Every
organisation is subject to a constant process of change, insofar as it could be
agreed with Watson and Gallagher (2005) that “organisations are in a perpetual
state of change.” Looking back on how things were managed within an
organization 10, 5 or just a very few years ago, everyone would surely realise that
things works fairly differently now and that many things have actually changed.
It is indeed very likely that things will be different again in the not-too-distant
future, too.
As for the frequency at which change occurs within
organisations, the CIPD revealed in 2002 that significant reorganisations were
occurring at least once every three years at the time. More recently, in order to
underscore the acceleration at which change takes place within businesses, the
CIPD (2010) has claimed that organisations are undergoing change at an “ever-increasing
pace.” In contrast, what has not actually changed at all during the last decade
or so is the rate of failure: over 40% of re-organisations in fact fail to meet
their intended objectives.
There
are indeed a whole range of reasons prompting employers to introduce changes
within their firms. More in particular, change can be implemented for:
- The planned or emerging need to innovate,
which requires the introduction within the organisation of new technologies;
- The
changing demand and circumstances which could in turn imply the need to develop
new products and services;
- The
need to change working procedures and systems, which could be in part also linked
to the introduction of new technologies;
- The
expansion/contraction of an organisation activity, which could mainly be linked
to the good or bad health of the global or local market where the organisation
operates (adapted from Watson and Gallagher, 2005).
There
are indeed a few other relevant reasons which can account for organisations implementing
change processes: changes in the overall business strategy, increased competitive
pressure and new regulations, for instance, clearly also have a remarkable
impact on an organisation need for change.
Although under some circumstances the rationale behind
the need for change is provided by the endogenous environment, the reasons why organisations
are subject to change are more often than not provided by the external
environment. In the light of the pace technology develops and the external
environment changes it can be argued that, as suggested by Mullins (2005),
change is really “an inescapable part of social and organisational life.”
The pressure
and influence exerted by the external environment on organisations is remarkable
so that in order to avoid the dire consequences of dropping behind, businesses
are constantly involved in a sort of adaptation and evolutionary process. What
matters in terms of change is the business ability and capability to promptly
respond and adapt to change and not to simply resist and avert it. The
definition provided by Charles Darwin is self-explanatory: “It is not the
strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather
the one most responsive to change.”
Public
sector employers, by reason of their typical bureaucracy, procedural constraints
and because of the several stakeholders with different if not competing
priorities usually involved, habitually “face unique obstacles in leading” and
managing organisational change (Fenlon, 2002). Notwithstanding, during the
course of the last few years, public sectors organisations have been subject to
and have actually undergone remarkable changes, too. In many cases, works are
still well underway.
Before
planning and implementing a change, business leaders and HR Professionals have
to first and foremost become aware that a change is actually needed in their
organisation. In order to initiate a change process, hence, a need for it has to
clearly arise and be identified.
According
to a research carried out by Roffey Park (2010) amongst more than 900 managers (called
Management Agenda), the drivers pushing the more successful organisations to
implement changes are represented by: their client needs, efficiency and
quality; as opposed to the change procedures planned by employers with the aim
of just curbing and containing costs. Findings of the Management Agenda Survey
also revealed that when change is driven by these factors businesses are better
able to deliver change quickly and effectively.
Employers should hence definitely avert to introduce
change exclusively driven by internal politics or costs and rather focus on
change aiming at better satisfying their customer needs.
The Roffey
Park study also revealed the existence of a clear relationship between change
management and performance, which further suggests that employers should avoid developing
and implementing strategies aiming at achieving short-term cost containment objectives
or just battening down the hatches. That, also in the event organizations are actually
experiencing financial hardships. Business can in fact achieve far better
results by innovating and looking for new market opportunities, rather than limiting
their development and activity.
When
designing and implementing change, employers should use an approach enabling
them to proceed in an orderly and structured way, which will in turn ensure them
to effectually and consistently achieve their intended final results.
Boddy (2008) suggests a model of change in which
different stages are clearly identified, Figure 1.
For
the purpose of this feature, we focus on the first stage of the model, that is,
the one considering the reasons triggering a change process within an
organisation.
As
anticipated above, also in the light of the findings of the Management Agenda
Survey, the need for change is mainly linked to the influences and changes
which actually happen in the external environment, which clearly have a strong
impact on any organisation irrespective of the industry to which it belongs.
The
internal environment obviously is important too, but it does not represent the
very starting point of the process. Employers initiate change when they ascertain
the existence of a gap between what the external environment requires to be
competitive and what the organisation, the internal environment, can actually
offer. When a gap between the customers’ expectation and the actual
organisation’s offer is identified, this clearly means that it is time for the
organisation to introduce some changes.
As
also confirmed by the Roffey Park investigation, the cause for the emerged gap
between the desired and actual performance could be related to the organisation
incapability to meet its customer demand. The existence of this circumstance jeopardises
in turn the business capability to extend its customer network, both in terms
of quality and quantity, and to achieve competitive advantage. What even worse,
the emergence of this gap can ultimately cause a sensible sales revenues
reduction, which can in turn hamper the organisation’s capability to acquire
the resources it needs to carry out its transformation activity and produce its
typical output.
