A few days ago, we talked about how if we don’t make our decisions at the right time, others will make them for us, thus leaving our destiny in the hands of others. The same is true of organizations, where change must be planned, or certain internal or external factors will mark the path for that change.
Since the origin of our species, change has been a constant. With evolutionary development and maturity, people experience changes in being and doing. Organizational change combines the alteration of people’s values, behaviors, and aspirations, which in most cases involves external variations in strategies, processes, and operational practices at work.
According to Idalberto Chiavenato “Organizational change is a set of structural and behavioral alterations within an organization”.
Many changes are happening globally, demanding a new stance from organizations. It is not possible to stand by and let things happen without doing anything about it, as this can lead to insecurity in the future of the organization itself. Whether the change occurs because of the opportunities that arise or because the decision is made to project the new course, it is necessary to manage the process, it is necessary to Manage Change.
There are two fundamental ways to Manage Change in Organizations, these are:
- The Reactive Change approach or process: where management handles problems or difficulties by taking one step at a time or acting as difficulties arise. Change begins in reaction to something that has happened.
- Proactive Change (Planned) approach or process: it is a process in which management tries to modify strategies, decision-making and practices, establishing a new course of action rather than correcting the current one, anticipating the forces of both external environments and internal environments, finding compatible and integrated ways to cope with predicted environments.
But we cannot lose sight of the change being generated in and through the members of the organization, so the way people feel about change is a factor that determines how they will respond to it, in that response to change they affect several factors, such as: personal history, the social environment and feelings , which leads us to determine that the change must be preceded by the provision of sufficient information for staff.
Those who have been dedicated to observing common reactions to change have established a rule
of thumb:
- 20% of employees will be receptive
- 50% of employees will be neutral
- 30% of employees will be closed-minded
The challenge is to transform 80% into advocates of change for it to succeed, in this lies Managing Change.
There are several models to Manage Change and in any model, you choose, this phrase from the 2007 film Ratatouille can tell us where to start: “Change is our choice and starts when you decide.”