CHAPTER 11 – CHANGE

At the end of this session, students should be

able to:
 Identify types of pressure and forces that can
affect an organization.
 Discuss the cost of change.
 Describe the sources and types of resistance
to change.
 Explain how to manage resistance to change
effectively.
 Describe Lewin’s Three Step Change Model
 INTRODUCTION

There are two forms of change in organization:

 Planned change: Change resulting from a
deliberate decision to alter the organization
 Unplanned change: Change that imposed on
organization and is often unforeseen

Change is targeted on individual (performance and

attitude), groups (innovation and interdependent) and
organization as a whole
Managing Planned Change

Goals
GoalsofofPlanned
PlannedChange:
Change:
 Improving
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theorganization
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adapt
adapttotochanges
changesininits
its
environment
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 Changing
Changingthethebehaviour
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ofindividuals
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 CHANGE

Thus, managers roles are to:

 Be prepared to face any changes that affect
organization due to the external and internal
influences
 Initiates the changes as they bring success to
organization
 Cont’d…

Change
 An alteration of an organization’s environment,
structure, technology, or people
 A constant force
 An organizational reality
 An opportunity or a threat
Because change is an organizational reality, handling
it is an integral part of every manager’s job
 Cont’d…

Change agent
 A person who initiates and assumes the
responsibility for managing a change (catalysts) in
an organization
 A manager may be a change agent
 However, the change agent can be a non-
manager. For example, an internal staff specialist
or outside consultant. Management often uses
outside consultants because they can offer a fresh
perspective which insiders lack. But, they may not
understand the organization’s history, culture,
operating procedures, and personnel
 Cont’d…

 Furthermore, outside change agents often initiate

more drastic changes because they do not have
to live with the repercussions after the changes
have been implemented
 Pressures for change

Pressures for change can be influenced by:

• Internal – Dissatisfaction due to current performance or
characteristics of organizational members

• External – Environment, size of organization, ownership,

technology, competition, change in ownership, social
trends and world politics
 INTERNAL FORCES OF CHANGE

• Declining in effectiveness
• Employee’s crisis, strikes or walkouts or accidents
• Employee’s expectation that constantly change towards
the management (job satisfaction)
• Working climate (unhealthy) could cause the
organization to change
 EXTERNAL FORCES OF CHANGE

Workforce diversification
 Workforce in terms of gender (more female
employment), cultural diversification (more non-Malaysia
work in Malaysia nowadays) or aging (few young
workers and more middle-aged workers), Entrants with
inadequate skills
Technology
 Faster and cheaper and more mobile computers
 Rapid technological innovation & those org that fail to
keep pace might fall behind, especially small businesses
 This change also lead to changes in work relationship
and organization structure which becoming more flatter,
decentralized decision making and more open
communication
 Cont’d…

Globalization competition
 Powerful players in global market are multinational &
transactional organizations
 It allows organizations to explore geographic areas to
expand the markets
Social trends
 Internet chat rooms, retirement of baby boomers,
evolution in marital status, eating habits, health concern
(smoking prohibited) or popularity in sport vehicles (e.g.
F1 or X-game)
 Cont’d…

Economic shocks
 Unexpected pattern of global economic that affected the
org’s international transaction. e.g. most countries
depend on stability of US$
 The emerging of many new dot.com businesses
World politics
 Constant changes in government that rules the country or
major policies that have great impact on organizations
 War of terrorism following 9/11/2001
Forces for Change
Cont’d…
 How does change happen??
LEWIN CHANGE MODEL

• Kurt Lewin’s change model emphasizes that effective

change occurs by: (3 steps)

Refreezing
Changing
Unfreezing

Unfreezing the current situation

Changing towards the desired situation

Refreezing the changed situation so that it remains in this

desired state
Lewin’s Three-Step Change Model
 LEWIN CHANGE MODEL

STEP 1: Unfreezing
 Phase where preparation to change is made

 It is the first step in which involve encouraging individual to

discard (abandon/remove) old behaviour by shaking up the
equilibrium of maintaining the status quo

 To discard the old behaviour, either by:

1) Increase driving forces  Create urgency
2) Reduce/remove restraining forces  Minimize resistance

