CHAPTER THREE

Overview of Change Management

Change: Making things different
Planned Change: Change activities that are intentional and goal-oriented
Change agents: Persons who act as catalysts and assume the responsibility for managing change
activities.
3.1 Meaning and implications
Change management is the effective management of a business change such that executive leaders,
managers, and front-line employees work in concert to successfully implement the needed process,
technology, or organizational changes.
The goal of change management is to implement these business changes quickly to:
• Minimize the impact on productivity
• Avoid unnecessary turnover or loss of valued employees
• Eliminate any adverse impact on your customers
• Achieve the desired business outcomes as soon as possible
Change is process of moving from the current state to the desired state (vision) of future. Making a
change involves, moving the organizations people and culture in line with the strategies, structure,
processes and systems to achieve desired state (vision).
Change management is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of change to
achieve the required business outcome. Change management incorporates the organizational tools
that can be utilized to help individuals make successful personal transitions resulting in the adoption
and realization of change.
Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations
from a current state to a desired future state, to fulfill or implement a vision and strategy. It is an
organizational process aimed at empowering employees to accept and embrace changes in their
current environment.
There are several different streams of thought that have shaped the practice of change
management.
Change Management: As a Systematic Process
Change management is the formal process for organizational change, including a systematic
approach and application of knowledge. Change management means defining and adopting
corporate strategies, structures, procedures, and technologies to deal with change stemming from
internal and external conditions.

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Change Management: As a Means of Transitioning People
Change management is a critical part of any project that leads, manages, and enables people to
accept new processes, technologies, systems, structures, and values. It is the set of activities that
helps people transition from their present way of working to the desired way of working.
Change Management: As a Competitive Tactic
Change management is the continuous process of aligning an organization with its marketplace—
and doing so more responsively and effectively than competitors.
Change starts with a vision
A change effort or initiative must start with a vision. Whether change is prompted by external
(political, economic, social or technological) or internal factors (policy, systems or structure), creating
a vision will clarify the direction for the change. In addition, the vision will assist in motivating those
that are impacted to take action in the right direction. A vision statement tells you where you are
going. It paints a compelling work of a desired future state. It can make anyone who reads it, hears
it or lives it want to support, work for, give to, or in some other way be part of your organization.
Characteristics of an Effective Vision:
• Imaginable – conveys a picture of what the future will look like
• Desirable – appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customers, stakeholders
• Feasible – comprises realistic, obtainable goals
• Focused – clear enough to provide guidance in decision making
• Flexible – General enough to allow initiative and alternative responses
• Communicable – can be fully explained in 5 minutes
The knowledge and skills for managing change that you will require come from the two perspectives
on change: the managers and the employees.
Organizational change management is the management of change from the perspective of a
manager or project team. It is the perspective of “business leadership” from the “top” looking down
into the organization. The focus is around broad change management practices and skills that will
help the organization understand, accept and support the needed business change. The primary
focus is around change management strategies, communication plans and training programs. The
involved parties include project team members, human resources and key business leaders that
sponsor the change.
Organizational change management provides the knowledge and skills to implement a
methodology and tools for managing change throughout an organization.

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Individual change management is the management of change from the perspective of the
employees. They are the ones who ultimately must implement the change. The focus here is around
the tools and techniques to help an employee transition through the change process. The primary
concerns are the coaching required helping individuals understand their role and the decisions they
make in the change process. In this arena, you will need to provide tools that employees can use to
navigate their way through the change.
Change can originate from external sources through technological advances, social, political or
economic pressures, or it can come from inside the organization as a management response to a
range of issues such as changing client needs, costs or a human resource or a performance issue. It
can affect one small area or the entire organization.
Nevertheless, all change whether from internal or external sources, large or small, involves adopting
new mindsets, processes, policies, practices and behavior.
Irrespective of the way the change originates, change management is the process of taking a
planned and structured approach to help align an organization with the change.
In its most simple and effective form, change management involves working with an organization’s
stakeholder groups to help them understand what the change means for them, helping them make
and sustain the transition and working to overcome any challenges involved. From a management
perspective, it involves the organizational and behavioral adjustments that need to be made to
accommodate and sustain change.
3.2 Forces for Organizational Change
The key to success is to work with the grain of human nature rather than against it. Like a master of
martial arts, you must turn opposing forces to your advantage instead of meeting them head-on.
To do this, you need to understand and address the 5 Forces of Change – forces that drive human
behavior and which come under threat during major organizational change:

