1. Organizational Change and Stress Management
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2. Learning Objectives Describe the forces that stimulate change
Learn about planned/unplanned changes
Learn how individuals and organizations resist change
Discuss overcoming resistance to change
Learn about Lewin’s change model
Describe potential sources of stress
Learn how individual variables moderate the stress-outcome relationship
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3. Forces For Change Workforce World Politics Technology Social Trends
Economic
Shocks
Many forces are driving change in the contemporary workplace. The following is a discussion of six of them.
The nature of the workforce is changing in the following ways: more cultural diversity, an increase in professionals, and many new entrants who lack basic skills. Human resource practices are changing in order to attract and keep this new workforce, and training costs are rising in order to upgrade math, reading, computer, and other skills of employees.
Technology is changing jobs and organizations in the following ways: more computers and automation, TQM programs, and reengineering. Organizational structures are flattening and the span-of-control of many managers is widening. Many jobs are being reshaped as narrow, routine jobs are being replaced by those which require a team effort and multi-tasking.
That we live in an “age of discontinuity” is witnessed by the following economic shocks that have imposed changes on organizations: the Asian real estate collapse, Russian devaluation of the ruble, and the collapse of oil prices.
Competition is changing in many ways: more global competitors, increased consolidations and mergers, and the growth of Internet commerce. Successful organizations will be able to change in response to the competition by relying on short production runs, short product cycles, and an ongoing stream of new products. Doing so will demand a flexible, responsive workforce.
The social trends of the 1970s and 1980s suggest changes for the 1990s that organizations will have to adjust for: such as, young people delaying marriage, a negative attitude toward those who smoke, and the popularity of sport-utility vehicles.
Business schools have been preaching a global perspective since the early 1980s, but no one could have imagined how world politics would change in recent years: for instance, the U.S. embargo of Lybia, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Black rule in South Africa. In response to such events, almost all major American businesses have had to make sweeping changes in order to survive.
Competition
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4. Planned and Unplanned Organizational Changes
planned Changes
Changes in products and services
Changes in administrative systems
Changes in organizational size or structure
Introduction of new technologies
Advances in information processing and communication
Unplanned Changes
Changing employee demographics
Performance gaps
Governmental regulations
Economic competition in the global arena
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5. What Can Change Agents Change?
Structure
Technology
Physical
Setting
People
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6. Structure, Technology, and People as Targets of Organizational Change
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7. Resistance to Change Forms of Resistance to Change Overt and immediate
Voicing complaints, engaging in job actions
Implicit and deferred
Loss of employee loyalty and motivation, increased errors or mistakes, increased absenteeism
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8. Resistance to Change Individual Selective Information Processing
Fear of
the Unknown
Force of
Habit
Need for
Security
Economic
Factors
Individual
Organizations and their members resist change. In a sense, their resistance can be positive. It provides a degree of stability and predictability, and it can be a source of functional conflict. But, resistance also hinders progress and adaptation. Often, organizations that have experienced lengthy periods of success are particularly resistant to change. Organizational resistance to change can take several forms: overt, implicit, immediate, or deferred.
The following summarizes five reasons why individuals may resist change.
• Force of habit. To cope with the complexities of day-to-day living, we rely on habits or programmed responses. When confronted with changes, this tendency to respond in habitual ways hinders change.
• Need for security. People with a high need for security resist change because it threatens them.
• Economic Factors. Another source of individual resistance is fear that changes will lower income.
• Fear of the Unknown. Changes replace stability and familiarity with ambiguity and uncertainty.
• Selective Information Processing. Individuals shape their world through their perceptions. Once they have created this world, it is resistant to change. So, individuals selectively process information in order to maintain their perceptions.
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9. Resistance cont….
Organizations and their members resist change. In a sense, their resistance can be positive. It provides a degree of stability and predictability, and it can be a source of functional conflict. But, resistance also hinders progress and adaptation. Often, organizations that have experienced lengthy periods of success are particularly resistant to change. Organizational resistance to change can take several forms: overt, implicit, immediate, or deferred.