Change aims at bridging this dangerous gap and
enables an organisation to, if anything, keep pace with the constantly changing
environment, avoiding this to be drowned by its competitors.
The
model proposed by Boddy is particularly interesting in that it emphasises the
circumstance that a change process is likely to generate somewhat of a knock-on
effect. The change process, causing “practical issues of design and
implementation”, will in turn produce the conditions for further, future
changes.
The
task of addressing the effect of a “perceived performance gap” is not really
straightforward and the need to combine flexibility and stability, apparently
in contrast, just contributes to make things even harder.
The
current economic landscape, which is not expected to change in the future
because of the constantly increasing competition trend, is dominated by two
aspects which are also known as “performance imperatives” (Prastacos et al.,
2002).
The first imperative is represented by the need
for flexibility and the need for innovation. In such uncertain economic circumstances,
organisations find it particularly difficult planning for the long term so that
maintaining a high degree of strategic and organisational flexibility is
definitely key (Boddy, 2008). At the same time, as suggested by Volberda
(1997), employers also need to do whatever they can to maintain their processes
stable and efficient.
As
mentioned earlier, the objective of simultaneously achieving both flexibility and
stability could appear contradictory, but it is actually intended to stress the
importance that assumes for businesses their capability to react promptly and
effectively to the external pressures whilst maintaining efficiency, which is
also a very important component of organisational development.
The
internal context needs, therefore, to promptly adapt to the external changing
environment, but this does not mean that organisations merely need to adapt to
the external changes to be successful. The internal context has indeed a
remarkable influence to the successful implementation of this adaptation
process, too.
To consider the importance of innovation, the second
performance imperative suggested by Prastacos et al (2002), developing products
having recourse to the cutting-edge technology offered by the latest advancements
is not enough. Companies need to produce products which have to be perceived by
customers as desirable and at prices which these are willing to pay for. All of
that clearly depends on the internal management context.
The
need for change, nonetheless, is not invariably perceived in the same way and
with the same degree of urgency by the different individuals concerned. The
petrol company BP, for instance, was subject to a particular competitive
pressure in the 1980s, but it was only in the early 1990s that its business
leaders considered the issue worth of careful attention and initiated a rapid
process of change.
To
produce effects and generate actions the need to activate a process of change has
to be truly perceived by the most influential individuals within the organisation.
Only when the organisations’ high ranks notice the gap between internal and
external environment and consider it serious enough to threat the business
stability a process of change will be actually initiated (Boddy, 2008).
Employers
and trade unions can propose processes of change within organisations, but whether
their views are not shared and supported by the most influential people within
the business it is unlikely that change will yield the desired result.
The
need for change is essentially subjective (Boddy, 2008): what is perceived as
urgent by some individuals can be considered as something which can be postponed
to the future or deemed even useless by others. Business leaders should pay
extra care to this aspect and should be particularly cautious about the
information they intend to disseminate to make the case for change. Those who
want to avoid change will manipulate information in order to minimise the
effects of a particular event or phenomenon, whilst those who are pressing for
change could, by contrast, be tempted to manipulate information in order to
emphasise the relevance of the possible consequences of doing nothing. Management
should invariably double check information before taking action.
Organisational
change is not a matter of showing who is the more influential person within an organisation,
nor is it concerned with showing to the others how powerful one is. These
processes require many resources and the full involvement of many people, if
not that of the entire workforce. Change management is in general very
expensive, is likely to produce remarkable effects and to meet the opposition
of those contrary to its implementation: change hardly is a matter of plain sailing.
It is important and even crucial develop and implement change processes when
required, but not just as a mere exercise. Change has to be planned and
implemented only to concretely help an organisation to stay competitive in the
market and employees have all to be made aware of its real purpose.
It
is very unlikely that a change involving an intended area of the organisation
will not produce effects on others, one more reason to avoid underestimating
the dire consequences of pointless change procedures.
From the procedural point of view, it could be
useful considering also the approach to change management developed by Hayes
and Hyde (1998), figure 2, to which the one proposed by Boddy is to some extent
similar.
This
model, starting from the identification of the need for change imposed by the
external environment, considers an interesting intermediate stage where the
management has to carry out a useful diagnose in order to assess the current
situation and identify the likely future state that, with reference to the object
of change, will be reached by the organisation.
The
final stage of the process, called review, suggests that also in this case the
process is very likely to start anew once finished. It is in fact possible that
during the review the need for further improvement or change may emerge.
It
can be concluded that the answer to the initial question is rather obvious:
change management not only has not to be intended as a fad, but when justified it
also represents a necessary practice for savvy employers which want to stay
competitive in their market. A few conditions are, nonetheless, important:
a) The
need for change has to be real and well determined,
b) The
information provided to support this need have to be clear and objective,
c) Change, enabling the organisation to better
meet its customer needs, is aimed at achieving competitive advantage and not at
merely reducing overheads.
Longo,
R., (2011), Change Management: is it a
real need or just a fad?, HR Professionals, [online].
