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Understanding and Coping with Change

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Ri Willson
Understanding and Coping with Change

Even though change is often an inevitable necessity for the organization to reach the best results, the employees tend to resist it. While the explanation can convince people that the innovations are essential for achieving the best results for the entire company, it is still important to cope with the changes effectively as they always symbolize the break of the habits and daily routines. The disruption of the commonly accepted patterns can lead to the negative reaction of people and hence become a real obstacle for the effective change implementation. If it happens, the most important and defining characteristics for the employees include their self-interest, trust in the management, and understanding the position and duties of the senior personnel. This paper will analyze the example of personal resistance to a change at work during the military service that occurred due to the redirecting to a new division. It focuses mainly on the internal and external factors related to the inner state of people and the lack of proper explanation by the supervisors that contribute to the negative reaction.

In fact, the changes can appear in every organization. However, it was decided to refer to the military area in which I am directly involved. Last year, we had to move to a new division, particularly under the 25th Infantry Division. As a result, the entire group had to endure numerous changes. Firstly, the location had been changed making the distribution of the workers on the positions and the environment the essential exterior influences. In addition, the changes within the organization also demanded to acquire new skills and focus on the other aspects due to the fact that the division became a fast moving paced unit. Owing to this fact, the reaction of my coworkers differed. Even though the majority accepted the order as due, the change was quite difficult to be accepted by the others. In particular, a number of changes required to learn new skills from the division members which fueled the fear whether all the adjustments could be finished properly and in time. Moreover, no clear explanation was provided about the necessity of change because it is rarely essential in the military area to convince people that the order is correct and logical. Instead, the military men are forced to subdue the order. In such a way, the main reason that led to strong resistance to the change among the workers is the lack of understanding. In fact, the comprehension of the need for any changes was insufficient.

In order to analyze the reasons of the inability of some workers to cope with the change, it is necessary to refer to several studies. All the organizations have a strong “immune system that defends the status quo.” Hence, their members resist the change due to the fact that they have already adapted the existing structure. They have been following a working routine for many years. While resistance to change is a human nature, the subjection to the order is the trained feature of all military men. Thus, these two features could collide and cause strong reactions with the internal disposition of a person. In particular, the distraction of routine and loss of a previous status among people can be considered as the major reasons for that. However, the further education, training, and explanation could become an effective solution to ensure the efficient functioning of the team. From the perspective at first, the immune system of the division recognized change as the “infectious agent” that had to be destroyed. However, when time passed and the appropriate training was completed, their perception transformed into ‘the healthy tissues of the organism’ that need to grow together with the others. Hence, the understanding of the human nature is important to predict reaction for a change, even when it is implemented in a very strict military environment.

This environment is also associated with the commitment of the workers because the military men usually show an enormous devotion to the tasks. The organizational commitment has a negative correlation with resistance to change. Consequently, one can understand that the officers can accept the change more easily due to the high commitment level. Due to that fact, the change management is one of the most important factors that can both positively and negatively impact the change implementation in any organization. In the current case, the change management, particularly the explanation of the change necessity, was a lacking component at first. However, the subsequent improvement of the situation was predetermined by the commitment of the workers, facilitation, appropriate training, and other external factors the lack of which can lead to the high resistance level.

Resistance to change is not always irrational. In the current example, it is obvious that the fears and misunderstandings of the team members were quite clear and understandable. The expert uses the term “inertia” to describe the obsolete reaction to change and unwillingness to accept it. However, the resistance to change can be also neutral or even positive. The lack of understanding is an important internal aspect that makes people feel uncomfortable about unclear transformations at the place of work. At the same time, proper explanation and practice of skills that are demanded are necessary for the way to the change resistance. Therefore, the reaction of the officers in the current case was a natural reaction of people. Moreover, it was a “reasonable caution” requiring the distinctive background force to transform duties and environment wisely.

Three steps are necessary to ensure the successful change in the organization. Every attempt to influence a change must lead to the direction to move further, thus, refreezing must make the change permanent. In fact, this model can be applied to the change that happened in our organization. Moreover, the evaluation of the situation according to Kotter’s plan shows that the change implementation initially lacked the compelling reasons, or the explanation of those reasons to the workers. Thus, the workers were partially frightened by their inability to meet the new standards and demands. However, that problem was tackled due to the education and training conducted with the workers.

With regard to the above-mentioned discussion, one can see that the resistance was predetermined by the complex cooperation between the exterior and interior factors. In particular, the lack of the effective education and explanation on the first stages caused the insufficient understanding in the team. At the same time, the inner worries were defined as natural for each person. However, the consequent actions and the commitment of the workers have changed the situation. The overcoming of the resistance was supported by an explanation of the reasons and the new vision to the workers, providing training and education, and the assessment of the adjustment level of the individuals. Therefore, the resistance to the change that was primarily caused by the natural human psychological reaction and the lack of the proper reasoning was caused by the superior staff. However, the future effective management ensured the proper adjustment to all division members.

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