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10. Resistance cont…
The following summarizes five reasons why individuals may resist change.
Force of habit. To cope with the complexities of day-to-day living, we rely on habits or programmed responses. When confronted with changes, this tendency to respond in habitual ways hinders change.
Need for security. People with a high need for security resist change because it threatens them.
Economic Factors. Another source of individual resistance is fear that changes will lower income.
Fear of the Unknown. Changes replace stability and familiarity with ambiguity and uncertainty.
Selective Information Processing. Individuals shape their world through their perceptions. Once they have created this world, it is resistant to change. So, individuals selectively process information in order to maintain their perceptions.
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11. Overcoming Resistance to Change
Education and
Communication
Participation
Negotiation
Facilitation
and Support
Manipulation
and Cooptation
Coercion
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12. Organizational Change
Unfreezing
Changing
Refreezing
Lewin’s Three-Step Process
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13. Org. change cont…
Kurt Lewin asserts that successful change requires unfreezing the status quo,
changing to a new state, then
refreezing the new change to make it permanent. Moving from the status quo (equilibrium) can be achieved in three ways:
The driving forces, which direct behavior away from the status quo, can be increased.
The restraining forces, which hinder movement away from the status quo, can be increased.
The two approaches can be combined.
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14. Unfreezing the Status Quo
Desired
State
Restraining
Forces
Status
Quo
The status quo can be considered an equilibrium state. To move from a state of equilibrium (to overcome individual and organizational resistance), unfreezing must occur. It can be done in three ways:
1. The driving forces, which direct behavior away from the status quo, can be increased.
2. The restraining forces, which hinder movement from the existing equilibrium, can be decreased.
3. A third alternative is combining the first two approaches.
Once unfreezing has been accomplished, the change can be implemented. But merely introducing change does not ensure that it will take hold. The new situation must be refrozen. The objective of refreezing is to stabilize the new situation by balancing the driving and restraining forces. Unless this is done, employees will revert to the previous state of equilibrium.
Driving
Forces
Time
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15. Action Research Process
One:
Diagnosis
Three:
Feedback
Five:
Evaluation
Two:
Analysis
Four:
Action
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16. Survey Feedback: An Overview
Employees
complete
surveys to provide
information about
problems in their
organization
Feelings about the
organization are
summarized and
shared with all
employees
Develop Action Plans
Through group
discussions,
specific plans for
overcoming problems
are identified
and developed
Data Collection
Feedback
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17. Organizational Development
Respect for people
Trust and support
Power equalization
Confrontation
Participation
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18. Five OD Interventions Intergroup development Process consultation
Sensitivity training
Survey feedback
Team building
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19. OD Interventions cont….
Intergroup Development. This technique can change attitudes, stereotypes, and perceptions that groups have of each other. One method emphasizes problem solving. Once problems have been identified, team members can move to the integration phase of working together to develop solutions to improve intergroup relations.
Process Consultation. An outside consultant helps a client to perceive, understand, and act upon various processes in the workplace: such as work flow, informal relationships, and formal communication channels.
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20. OD Interventions cont…
Sensitivity Training. This method uses unstructured group interaction to change behavior. Members meet in an “open” environment to discuss their interactive processes and themselves. The discussion is loosely directed by a behavioral scientist. The group is process oriented, and individuals learn by observing and participating rather than being told.
Survey Feedback. Management can use the survey feedback approach to assess the attitudes of organizational members in order to identify and address the discrepancies among their perceptions.
Team Building. The following team building activities promote trust and openness between team members: goal setting, interpersonal development, role analysis, and team process analysis.
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21. Organizational Culture
Sources of Innovation
Human Resources
Structural Variables
Organizational Culture
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22. What Is a Learning Organization?
Definitions
Advantages
Characteristics
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23. A learning organization is one that has developed the continuous capacity to adapt and change. Most organizations engage in single-loop learning: that is, detecting and correcting errors by using past routines and present policies. In contrast, learning organizations use double-loop learning: that is, detecting errors and correcting them in ways that modify the organization’s objectives, policies, and standard routines.
