Six Change Approach

The Six Change Approaches developed by Kotter and Schlesinger is designed to prevent or minimize employee resistance to change. This model can be useful to any size organization as it covers many possible issues, some an organization may never even face. The approaches react to the four main resistance factors which are; self-interest, misunderstanding, low tolerance for change, and employee disagreement with reasoning. 

Valuebasedmanagement.net lays out the 6 approaches succinctly. The last two strategies are some times necessary, but the repercussions should be carefully weighed. 

1. Education and Communication. "Up-front communication and education helps employees see the logic in the change effort."

2. Participation and Involvement. "When employees are involved in the change effort they are more likely to buy into change rather than resist it."

3. Facilitation and Support. "Managerial support helps employees deal with fear and anxiety during a transition period."

4. Negotiation and Agreement. "Managers can combat resistance by offering incentives to employees to not resist change."

5. Manipulation and Co-option. "Co-option involves the patronizing gesture in brining a person into a change management group for the sake of appearances rather than their substantive contribution." 

6. Explicit and Implicit Coercion. "Managers can explicitly or implicitly force employees into accepting change by making clear that resisting to change can lead to losing jobs, firing, transferring or not promoting employees."

Business Process Reengineering is a model focused more on outcomes and the work process than on employee specific issues. Seven principles are used to streamline processes and improve time management, costs and quality. For organizations operating under bloated parameters, BPR is the efficient, if not exactly friendly, solution to downsize costs. The factors (from CIO Media) include: 

1. Organize around outcomes, not tasks.

2. Identify all the processes in an organization and prioritize them in order of redesign urgency.

3. Integrate information processing work into the real work that produces the information.

4. Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized.

5. Link parallel activities in the workflow instead of just integrating their results.

6. Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the process.

7. Capture information once and at the source. (Business process reengineering, 2006)

Kaizen Model

An opposite of BPR is the Japanese developed Kaizen model. More of a long-term philosophy that short-term change tool, Kaizen is founded on 5 specific elements. Teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles, and suggestions for improvement. It is difficult to measure the results of the Kaizen model as they are not always clearly defined, or readily available. However, the model is people oriented, easy to implement and has proven success over long-term change situations that allow time for employees to adapt and grow into a successful culture. 

Models of Change

A final model that is treated more as a philosophy that a specific change manager is the Deming Cycle

PDSA. The essential elements being that employees are in a constant state of; Plan, Do, Study, and Act.

This creates an employee culture that is in constant movement and preparation for change. The

employees will be comfortable with the change process; therefore they will be comfortable with the

specific changes ahead of them. Japan has latched on to this model as well, and has seen remarkable

industrial growth over a period of time. (The Deming Cycle, 2006)_

The best way to combat this frustration is to communicate with the employees the potential benefits of the

new technologies and to develop an atmosphere of positive change. "An atmosphere of openness, good

communications, clear vision, leadership and training engenders good change management.

Consultation, communications, transparency and informality minimize fear and suspicion; staff resent the

sense that changes are imposed on them and that they are powerless - they need to be involved. They

need to understand the rationale behind decisions which are being made, even if they do not agree with

them." (Edwards and Walton, 2000) 

To understand different types of crises and analyse the psychology of bad times

To examine and debate on the role of the leadership in managing the crisis

To debate on the different types of crisis management tools that should be used during crisis time, especially

depending on the nature of the crisis as

Among the process and content motivational theories applied to this case study are Adams' Equity

Theory, Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, B.F. Skinner's Operant Conditioning Theory and Maslow's

Hierarchy of Needs. Recommended actions cognizant with the theories cited in each situation are also

given.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/rp2831m124277nr4/

According to Hocker and Wilmot (2001), conflict is defined as “an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in achieving their goals.” Similarly, De Dreu and Beersma assert that overall, organizational psychologists view conflict as “a process that begins when an individual or group perceives differences and oppositionbetween him- or herself and another individual or group about interests,beliefs, or values that matter to him or her (2005).”

Further, Hocker and Wilmot also maintain that communication is the“central element in all interpersonal conflict” and that communication “oftencreates conflict, reflects conflict, and is the vehicle for productive ordestructive management of conflict (2001).”

http://www.pdfgeni.com/book/resistance-to-change-pdf.html

The first reason that people resist is because they do not understand - they simply don’tfollow what you are talking about. They don’t have the background. They don’t understandwhere you are going. They don’t understand how you are planning the get there.The manager’s response has to be “communication”. You have to explain to them “Why”.You have to answer “I don’t know” questions: Why, What, When, How and Where.

The second reason people resist change is that they don’t have the time to engage with thechange. They cannot both change and handle their current accountabilities. Focusing theirenergy on the change activity puts them at risk on meeting their required accountabilities.

The third reason that people resist is because they do not have the competencies to dowhat they have to do in the new world. It makes sense for people to resist under thosecircumstances when participating in the new process simply serves to demonstrate that theyare not competent.

The last reason people resist is because they don’t share the values drive the change.This essentially means that they think you are wrong to initate it. They believe that the“change” is wrong.