1. Certainty. An immediate consequence of change is uncertainty. At worst, people fear for their
jobs and at the very least they can become unclear about what the future holds and their role within
it. This causes anxiety and a drop in performance. The antidote to uncertainty is trust, and the key
ingredient of trust is communication. Openness about what is going on and why it’s going on builds
trust, so too does treating people with the respect they deserve. Don’t hide things from them, least
of all bad news; rather engage with them about why the change is vital so they can reach the same
conclusions as you have. Remember also that the change begins with you – nothing will kill a new
initiative faster than a leader who lacks confidence in it.

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2. Purpose. As an organization changes course, things can become foggy. People’s sense of direction
is diminished and they become less confident about what they are doing. In turbulent times we look
for leaders with a clear and unequivocal sense of purpose. Great leaders spell out an inspiring
vision and remain steadfast in the face of adversity. Whilst this is an enormous challenge, it is
unambiguous and appeals to values that transcend day to day work, giving people a crystal clear
purpose and a reason to persevere despite inevitable difficulties.

3. Control. Change can lead to strong feelings of unease as people sense that they have lost power
over their working lives and become victims to outside forces. This can cause people to rebel against
change or to quietly opt out of it.

4. Connection. We all form strong attachments to people and things. We identify ourselves with the
job we do and the way we do it. We value our relationships with colleagues, customers and
suppliers. We become attached to our organization, our team, or even our desk. When things
change, we need to break these connections and form new ones. Merely exhorting people to join
you in the new world is not enough. You need to celebrate the past – its successes and failures –
and mourn its passing before people can let go of old practices and travel happily into the future.
When two banks recently merged they threw a huge party to celebrate the demise of two old
organizations and the birth of a new one.

5. Success. Anyone who has introduced change at work knows that performance often gets worse
before it gets better. Just ask people who travelled through Terminal 5 at Heathrow when it opened!
In uncertain times, when people already feel vulnerable, they find themselves grappling with new
ways of working. No wonder there is a strong temptation to revert back to tried and trusted
methods. To combat this problem, leaders must nurture success. They must spell out expectations and
train people to succeed. But that’s not the end of it. Crucially, they must support people as they put
new methods into practice, especially those who find their performance gets worse before it gets
better. Finally, it is about celebrating each triumph and building up support to tip the balance in
favor of the change.

By harnessing the 5 Forces of Change you can become one of those rare leaders who are able to
bring about lasting organizational change with a minimum of fuss.

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Besides to the above, the following table illustrates some forces to change and their example.

Force Examples

Nature of the More cultural diversity

workforce Aging population
Increased immigration and outsourcing

Technology Faster, cheaper, and more mobile computers and handheld devices
Emergence and growth of social networking sites

Economic Rise and fall of global housing market

shocks Financial sector collapse
Global recession

Competition Global competitors

Mergers and consolidations
Increased government regulation of commerce

Social trends Increased environmental awareness

Liberalization of attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and transgender employees

World Politics Negative social attitudes toward business and executives

Opening of markets in China

Forces FOR change

External forces Internal forces
􀂄Marketplace competition 􀂄Strategy modifications
􀂄Government laws and regulations 􀂄New equipment􀂄New processes
􀂄New technologies 􀂄Workforce composition
􀂄Labor market shifts 􀂄Restructured jobs
􀂄Cycles in the economy 􀂄Compensation and benefits
􀂄Social change 􀂄Labor surpluses and shortages
􀂄Employee attitudes