Proponents believe that the learning organization can remedy the following three basic problems in traditional organizations. Fragmentation based on specialization creates “walls” and “chimneys” that separate different functions into independent and often warring fiefdoms. Stressing competition can hinder collaboration. Reactiveness misdirects management’s attention to solving problems rather than generating new ideas.
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25. Characteristics
The following are characteristics of a learning organization:
Everyone agrees to a shared vision.
People discard old ways of thinking and standard routines.
Members see that organizational processes and activities are interrelated.
People communicate openly across horizontal and vertical boundaries.
Employees sublimate departmental/personal interests for the shared vision.
The learning organization is a paradigm built on contemporary management concepts. No company has successfully achieved all the characteristics.
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26. Managing Learning Establishing Strategy Redesigning Structure
Reshaping
Culture
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27. Managing Change: It’s Culture Bound!
Is change possible?
How long will it take?
Does culture influence resistance?
Does culture influence implementation?
Does culture influence idea champions?
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28. What Is Stress? Importance Uncertainty Demands Constraints
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29. A Model of Stress Consequences Potential Sources Environmental Factors
Individual
Differences
Psychological
Symptoms
Organizational
Factors
Experienced
Stress
Physiological
Symptoms
Individual
Factors
Behavioral
Symptoms
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30. Stress cont….
Environmental stress factors include economic, political, and technological uncertainty. Organizational stress factors include task demands, role demands, interpersonal demands, organizational structure, organizational leadership, and the organization’s life stage. Individual stress factors include family problems, economic problems, personality. Stress builds up. To assess the total amount of stress that a person is under, we must sum up his or her opportunity stresses, constraint stresses, and demand stresses.
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31. Stress cont….
Five variables moderate the relationship between potential and experienced stress. Employees react in response to their perception of reality rather than to reality itself. Experience on the job tends to be negatively related to stress. Social support can buffer the impact of stress. Those with an internal locus of control perceive their jobs to be less stressful than those with an external locus of control. A high degree of hostility and anger increases a person’s stress.
The consequences of stress fall into three categories. The link between stress and physiological symptoms is not clear, even though early research focused on the physical manifestations of stress. For students of OB, the two following categories are more important. Job-related stress can cause job-related dissatisfaction—the most obvious psychological effect of stress. It can also cause tension, anxiety, irritability, boredom, and procrastination. Behavioral symptoms include changes in productivity, absence, and turnover. They also include substance abuse, overeating, chain smoking, and sleep disorders.
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32. Individual Stress Management
Time
Management
Physical
Exercise
Individual Stress
Management
Relaxation
Training
Social
Support
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33. Organizational Stress Management
Goal Setting
Wellness
Programs
Job
Redesigning
Organizational
Communication
Employee
Involvement
Selection
and Placement
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34. Stress management cont…
Stress is not necessarily bad. In fact, it can help one to achieve superior performance in a critical situation. But excess or prolonged stress can manifest itself in physiological, psychological, and behavioral problems.
Today’s workers take on larger workloads, work longer hours, have fewer resources, confront ambiguity daily, and have less job security. These factors contribute to employee stress. While not all sources of stress can be controlled, management must realize that certain jobs are more stressful than others, and individuals vary in their response to stress situations. Therefore, selection and placement decisions must consider these factors.
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35. Stress management cont…
The use of goals can reduce employee frustration, job uncertainty, and stress. Wasting time causes stress, so management should provide time-management training. Redesigning jobs to give employees more responsibility, meaningful work, and increased feedback can reduce stress. Management can increase employee involvement in decision making to reduce uncertainty about goals, expectations, and evaluations. Helping employees to expand their social support networks can reduce tension. Improving formal organizational communication with employees lessens ambiguity and reduces stress. Physical activity programs supported by the organization focus on the employee’s total physical and mental condition.
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