Page 252 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Coping with organizational change
A crucial issue is how to achieve the ability to adapt continuously in rapidly
changing circumstances. Part of this has been about the realignment of
resources away from functions towards customers. Cross-functional teams are
seen as a vital building block of change strategy and the teams (some of which
include customers) become the focus for organizational learning. Not least
Kodak uses benchmarking to build unit goals which it uses to seek improve-
ments within which cross-functional teams operate. This is based on the need
for flat structures, more capable people, enhanced collaboration, evidence-
based management, customer focus and increased energy and commitment.

Coping with organizational change

Thus far we have considered some of the managerial skills associated with the
effective management of change. We now proceed to consider the impact of
change on the people directly affected, which will often include many middle
and senior managers. We are concerned here with the people who must take on
new tasks, develop new skills, be transferred, regraded or retrained. Once
changes emerge, people must learn to cope as individuals. I will describe a sim-
ple model of how people experience change and, below, we will consider the
model in more detail and examine how they can cope with the pressures cre-
ated by change. Understanding this can enable senior managers to provide
practical support to people undergoing change and may better enable them to
avoid creating constraints on people, which makes their personal task of cop-
ing all the harder.
Coping with the process of change places demands on the individuals
involved. Various issues need to be faced either by the individuals or by man-
agers. Note, however, that these issues are of concern to all those who are affected
by an organizational change, including managers. I will set down a practical
framework for coping with change below, based on ideas from various workers in
the field, including Cooper (1981), Argyris (1982), Kirkpatrick (1985), Kanter
(1983) and my own experience. Many managers I know arrange two-hour work-

shops in groups of 10 to 12 people in which the participants are asked to discuss
and then report back on those issues that they feel are important in a period of
change. This can be a powerful method facilitating a more knowledgeable and
constructive approach to a major change, and it can lead to useful ideas. I also
remember talking these ideas over with a senior manager in a diversified group
who had introduced computerized photocomposition for a newspaper company
in the early 1970s. The company had allowed the typesetters to try out the visual
display units in a test room but not in a training environment. Providing support,
they avoided any sense of formal training and were surprised to find that,
allowed to learn at their own pace, the typesetters embraced the technology
enthusiastically and quickly. This is important; giving people the chance, the
time and the support to try things out for themselves is a way of allowing them
to build their self-esteem under their own control and to solve the problem of
change along the way. Only then does formal training have a really effective role
as a means of ensuring consistent performance, disseminating best practices and

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