Page 305 - Managing Change in Organizations

CarnCh15v3.qxd 3/30/07 4:33 PM Page 288

Chapter 15 ■ A strategy for organizational effectiveness
Providing feedback (questions 13–15)
The potential problems are:
1 Do visible benefits occur only over the long term (1 year)?
2 Are benefits visible to top management?
3 Is the impact on cost, productivity, resource utilization, market share (etc.)
well documented?
4 Are benefits clear and direct for the people involved?
The solutions are:
1 Make sure that results are well documented, accessible, quickly available, pos-
itively described, relevant, achievement of milestones recognized.
2 Arrange wide recognition of success of people involved throughout the organi-
zation. Specify how the change has helped the organization to achieve its goals.

Managing stress (questions 16–8)
The potential problems are:
1 Are people overstressed?
2 Is performance declining because of the level of stress?
3 Is there a higher incidence of ‘people’ problems, volatile behaviour problems
between groups of people?
The solutions are:

1 Plan change to control the impact on people. Seek ways of controlling the
pressure.
2 Allow more resources and time where the changes are novel.
3 Adopt a rapid implementation plan where people have been consulted and
agree to change.
4 Empathy – constantly reinforce change – communicate and listen.

The self-assessment exercise (checklist 3)

Checklist 3 (Table 15.3) is designed to help you review your own skills in the area
of planning and managing change. You should also consider the management-
style exercise included earlier and review your own management approach
against the various guidelines, checklists and ‘role models’ provided in the book.
Having gone through this exercise, identify the main areas where you feel you
need to improve your skills and performance. Then identify three or four priority
areas for improvement. In doing so you may care to consider the typical problems
of change that people in your organization experience, as identified in the imple-
mentation exercise. Finally, look for practical ways in which you can improve
your approach and style.

288