Change Management Models and Theory-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Change Management Models and Theory. Answer: Introduction: Change management is the approach which is often taken by managers and organizations for transitioning individuals, organizations as well as team from a current unfavorable state to that to a favorable future state. Change management approach is applied to situations such as downsizing, growing of organizations and even adding new technology (Doppelt, 2017). Researchers are of the opinion that this organizational process are mainly aimed at helping the employees not only to understand but also commit to and accept and embrace different modifications and changes in the current business environment. Many researchers suggest that a part of change management is also managing transition. Many argue that change and transition are two different aspects while other says that they are interrelated (Howes et al., 2015). Keeping this argument aside, change management is found to be important as it helps in minimizing resistance of the employees, increase in engagement, improve performance, redu ce costs and also enhances innovation. This helps the organization to overcome any threatening situations and at the same time, it will be helpful in developing the working conditions resulting in better productivity (Fernandes, Ward Araujo, 2015). This assignment will mainly describe change management models and how they are different from each other. This will also show how each model can fit in different scenarios giving an idea about how managers should adapt the model in certain particular situations. Lewins change management model: The first theory which can be considered is the Lewins change management model. It is one of the most popular as well as the effective model which helps managers to understand the requirement of the organizational and structured changes required. The model mainly consists of three important parts. This are unfreeze, change and refreeze. The first stage called the unfreeze stage is mainly the preparation stage for the change. This mainly shows that the organization should prepare for the change and also absorb the fact that change is essential. This stage is important to make the employees understand why the present existing ways need to be changed and how this can help in bringing profit (Quiney Richardson, 2014). Looking the core and re-examining is the important part. This is followed by the change stage. In the second stage, real transitions or changes take place. This stage takes time as it needs people needs to accept new things, development and happenings in the organization, good leadership and reassurance are essential for steering the changes in the forward direction (Kempster, Higg Weurz, 2014). Communication and time are very important aspects of this stage. The third stage is called the refreeze stage. Following the occurrences like the changes being accepted, embraces and implemented by the organization, this stage shows how the company gradually stabilizes and becomes to work successfully again in a stable mode. This is called so as the employees and processes begin to refreeze and things start going back to their normal pace and routine. Critics: Researchers are of the opinion that most of the organizations prefer to use this model as they find this model to be easier to implement. This model is useful when business requires massive changes. Secondly, it is also useful in finding out any concealed information and mistakes which were previously taken for granted as the change agent is analyzing every aspect of the transition (Bartuneck Woodman, 2015). However, many other researchers argue that this model of change management is time consuming and can be difficult at times. It requires the mangers to take extra effort to take care and support their teams as they have to consider their emotions through turmoil. The workflow will change drastically and therefore care should be taken when bring them on board and keeping up the enthusiasm in the refreezing stage (Cummings, Bridgman Brown, 2016) Kotters change management theory Another model which can be described is the Kotters change management theory. This is one of the most popular theories and had been still implemented by large number of organizations. This mainly consists of 8 important stages where each of the stages will mainly be focusing on the key principles which are associated with the response of people to changes. The first stage is called the increase urgency stage which involves the creating of a sense of urgency among the people by mainly motivating them stating that they have to move forward towards the new objectives (Vora et al., 2013). The second is building team which mainly requires the manager to incorporate right people in the team with the appropriate selection of skill mix, knowledge and also commitment. The third one is getting the vision correct where the stage relates with development of the correct vision and taking into account the strategy, creativity, objectives and also the emotional connectedness. The fourth step is the communicate stage where the agents should communicate with the employees regarding the change and the necessity of the change (Rafferty et al., 2017). The fifth step is called get things moving. In order to get things moving and empowering actions of people, managers need to provide support to employees, remove their roadblocks along with implementation in the constructive ways. Focusing on short term goals is the next stage where the managers need to divide the ultimate goal into small and achievable parts. This is the proper way which would help people to achieve success without too much pressure (Ewenstein et al., 2015). The next stage mainly focuses on the development of the ability of the employees not to give up knowing that persistence is the way to success and not to succumb to pressure and give up when the change management process is going on. The last stage is called the incorporating change stage where besides managing change effectively, it becomes important to reinfor ce them and make them a part of the culture. Critics: Researchers have found that organizations use this model as this is a step by step model. It mainly focuses on preparing and accepting changes and is mainly response based stating that it actually works in accordance to the responses of the employees. Transition is mainly easier with the help of this model. However many researchers have argued that one negative aspect of this model is that the steps cannot be skipped and this process requires a great deal of time (Duplessis Mabunda et al., 2016). Although it acts as a checklist but mainly lacks the necessary back and forth movement as it only allows step by step movement. However this model is quite gripping as it solely resides on the developing the employees for the changes and entirely concentrating on them for the changes to occur successfully. McKinsey 7s model: The next model that one can also take in consideration is the McKinsey 7s model. This model has managed to exist in the organizational culture even when a large number of models have come and gone. This model has been able to survive and consists of 8 important stages. The first stage is the strategy which the organization needs to develop to overcome the competition and thereby reach goals (Ewenstein, smith