Understanding the fundementals for managing change

Citation

Mohanty, R.P. and Yadav, O.P. (2000), "Understanding the fundementals for managing change", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 4 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2000.26704daa.003

Understanding the fundementals for managing change

Understanding the fundementals for managing change

Understanding the cultural change process

Peters and Waterman[1] suggested that a distinguishing characteristic of a highly successful organization is a very strong and well developed culture. Work culture has been defined by Waltor[2] as the combination of attitudes, relationships, developed capabilities, habits and other behavioural patterns that characterize the dynamics of an organization. Sinha[3] has described the work culture as the resultant effect of information or organizational and organizmic factors which are reflected in established roles, norms and values pertaining to work. Such attempts at definition indicate that culture develops through the mutual interactions of different people playing different roles in a collective system which calls for mutual co-operative behaviour.

The culture of an organization is strongly linked to its management style and processes. Management patterns set the "tone" of an organization, establish the rhythm for operation, influence the process of decision making, create action impulses etc. The culture created through the influences of these management patterns influences the ways in which managers and employees play their roles in approaching problems, serving customers, reacting to the environment and carrying out their various activities to satisfy themselves and other stakeholders. The culture sets the norms for the whole organization and provides a sense of direction which governs how to behave, what to do, where to place organizational priorities, etc. Culture shapes the willingness of people to exert high levels of effort in creating a vision of the future directed towards the attainment of organizational goals, and is conditioned by people's ability, behaviour and values.

Recent trends in Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG) provide some immediate imperatives for cultural change. In controlled economies, the core competences of managers have tended to be confined/limited to delivering specific ritualistic management patterns: aimed at achieving compliance with management dictats. Today, in the competitive era, these core competence domains have to be stretched and expanded to incorporate the mandates set by various stakeholders which constitute the sociosphere for the business world. For example, only a few years ago, most organizations were little concerned with the needs of their customers because there were very few options available to these customers. Since there was very little or no competition, quality, price, delivery, responsiveness, etc. were not priorities. Similarly, today, those with the funds to invest have a much wider choice of locations for their funds: their needs must be addressed more directly by organizations. These changes must affect the behaviour patterns of organizations (and the "psychosphere" of individuals).

...For organizations "brought up" on traditional management thinking, creating culture change requires a paradigm shift in management ideology and thinking...

Organizations have realized in this increasingly competitive world, organization culture is a major factor. For organizations "brought up" on traditional management thinking, creating culture change requires a paradigm shift in management ideology and thinking. Recognition of the existence of superordinate goals and the sense of belonging of individuals to a larger system are important factors in addressing change. The change process has two important dimensions – breadth and depth – which are critical in transforming the human system. The breadth dimension normally incorporates either the key persons or the whole organization. The depth dimension includes roles, responsibilities, appraisals, incentives, structure, technology, skills and knowledge. Organizations wishing to bring about fundamental change must determine the appropriate breadth and depth of change.

Total quality management – a cultural change process

Mohanty and Lakhe[4] reviewed the TQM literature to explain the concept of TQM: a quest for excellence, creating the right attitudes and control processes to prevent defects and optimize customer satisfaction through continuous improvement of products, work environments and work processes leading to increased efficiency and effectiveness. The TQM organization delights its customers (both external and internal) by meeting or exceeding their expectations on a sustained basis through the combined efforts of every one involved within the organization.

TQM builds a different relationship between managers and employees – with a recognition that each cannot function without the other. Management have to make workers understand that it is not only their hands that the company wants but their heads and their hearts – the 3H (hands, heads and hearts) principle explained by Mohanty[5]. Any failure anywhere in an organization is to be viewed as a managerial failure. Companies which succeed in significant improvements in management-worker relations and in organization culture subscribe to the following beliefs:

• •

  Lasting success is based on the principle of respect for the human system.

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  All significant strategic change is brought about by changes made by and with people.

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  Labour is not a commodity or a cost to be minimized, but a resource whose value is to be maximized using the principles of preventive as well as predictive maintenance.

• •

  It is important to address the welfare of employees through such devices/issues as job security, participation in decision making, training, elimination of social barriers, etc. resulting in a general improvement in the quality of working life.

Team building: a change mechanism

Team building as an organization development (OD) intervention strategy is aimed at improving intra- and inter-group effectiveness "to do the right things in the right manner". Team building is a mechanism to improve the organization's problem-solving and decision-making processes, particularly through a collaborative system of work organization. In terms of promoting TQM, we aim to build (semi-)autonomous work teams which can be defined as a small group of multiple skilled people who undertake a variety of tasks; voluntarily set their own goals, identify and analyse causes of problems, are involved directly in operational decisions and implement such decisions in work situations. Team building works as part of a participative management approach.

According to Gustafson and Kleiner[6], high performance teams have the following characteristic features:

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  participative orientation;

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  interdependency relationship;

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  shared responsibility;

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  definition of purpose;

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  high communication;

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  focused future;

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  focused tasks;

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  creative talents;

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  rapid response.

High performance teams work in organizations where employees are (and know they are) just as responsible as managers for the performance of the team. Team members need to understand that they are in a team – and why. When solving problems, team members should understand that the purpose of the team is not only to fix the problem but also to have each individual as well as the team as a whole gain some knowledge from the process of problem solving. They are a part of the team to better themselves, to better one another, to improve the work environment, to help the company to prosper, to better serve customers etc.

Another key area in team building is communication – top-down, bottom-up, laterally and transversely – including all levels and all members of the organization.