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3.3 Process of organizational change
The organizational change management process is the sequence of steps or activities that a change
management team or project leader would follow to apply change management to a project or
change.
There are many theories about how to "do" change. The best-known change models are the
following;
3.3.1. Kurt Lewin Model of change
One of the cornerstone models for understanding organizational change was developed by Kurt
Lewin back in the 1940s, and still holds true today. According to Lewin’s three step model, successful
change in organizations should follow three steps commonly referred to as Unfreeze, Change (or
Transition), Freeze (or refreeze).
Stage 1: Unfreeze: This is the first of Lewin's change transition stages, where people are taken from
a state of being unready to change to being ready and willing to make the first step. It is about
getting ready to change. It involves getting to a point of understanding that change is necessary,
and getting ready to move away from our current comfort zone.
This first stage is about preparing ourselves, or others, before the change (and ideally creating a
situation in which we want the change). The more we feel that change is necessary, the more urgent
it is, the more motivated we are to make the change.
Stage 2: Change (Transition): Once you have unfrozen the people, the next question is how you
keep them going. Kurt Lewin was aware that change is not an event, but rather a process. He called
that process a transition.
Transition is the inner movement or journey we make in reaction to a change. This second stage
occurs as we make the changes that are needed. People are 'unfrozen' and moving towards a new
way of being. That said this stage is often the hardest as people are unsure or even fearful. This is
not an easy time as people are learning about the changes and need to be given time to understand
and work with them. Support is really important here and can be in the form of training, coaching,
and expecting mistakes as part of the process. Using role models and allowing people to develop
their own solutions also help to make the changes. It's also really useful to keep communicating a
clear picture of the desired change and the benefits to people so they don't lose sight of where
they are heading.
Stage 3: Freezing (or Refreezing): Refreezing is the third of Lewin's change transition stages, where
people are taken from a state of being in transition and moved to a stable and productive state.
Kurt Lewin refers to this stage as freezing although a lot of people refer to it as 'refreezing'. As the

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name suggests this stage is about establishing stability once the changes have been made. The
changes are accepted and become the new norm. People form new relationships and become
comfortable with their routines. This can take time.
• Lewin’s change model suggested a methodology for analyzing change he called the Force
Field Analysis. Essentially, this involved three steps:
• Analyze the restraining or driving forces that will affect the transition to the future
state – restraining forces include the reactions from those who see change as
‘unnecessary’, constituting a ‘threat’, or are feeling uncertainty or fear during the
pandemic.
• Assess driving or restraining forces – which ones are critical to involve or address?
• Take steps to increase the critical driving forces + decrease the critical restraining
forces.
3.3.2. Kotter’s Eight Steps of Change
John Kotter is a professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert, Kotter
introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 book, "Leading Change." We look at his eight
steps for leading change below.
Step 1: Create Urgency: For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it.
Develop a sense of urgency around the need for change. This may help you spark the initial
motivation to get things moving.
This isn't simply a matter of showing people poor sales statistics or talking about increased
competition. Open an honest and convincing dialogue about what's happening in the marketplace
and with your competition. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency
can build and feed on itself.
What you can do:
• Identify potential threats , and develop scenarios showing what could happen in the future.
• Examine opportunities that should be, or could be, exploited.
• Start honest discussions, and give dynamic and convincing reasons to get people talking and
thinking.
• Request support from customers, outside stakeholders and industry people to strengthen
your argument.
Note: Kotter suggests that for change to be successful, 75 percent of a company's management
needs to "buy into" the change. In other words, you have to work really hard on Step 1, and spend
significant time and energy building urgency, before moving onto the next steps. Don't panic and

