Managing Change for Organizations

Common Targets of Organizational Change

Change management can be implemented to change an organization's mission, strategy, structure, technology, or culture.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

• Recognize and discuss the various components of an organization which may undergo change through the evolution and adaptation of organizational strategy and/or objectives

KEY POINTS

• Organizational change management should begin with a systematic diagnosis of the current situation in order to determine the organization's need for and ability to change.
• Prior to a cultural change initiative, a needs assessment should examine the current organizational culture and operations. The goal is a careful and objective consideration of what is working and what is not.
• Areas of change include mission, strategy, operations, technology, culture, branding, employees, and work flows.
• Change management should also make use of performance metrics, such as financial results, operational efficiency, leadership commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change.

TERMS

• organization
  A group of people or other legal entities with an explicit purpose and written rules.
  
  
• change management
  The controlled implementation of required changes to some system; includes version control and planned fallback.

When an organization requires changes to address counterproductive aspects of organizational culture, the process can be daunting. Cultural change is usually necessary to reduce employee turnover, influence employee behavior, make improvements to the company, refocus the company objectives, rescale the organization, provide better customer service, or achieve specific company goals and results. Cultural change can be impacted by a number of elements, including the external environment and industry competitors, changes in industry standards, technology changes, the size and nature of the workforce, and the organization's history and management.

Assessing Change Needs

Prior to launching a cultural change initiative, a company should carry out a needs assessment to examine the existing organizational culture and operations. Careful and objective consideration of what is working and what is not, as well as what is parallel with the broader organizational objectives and what is not, are critical to success here.
Areas that need to change can be identified through interviews, focus groups, observation, and other methods of internal and external research. A company must clearly identify the existing culture and then design a change process to implement the desired culture.

Common Areas of Change

Common areas of organizational change include:

• Mission
• Strategy
• Operational changes, including structure and hierarchies
• Technology
• Culture
• Employees and/or management
• Workflows (particularly relevant in manufacturing)
• Branding

Organizational change management should begin with a systematic diagnosis of the existing situation in order to determine the organization's need for and ability to change. The objectives, content, and process of change should be specified as part of the change management plan.

Change management processes can benefit from creative marketing to facilitate communication between change audiences and a deep social understanding of leadership styles and group dynamics. To track transformation projects, organizational change management should align group expectations, communicate, integrate teams, and manage and train people. Change management should also make use of performance metrics including financial results, operational efficiency, leadership commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change in order to design appropriate strategies that make the change in organizational culture as smooth and as efficient as possible.