 Involves unlearning old habits in the form of attitudes or

behaviours to create something new

 However, it is preferred to increase driving forces AND

remove restraining forces
 Cont’d…

Create urgency for change

 Represent the push factors to get out of the comforting
zone in order to be energetic to face risks that change
brings
 If driving forces are unknown/ambiguous to employees,
they tend to doubt the agent’s integrity
 One of driving forces that could be used is customer
driven as if affected organizational survival and success

Reducing restraining forces

 To minimize change resistance, change agent could
apply 6 approaches
 Cont’d…

STEP 2: Changing
 Phase where actual modification in people involving new
attitudes, values and behaviours are substituted for old
ones
 It can also involves in task, structure and technology
 Organizations accomplish change by initiating new
options and explaining the rationale to have the changes
and providing training to help employees developing new
skills they need
 Enough time should be allocated at this stage to ensure
old ways to be unfrozen
 Some may end up with resistance to change if they
cannot adapt with the change targets
 Cont’d…

STEP 3: Refreezing
 Final stage in change process

 This step involve the establishment of new attitude,

values and behaviours as the new status quo

 To maintain the change momentum

 In other words, refreeze the behaviour so that

employees do not slip back into their old work practices
(to make it permanent)
Lewin’s Three-Step Change Model
Unfreezing the Status Quo
 COSTS & BENEFITS OF CHANGE

Psychic Cost and Health

 It affect the mental and psychological well-being of
employee and eventually the physical (related to stress).
Some able to cope with stress but some not and may
lead to physical illness

Psychic Costs and Promotion & Transfer

 Promotion and transfer is a change for a better
performance but employee need for time adjustment to
new skill, environment, friends, lifestyle & workplace

Psychic Costs and Employees Relocation

 Relocation leads to time for adjusting for new
environment at higher cost. Employee family are unable
to follow suit at short notice
 Cont’d…

 Economic Cost
 Sociological Cost

Thus, if cost more than benefit, change agent need to

modify, delay or stop the change process
 Resistance to Change

Forms of Resistance to Change

 Overt and immediate (not hidden)
 Voicing complaints, engaging in job actions
 Implicit and deferred (indirectly)
 Loss of employee loyalty and motivation, increased
errors or mistakes, increased absenteeism

 Change resistance is the symptoms of restraining forces

or reason for not to change
 In general, people give three types of resistance to
change:
 Cont’d…
Logical
 Reasons based on rational and scientific evaluation
i) Time taken to suit the new environment
ii) More effort in learning something new
iii) The possibility new situation being unaccepted
iv) Economic cost of change
v) The feasibility of technical change

Psychological
 Reasons based on emotion sentiments and attitudes in
human
i) Afraid of things that they don’t understand
ii) Low tolerance toward change
iii) Dislike management
iv) Mistrust others
v) Need to maintain status quo
 Cont’d…

Sociological
 Reasons based on interest of group and group values
e.g. political coalition, contradiction of group values and
need to maintain friendship among existing members
i) Contradiction of group values
ii) Need to maintain friendship among existing group
member
iii) Fixed group interest
Sources of Individual Resistance to Change
Sources of Organizational Resistance to Change
 APPROACHES TO CHANGE RESISTANCE

Education and communication

 Face-to-face discussion and use mass presentation such
as memos, notices, report, group presentation and
demonstration to educate them see the logic

Participation and involvement

 Let the workers participate in designing and
implementing the change process by encouraging them
to contribute more idea, so they will be more committed

Facilitation and support

 Management should be supportive, tolerance and good
listener to the workers’ problems or complaints by
providing assistance & appropriate training
 Cont’d…

Negotiation and Agreement

 Discuss actual and potential resistors regarding extra
incentives and working out some kind assurance from
them so that the proposed change are not blocked

Manipulation and Cooptation

 Management could influence the selected resistors by
providing the wrongful information and organize events
to get the maximum support for the proposed change

Explicit and Implicit Coercion

 Last option where management could use force to get
people accept change either through explicit & implicit
threat to resistors
 Cont’d…

Work with the Union

 Get the assistance from the union in the organization to
persuade and talk to its members

Share the rewards

 The Politics of Change

• Impetus for change is likely to come from outside

change agents
• Internal change agents are most threatened by their
loss of status in the organization
• Long-time power holders tend to implement only
incremental change
• The outcomes of power struggles in the organization
will determine the speed and quality of change