Sologar, 2015). The second one is the systems where the managers should take the decisions about the ways by which every day activities need to be dome in order to get the task completed. Shared values are the core or the main values of the organization according to which the change is preceded (Vora, 2013). Next is the style in which the leaderships and modifications would be implemented after adoption so that the change takes place successfully. Next is the skills which refer mainly to the competencies as well as the features and skills possessed by the employees in the organi zation. The next aspect is staffs which mainly refer to the workforce or the employees and their working capabilities. The main principle is that the manager after recognizing and identifying all the seven S, she or he needs to think about how each of the aspects affect each other and thereby implement changes accordingly (Chienwattayakum Mankin, 2015). For example, a manager should try to examine about how the structure of the organization is affecting the strategy, how both of them affect the systems and then a again all of them are interacting with the skills or staffs and many others. Critics: Critics are of the opinion that there are many benefits with the McKinsey model. It provides an effective model to diagnose and understand organization along with providing guidance to the organizational change (Raffery Restubog, 2017). It combines both emotional and rational components. All the components are integral and are addressed in a unified model. The disadvantages with the model as argued by researchers are that when one part changes, all get changed as they are interconnected. The model is quite complex (Du Plessox et al., 2016). Even researchers say that many companies have even failed with the help of this model. Comparison and contrast: An important similarity that was noticed in all the mentioned three models are that all are time consuming and requires extensive planning and investigations before implementing them. However, certain dissimilarities have been found. Whereas Lewins model is subjected to massive changes in an organization, the other two models are mainly applied to changes which are not drastic (Horstein, 2015). It is seen that unlike the Lewis model, Kotters model is mainly response based change management where the employees and other stakeholders are the primary concerns in the change management rather than including the organization and the processes which are changing. Kotters theory is mainly organizing the employees aligning to the organizations goals and helping them to adapt to the environment. This is mainly response based. However, McKinseys change management remains mainly focused on another perspective entirely (Vander voet, 2014). They remain more concerned with the alteration of the org anization and processes by focusing the on the interconnection of the seven aspects like system, structure, strategy and others providing more importance of the interconnectedness between the aspects. While interconnections are important in this process, Kotters model is a step by step model and does not provide interconnectedness as stated by McKinsleys. Kotters models have aspects which cannot make the change successful if one step is missed and the steps are linear rather than being interconnected like Mckinseys (Farkas et al., 2016). Lewins model does not have any such aspects and are easier to follow as this does not study the interconnections like the McKinseys model to understand and implement the changes required. Moreover, unlike the Kotters, it is not comprising of minute and larger number of steps and is simpler to follow by the organizations. However, Lewin and McKinsley depend on an in-depth analysis for making changes successful unlike Kotters model which is mainly bas ed on the modifications of the attitudes of the employees with the changes. The differences can be understood by scenarios. Scenario: Let one assume, a scenario where the employers of the organization had decided to introduce new technology of the system so the time consumed by the employees to perform the task would become less. However, the employees were resistant against the use of new technologies as they were comfortable with the previous working style. They showed resistance to the change although it was urgent for the organization to shift to the new technology to increase productivity. Other than, this new change, all others were working smoothly. In such a situation, Kotters theory would be just where the managers can use the eight important stages to prepare the employees for the change makings sure that the employees get comfortable with the new trend and helping them in each stages to align with the new technological skills. Here Mckinseys model is not required as there was no need to assess the interconnections of the aspects mentioned in the model. In another scenario, it was seen that a company was facing tremendous loss due to lesser productivity of the employees and attrition rate was also high. A change was indeed very necessary so that the company can recover the losses by increasing the productivity of the employees (Hornstein et al., 2015). Therefore in such a situation, the managers or the employers were in urgent need to find the main reasons for such results. In such a situation, where urgent changes were very important, managers had to take help of the McKinseys model (Pollack Pollack, 2015). The managers had to first evaluate the interconnected factors which are responsible for such outcomes. On thorough analysis, it was found the strategy taken by the managers were not aligning with the system and structure of the organizing as the system was not financially stable to handle the strategies. Moreover, the skill mix required to adapt to such strategies were also not aligning with the staff numbers and it was getting strenuous for them and they were suffering from jo b stress. Therefore, change was extremely important and in this scenario the McKinseys model was found to be extremely useful. Let us consider another scenario where an organization was sold to another employer due to extreme loss. The new CEO of the company wanted to change the entire working style of the old organization with a completely new objective, mission and vision. He wanted to develop the old organization with an absolute new perspective and for this drastic change, the Lewin model was important. It required for the new CEO to first develop an in-depth analysis during the unfreezing stage followed by implementing the changes and then refreezing the environment to maintain stability. Conclusion: Change management is an important process which every organization needs to adopt in order to properly go through a change or transition phase for betterment of the organization. The time during change management is often strenuous as the employer, managers and workers all have to change their styles to adapt to the new situations. However, all changes are not drastic but require expert handling to become sure of the success. Lewin model, Kotters model and McKinseys model all help in acting as guides to change agents. It is important for the managers to correctly apply the proper models in the different situations so that it can have the best outcomes. Referrences: Bartunek, J. M., Woodman, R. W. (2015). 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