In order for a team to be successful, it must be able to see the changes it is pursuing as an opportunity for growth. The team must have a feeling of dissatisfaction with the status quo. A team should diagnose where the (sub-part of the) organization stands at present and why. A culture building exercise is essential at this stage of diagnosis. To enable people to exercise their creativity and talents it is essential to create an atmosphere of transparency and visibility within the organization. Many attempts to use participative processes fail because of a lack of transparency in systems and "adhocism" in policy.

...Of course, if workers are empowered and "great things" are expected from them, they will expect things from their managers...

Teams can recognize and respond to opportunities very quickly. Of course, if workers are empowered and "great things" are expected from them, they will expect things from their managers – there is a need to change the nature of management from controlling to supporting, and to address reward and recognition structures.

Effective leadership: an agent for transformation

The success of any institution created by/for the human system hinges primarily on the qualities of leadership provided. A leader of such an institution is responsible for creating a climate which can foster suitable changes in work culture and in the attitudes of employees such that initiatives are encouraged and innovation is promoted. The success or failure of a leader depends on the ability to work through a wide variety of people having a diversity of skills, belief systems and values and getting the required help and co-operation from the functional specialists to get the desired results.

With the evolution of newer concepts and approaches to work organization like social justice, affirmative action programmes, equal opportunities, etc. we have to look for new types of leaders who are not autocratic but flexible, knowledgeable, authentic and truthful and willing to educate their subordinates by exemplary actions.

Workers are motivated by a whole range of factors – most of which are non-financial. These non-material social rewards have to be re-designed from time to time. Job satisfaction may be intrinsic as well as extrinsic. Once, most organizations tried to improve job satisfaction by providing higher pay, fringe benefits or other "direct" rewards. This neglected the aspects of intrinsic human satisfaction and resulted in high levels of frustration and dissatisfaction among employees.

Generally, today's workforce is better educated – and has parallel educational opportunities outside of the work situation. They are also better informed: mass communication media have enabled all to have some understanding of current affairs, particularly relating to quality of life issues.

Bennis[7] has noted that, "To survive in the twenty-first century, we are going to need a new generation of leaders – leaders not managers. This distinction is really an important one. Leaders conquer in the context of volatile, turbulent, ambiguous surrounding that often seems to conspire against us and will surely suffocate us if we let them – while managers surrender to it".

He goes on to identify specific differences between leaders and managers. An individual can be a leader without being a manager and a manager without being a leader. To bring about change in any organization a leader should not be representative of a few individuals but must display some effective leadership abilities to serve the sociosphere of an organization. Effective leadership qualities are: truth, trust, competence, sensitivity, morality and authenticity.

A model for managing a change process

The following is a five-stage model for managing a change process:

1. 1.

   Development stage:

2. 2.
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     diagnosis of the need for change (why, what, where, who);

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     design of human resource development programmes to build core competences in the areas of TQM, leadership, team management, etc. such that employees are available to play the key role of change agents.

3. 3.

   Initiation stage:

4. 4.
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     creation of an open communication process;

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     development of respect for the human system by evolving transparent systems, trust building and identifying mutual concerns;

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     gaining voluntary commitment to action from willing people – by way of dialogue not through official memos;

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     conducting problem solving and decision making, conflict resolution and collaborative management training to develop collective interactions between various functional groups, to makecross-functional co-ordination a reality.

5. 5.

   Testing stage:

6. 6.
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     implementation of a pilot project with feedback and evaluation;

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     design of intervention mechanisms to eliminate blocks on the implementation of change.

7. 7.

   Adoption and stabilization:

8. 8.
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     diffusing the learning experience throughout the organization;

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     maintaining the motivation level through a review of, and implementation of, incentives and rewards.

9. 9.

   Diffusion to other systems:

10. 10.
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      selective diffusion; and

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      substantive diffusion.

Conclusion

We live in a time of external change – social, political and economic. Our organizations have to respond to this change if they wish to survive and prosper. The organizational change has to recognize the changing aspirations and qualities of the workforce – and the changing aspirations of an increasingly educated and discerning customer base. An organization with a strong, hierarchical, traditional management structure and complementary culture may not work in this new age.

If the attitudes of the senior managers are correct, it is possible to make a fundamental shift in the culture and attitudes of an organization. Using a vehicle such as TQM, and a systematic framework, one can drive change deep into an organization. Organizations that fail to attempt this change, may not survive!

R.P. MohantyAssociated Cement Companies Ltd, Bombay, India

O.P. YadavM.R. Eng. College, Jaipur, India

References

1. 1.

   Peters, T. and Waterman, R.H., In Search of Excellence, Harper and Row, New York, NY, 1981.

2. 2.

   Waltor, E., "Work innovation in the US", Harvard Business Review, July-August 1979.

3. 3.

   Sinha, J.B.P., "Work culture: an exposition in the Indian context", Vikalpa, Vol. 16 No. 4, October-December 1991.

4. 4.

   Mohanty, R.P. and Lakhe, R.R., "Understanding TQM", Journal of Production Planning and Control, Vol. 5 No. 5, 1994.

5. 5.

   Mohanty, R.P., "Factors affecting productivity, perceptions of India managers", Industrial Management & Data Systems, July-August 1988.

6. 6.

   Gustafson, K. and Kleiner, B., "New approaches to team building", Work Study, Vol. 43 No. 8, December 1994.

7. 7.

   Bennis, W.G., "Managing the dream: leadership in the 21st century", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 2 No. 1, 1989.

Action points

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  TQM is often such a culture shock that massive organizational change results.

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  The most important change is corporate culture.

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  Resist the temptation to sideline difficult personnel issues.

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  Change requires leadership, not management.

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  The "measure" and "correct" stages are as important as "planning" and "implementing".

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  Do not change just because everyody else is!