Change Management: Crafting an Organized Approach for Success - Free Essay

Introduction

Change management is the manners and tactics in which an organization defines and implements change within external and internal procedures. Creating an organized approach to change is very important to ensure a beneficial conversion while mitigating interruption. Change is critical in a company, and it helps the organization move forward, and with innovations, the company makes more profits. If the change process is not structured in a good way, it might fail, and no change will occur. In most cases, managers are the ones in charge of change in many organizations, and they make sure that change occurs. This paper identifies and discusses five mistakes that managers might make when they are supervising change.

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For the past two decades, change in companies has grown immensely, but some fail due to errors made by the managers.

Permitting Too Much Complacency

For the longest time, the biggest mistake most of managers do when they are leading a change is not including the employees and other organizational staff to be a part of the change. Starting to change without involving them is serious because transformations fail to accomplish their goals when there are high complacency levels. For example, John was named to be the manager of their company, and he recognized many problems and opportunities. John worked day and night to establish new initiatives to create margins and business in a progressively competitive marketplace (Alsher, n.d.). After a while, John saw some possibilities of dangers, together with other staff members, but he never thought that they would overcome those problems. Due to this, John gave up on his objectives and watched all initiatives go to waste.

This is a problem that happens in most companies because the managers never believe in their accomplishments, and they give up on finding solutions on how they would overcome those problems. Due to this, managers become frustrated, giving up on the company and their dreams (Alsher, n.d.). Too much complacency is fatal because hardworking managers with new initiatives and smart ideas give up on their people, leading to failure in change. This mistake comes up because managers lack patience; they don't believe that their ideas can accidentally strengthen the status quo and think that driving individuals out of their comfort zone are an easy task. When people start to become defensive of what they are saying, managers start to worry, and some of their short-term goals start to fail. This causes managers to mix anxiety with urgency forcing individuals into deeper foxholes and creating more resistance to change. If managers reduce complacency and introduce a sense of urgency among the employees and other organizational staff, then change will be accomplished because people will come out of their comfort zone early and offer the extra effort that is required for change.

Underestimating the Power of Vision

When there is a lot of complacency, managers also underestimate the power of vision. Vision plays a vital role when making a successful change. When people are in their comfort zone, they don't see the importance of vision and don't realize that it assists in inspiring, aligning, and directing the actions of the organizations (Kotter, 2012). If there is a lack of the right vision, the new initiatives, sacrifices, and efforts by the employees can easily into a list of time-consuming, incompatible, and confusing projects that end up on the wrong path or become non-progressive at all.

Some managers try to manipulate occasions quietly without people noticing and purposefully ignore public dialog of future direction. If a decision-making process lacks the vision to guide it, every choice a staff member makes turns into an interminable argument. This is because small opinions made by every employee might create heated conflicts among them, thus sapping out their energy and killing morale. Unimportant opinions can overcome productive discussion and waste precious time before deciding the way to go. Where change fails in an organization, you realize that they had put programs and strategies trying to play the vision (The Most Common Mistakes Leaders Make When Communicating Change, n.d.). The manager creates deadlines, plans, methods, goals, and procedures, but they don't clearly state what the aim of all those strategies is because they have no vision.

In other cases, where change has failed, the manager always has a sense of direction. Still, the transformation fails because the vision appears to be blurry or complicated, and the employees cannot understand it. A rule used to identify if a company has a vision is the rule of thumb (8 Mistakes Managers Make (and How to Avoid Them), 2016). For example, if you ask a manager to state their vision that will change an organization and he or she spends more than five minutes trying to describe it, or if the vision does not represent both interest and understanding of the company, then know that their vision is complicated or there is no vision at all.

Sometimes change is impossible to achieve because the managers always under-communicate their vision. If the managers don’t educate the employees on the benefits of having a vision, they won't make sacrifices to enable successful transformation. Poor or unclear communication with the employees is common in most organizations, which confuses them, and successful change is not achieved (Kotter, 2012). Communication is very important during change because you have to listen to everyone’s opinion before you make the right decision. Clear communication helps you to understand one another and the needs of an organization, and this leads to successful transformation.

