploying it. The above examples show how change management can affect an
organization or a project factors such as culture, values, management styles, background,
communication and commitment makes a difference. Throne (2000), the potential of learning
from change management failure develops a new successful strategy. King and Anderson (2002)
described the manageability of organization change in term of linearity, predictability, and
control. If my manager would have had the control and predictions of the future happenings, he
could have synchronized his goals with the organization goals by communicating properly with
the employees. Therefore, managing the business by means of proper communication,
continuous learning & development process will lead to success in organisations growth. Hence
understanding the situation of the organization and implementing it in a perfect time will drive
the change process within the organization success.