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jump in too fast because you don't want to risk further short-term losses – if you act without proper
preparation, you could be in for a very bumpy ride.
Step 2: Form a Powerful Coalition: Convince people that change is necessary. This often takes
strong leadership and visible support from key people within your organization. Managing change
isn't enough – you have to lead it.
You can find effective change leaders throughout your organization – they don't necessarily follow
the traditional company hierarchy. To lead change, you need to bring together a coalition, or team,
of influential people whose power comes from a variety of sources, including job title, status,
expertise, and political importance. Once formed, your "change coalition" needs to work as a
team, continuing to build urgency and momentum around the need for change.
What you can do:
• Identify the true leaders in your organization, as well as your key stakeholders.
• Ask for an emotional commitment from these key people.
• Work on team building within your change coalition.
• Check your team for weak areas, and ensure that you have a good mix of people from
different departments and different levels within your company.
Step 3: Create a Vision for Change: When you first start thinking about change, there will probably
be many great ideas and solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that
people can grasp easily and remember.
A clear vision can help everyone understand why you're asking them to do something. When people
see for themselves what you're trying to achieve, then the directives they're given tend to make
more sense. What you can do:
• Determine the values that are central to the change.
• Develop a short summary (one or two sentences) that captures what you "see" as the future
of your organization.
• Create a strategy to execute that vision.
• Ensure that your change coalition can describe the vision in five minutes or less.
• Practice your "vision speech" often.
Step 4: Communicate the Vision: What you do with your vision after you create it will determine
your success. Your message will probably have strong competition from other day-to-day
communications within the company, so you need to communicate it frequently and powerfully, and
embed it within everything that you do.

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Don't just call special meetings to communicate your vision. Instead, talk about it every chance you
get. Use the vision daily to make decisions and solve problems. When you keep it fresh on
everyone's minds, they'll remember it and respond to it.
It's also important to "walk the talk." What you do is far more important – and believable – than
what you say. Demonstrate the kind of behavior that you want from others. What you can do:
• Talk often about your change vision.
• Address peoples' concerns and anxieties, openly and honestly.
• Apply your vision to all aspects of operations – from training to performance reviews. Tie
everything back to the vision.
Step 5: Remove Obstacles: If you follow these steps and reach this point in the change process,
you've been talking about your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization.
Hopefully, your staff wants to get busy and achieve the benefits that you've been promoting.
But is anyone resisting the change? And are there processes or structures that are getting in its way?
Put in place the structure for change, and continually check for barriers to it. Removing obstacles
can empower the people you need to execute your vision, and it can help the change move forward.
What you can do:
• Identify, or hire, change leaders whose main roles are to deliver the change.
• Look at your organizational structure, job descriptions, and performance and compensation
systems to ensure they're in line with your vision.
• Recognize and reward people for making change happen.
• Identify people who are resisting the change, and help them see what's needed.
• Take action to quickly remove barriers (human or otherwise).
Step 6: Create Short-Term Wins: Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste
of victory early in the change process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year,
depending on the type of change), you'll want to have some "quick wins" that your staff can see.
Without this, critics and negative thinkers might hurt your progress.
Create short-term targets – not just one long-term goal. You want each smaller target to be
achievable, with little room for failure. Your change team may have to work very hard to come up
with these targets, but each "win" that you produce can further motivate the entire staff. What you
can do:
• Look for sure-fire projects that you can implement without help from any strong critics of the
change.

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• Don't choose early targets that are expensive. You want to be able to justify the investment
in each project.
• Thoroughly analyze the potential pros and cons of your targets. If you don't succeed with
an early goal, it can hurt your entire change initiative.
• Reward the people who help you meet the targets.
Step 7: Build on the Change: Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is
declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be
done to achieve long-term change.
Launching one new product using a new system is great. But if you can launch 10 products, that
means the new system is working. To reach that 10th success, you need to keep looking for
improvements. Each success provides an opportunity to build on what went right and identify what
you can improve. What you can do:
• After every win, analyze what went right, and what needs improving.
• Set goals to continue building on the momentum you've achieved.
• Learn about kaizen , the idea of continuous improvement.
• Keep ideas fresh by bringing in new change agents and leaders for your change coalition.
Step 8: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture: Finally, to make any change stick, it should
become part of the core of your organization. Your corporate culture often determines what gets
done, so the values behind your vision must show in day-to-day work. Make continuous efforts to
ensure that the change is seen in every aspect of your organization. This will help give that change
a solid place in your organization's culture. It's also important that your company's leaders continue
to support the change. This includes existing staff and new leaders who are brought in. If you lose
the support of these people, you might end up back where you started. What you can do:
• Talk about progress every chance you get. Tell success stories about the change process,
and repeat other stories that you hear.
• Include the change ideals and values when hiring and training new staff.
• Publicly recognize key members of your original change coalition, and make sure the rest
of the staff – new and old – remembers their contributions.
• Create plans to replace key leaders of change as they move on. This will help ensure that
their legacy is not lost or forgotten.
3.4 Resistance to Change
Resistance can be defined as:
• Withstanding, striving against, or opposing