Failure to Create Short-term Goals

For you to have a successful change, you have to develop short-term wins that will guide you to the real change because it takes a lot of time to achieve. Short-term goals motivate the employees, and they believe that they are moving in the right direction when they achieve short-term objectives. Most people are not able to go for long runs, not unless they see they are achieving something. To achieve a successful change, managers should find better ways to create goals and improve performance in the annual planning system (The 3 Most Common Change Management Problems, 2014). The manager should also reward the employees and other organizational staff involved in the planning by giving them money, or promotions where required. It is less common that in unsuccessful transformation, systematic efforts to ensure explicit within half a year (Team, n.d.). This happens when managers become so focused on the long-term wins or assume that better things are coming hence giving up on the short-term wins. Some employees argue and complain no need to focus on short-term goals because there are long-term goals, but with the right circumstances, short-term objectives achieved by the employees are essential for achieving long-term goals.

Declaring Victory Too Soon

What most people do not know is that a successful change takes a long time. For the first few years, people work hard to achieve their long-term goals, but after achieving the first achievement, such as the short-term goal, they tend to celebrate it. During this celebration period, managers congratulate the employees for the good work they have done, and then they forget to tell them to keep pressing to achieve the long-term goals. A terrible mistake that most managers make while celebrating the first short-term goal is when they say that the job is done (10 Common Leadership and Management Mistakes: – Avoiding Universal Pitfalls, 2009). This phrase confuses many employees, and they stop committing themselves to the long-term objectives. In recent years, most of organizations have made this mistake, and this is where the problem starts since the urgency level reduced (Schwantes, 2016). The employees relax, thinking that they have achieved the company's objective. Premature celebration stops hard work and the morale of the employees hence leading to unsuccessful change. For transformations to become a company’s culture, managers should not take much time congratulating the first wins because they are delicate and subject to deterioration.

Not creating a satisfactorily Powerful Guiding Alliance.

When making a change, most managers do not include other organizational staff members, such as their deputies, and this is another bad mistake they make. They tend to forget that unity is power, and they should have supporters who will back up their plans. For a successful change, heads of the organization should work together and agree on one objective that will benefit both the employees and the organization. When employees lack a powerful alliance, they make apparent development (Five (5) Common Management Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, n.d.). Resistance starts to appear because the guiding coalition is not united, and teams also start to form. When a team starts to build, people start to take sides, and this kills the reengineering in the organization. Even if a manager is very dedicated to his vision and long-term goals, without a united and strong guidance alliance, it is difficult to achieve successful change.

Conclusion

Successful change is not an easy thing to achieve, not unless they look into common mistakes they make or that have been made and rectify them. The process of executing a successful change needs action and contribution from many individuals, and hence managers should include everybody in the change process. Managers should choose a focused coalition that will lead them to the change they need and should not allow obstacles of any kind to block their vision.

References

Alsher, P. (n.d.). 15 Common Mistakes Made by Leadership During a Change -- and What to Do About Them. Www.Imaworldwide.Com. https://www.imaworldwide.com/blog/15-common-mistakes-made-by-leadership-during-a-change-and-what-to-do-about-them

Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading Change. In Google Books. Harvard Business Press. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xpGX1EWL_EMC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=+discuss+5+errors+which+managers+may+make+when+they+are+leading+a+change&ots=Tc08PeTuJA&sig=eq046dl5l3MQKnkU9JbbmmDJlzQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Five (5) Common Management Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. (n.d.). ITtoolkit.Com. Retrieved August 26, 2020, from https://www.ittoolkit.com/articles/management-mistakes

The Most Common Mistakes Leaders Make When Communicating Change. (n.d.). Learning.Linkedin.Com. Retrieved August 26, 2020, from https://learning.linkedin.com/blog/learning-tips/the-most-common-mistakes-leaders-make-handling-change

Schwantes, M. (2016, August 24). 8 Mistakes Managers Make, According to Their Employees. Inc.Com; Inc. https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/8-mistakes-managers-make-according-to-their-employees.html

10 Common Leadership and Management Mistakes: – Avoiding Universal Pitfalls. (2009). Mindtools.Com. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/leadership-mistakes.htm

Team, P. C. I. (n.d.). Top 5 biggest change management mistakes. Www.Customermonitor.Com. Retrieved August 26, 2020, from https://www.customermonitor.com/blog/biggest-mistakes-change-management-mistakes

The 3 most common change management problems. (2014). Ricoh-Usa.Com. https://www.ricoh-usa.com/en/insights/articles/the-3-most-common-change-management-problems

8 Mistakes Managers Make (and How to Avoid Them). (2016, December 6). GetSmarter Blog. https://www.getsmarter.com/blog/career-advice/8-mistakes-managers-make-and-how-to-avoid-them/