RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Changes are often imposed upon an organization by external agents such as customers, suppliers, political, upheavals, community pressures, and so on. When change is directly instigated by senior management, it will usually be presented in the form of arevised program, or police change. The final result, in either scenario, is that people will often be called upon to do things which they were not doing previously, and it is the attitude of the people who are integral to the changes which is crucial to the smoothness of the transition.
As highlighted by Edgar Shein’s principle of “innovative socialization,” on the approach to a boundary (the point of transition), there tends to be conformity. Once over the boundary, conformity returns, The rebbelliousness reaches its peak as the boundary is being crossed. Leaders must learn to appriciate the impact that changes they make to the organizational structure have upon individuals.
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
Technological change will result in changes to workflow patterns, and therefore the tasks of individuals contributing to the workflow will be altered. Some will like the change and others won’t. The latter will express their displeasure through absenteeism, lateness, lowered output due to decreased motivation, and so on.
Transition is always easier if those involved know it is coming and made some degree of psichological adjustments to the new situation before it arrives, such being able to establish what the likely personalconsequences will be in terms of job structure and status. Unpredictability and fear of the unknown are that the root of most resistance. There are of course circumstances when a change represents a true threat to an individual’s status or security.
Resistance in such instances is inevitable. For example, if restructuring means that an individual or a department will have to work harder for the same money, attempts by management to explain or justify the change in terms of the general good will not preclude resistance. It is however, an interesting paradox that great changes are much less likely to meet with resistance than small ones. A manager who chooses to shift his asistant’s desk without prior consultation can stir up a minor tempest, while a change of department may be viewed as an exciting challenge…(continued)
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