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• Withstanding the action or effect of
• Acting or making efforts in opposition
Resistance is the push-back one experience when trying to change or improve a process or system.
Why do employees resist change?
Inertia Different assessments
Self-interest/fear Management tactics/mistrust
Misunderstanding
Primarily because they fear the unknown. That is, they feel anxiety about how the change will affect
them, their job performance, and their relationship with other employees, and other job related
factors. In fact, psychologists say that fear of the unknown is a rational, rather than an irrational
response to change. A small amount of uneasiness is to be expected from most people when the
status quo shifts, simply because people need time to adjust their thinking, their job performance,
and their social relationships to any changes made.
Thus, resistance to change is inevitable, and managers must allow for some resistance when they
are planning to implement change. Indeed, some resistance to change may even be positive because
it slows down the speed with which innovation might otherwise proceed and allows time for people
to adjust to it
Reasons for Resistance
Lack of awareness Comfort with status quo
Organizational Restructuring Too little time
Lack of training/expertise Communication
Behaviors we need to discourage (end-users)
Talk one way in public Avoid using the new work processes or tools
Stop performing their current responsibilities Talk negatively
Ignore or block progress or sabotage the Take advantage of problems
process
Behaviors we need to discourage (managers/supervisors)
Talk badly about project or any other new change
Meet with staff and minimize the change
Prevent staff from participation
Refuse necessary resource
3.5 Managing Resistance to Change
Meeting milestones is not the primary determinant of the success of a change project.

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Successful change also involves ensuring employees’ capacity to adapt to and work effectively and
efficiently in the new environment.
The underlying basis of change management is that people’s capacity to change can be influenced
by how change is presented to them. Their capacity to adapt to change can shrink if they
misunderstand or resist the change, causing barriers and ongoing issues.
The rationale is that if people understand the benefits of change, they are more likely to participate
in the change and see that it is successfully carried out, which in turn means minimal disruption to the
organization.
Factors common to successful change management
While each public sector organization needs to consider the best way to approach change based
on their particular cultural and stakeholder perspectives, factors common to successful change
management (in both the private and public sectors) involve:
Planning: developing and documenting the objectives to be achieved by the change and the means
to achieve it.
Defined governance: establishing appropriate organizational structures, roles, and responsibilities
for the change that engage stakeholders and support the change effort.
Committed Leadership: ongoing commitment at the top and across the organization to guide
organizational behavior, and lead by example
Informed stakeholders: encouraging stakeholder participation and commitment to the change, by
employing open and consultative communication approaches to create awareness and
understanding of the change throughout the organization.
Aligned workforce: identifying the human impacts of the change, and developing plans to align
the workforce to support the changing organization.
Five tips for: Managing resistance
1. Do change management right the first time - effective change management can eliminate many
of causes of resistance before it occurs
2. Expect it - do not be surprised by resistance, expect it and plan for it
3. Address it formally - incorporate resistance management planning in all phases of your change
management strategy and plan development
4. Identify the root causes - make sure that you aren't simply responding to the symptom, but
really addressing what is causing the resistance
5. Engage the "right" resistance managers - senior leaders, managers and supervisors are the
"right" people in the organization to manage resistance

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3.6 Planned Change
Once managers and an organization commit to planned change, they need to create a logical step‐
by step approach in order to accomplish the objectives. Planned change requires managers to
follow an eight‐step process for successful implementations, which is illustrated in Figure 1.

1. Recognize the need for change. Recognition of the need for change may occur at the top
management level or in peripheral parts of the organization. The change may be due to
either internal or external forces.
2. Develop the goals of the change. Remember that before any action is taken, it is necessary
to determine why the change is necessary. Both problems and opportunities must be
evaluated. Then it is important to define the needed changes in terms of products, technology,
structure, and culture.

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3. Select a change agent. The change agent is the person who takes leadership responsibility
to implement planned change. The change agent must be alert to things that need revamping,
open to good ideas, and supportive of the implementation of those ideas into actual practice.
4. Diagnose the current climate. In this step, the change agent sets about gathering data about
the climate of the organization in order to help employees prepare for change. Preparing
people for change requires direct and forceful feedback about the negatives of the present
situation, as compared to the desired future state, and sensitizing people to the forces of
change that exist in their environment.
5. Select an implementation method. This step requires a decision on the best way to bring
about the change. Managers can make themselves more sensitive to pressures for change by
using networks of people and organizations with different perspectives and views, visiting
other organizations exposed to new ideas, and using external standards of performance, such
as competitor's progress.
6. Develop a plan. This step involves actually putting together the plan, or the “what”
information. This phase also determines the when, where, and how of the plan. The plan is like
a road map. It notes specific events and activities that must be timed and integrated to
produce the change. It also delegates responsibility for each of the goals and objectives.
7. Implement the plan. After all the questions have been answered, the plan is put into
operation. Once a change has begun, initial excitement can dissipate in the face of everyday
problems. Managers can maintain the momentum for change by providing resources,
developing new competencies and skills, reinforcing new behaviors, and building a support
system for those initiating the change.
8. Follow the plan and evaluate it. During this step, managers must compare the actual results
to the goals established in Step 4. It is important to determine whether the goals were met; a
complete follow‐up and evaluation of the results aids this determination. Change should
produce positive results and not be undertaken for its own sake.
Keep in mind that a comprehensive model of planned change includes a set of activities that
managers must engage in to manage the change process effectively. They must recognize the need
for change, motivate change, create a vision, develop political support, manage the transition, and
sustain momentum during the change. Effective team leaders acknowledge and understand that it
is a basic human instinct to react to change with resistance, even though staff may fully comprehend
the reasons why changes in the organization are vital to its existence and growth.

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3.7 Strategies for Planned Organizational Change
Strategic planning is a change strategy that is very carefully planned and deliberate. With this in
mind, strategic planning may be defined as the process of formulating, implementing, and
evaluating decisions that enable the organization to achieve its goals. The process of strategic
planning typically follows nine steps: (a) develop a mission, (b1) conduct a critical analysis of the
internal environment, (b2) conduct a critical analysis of the external environment, (c) prepare
planning assumptions, (d) develop a strategy, (e) communicate the strategy, (f) develop evaluation
procedures, (g) implement the strategy, and (h) evaluate the results. Although these steps are not
always followed in the exact order specified, they do describe the way most organizations go
about planning change strategically.
6 Management Strategies to Avert Resistance
1. A clear outline - Discomfort and insecurity arises when staffs are not made aware of the policies,
principles, guidelines and structure of intended changes. Every employee needs to know how his/her
position will be affected and what his/her role requires.
2. Commitment -Implementation of organizational changes will not occur smoothly if everyone -
from the CEO to the office clerk - is not committed to the project and its successful outcome.
3. Advocacy - Each member of an organization who may be affected by the impending changes
must be given the opportunity to express his/her opinion.
4. Responsibility - It is the role of the team leader to ensure that each employee who is responsible
for a component of the change strategy is held accountable for his/her actions in implementing the
changes required.
5. Acknowledgement - Evaluation and acknowledgement of the success of the change strategy at
regular intervals ensures its smooth implementation.
6. Flexibility - Management needs to adopt a flexible approach to each stage of development of
a change strategy so that unforeseen contingencies can be implemented, if and where necessary.
It only takes one irresolute employee to destabilize an entire workforce, so periods of internal
change within an organization require management to stay vigilant for any signs of rumblings or
disapproval.

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