The Change Process as Problem Solving and Problem Finding

A very useful framework for thinking about the change process is problem solving. Managing change is seen as a matter of moving from one state to another, specifically, from the problem state to the solved state. Diagnosis or problem analysis is generally acknowledged as essential. Goals are set and achieved at various levels and in various areas or functions. Ends and means are discussed and related to one another. Careful planning is accompanied by efforts to obtain buy-in, support and commitment. The net effect is a transition from one state to another in a planned, orderly fashion. This is the planned change model.

The word “problem” carries with it connotations that some people prefer to avoid. They choose instead to use the word “opportunity.” For such people, a problem is seen as a bad situation, one that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the first place, and for which someone is likely to be punished — if the guilty party (or a suitable scapegoat) can be identified. For the purposes of this paper, we will set aside any cultural or personal preferences regarding the use of “problem” or “opportunity.” From a rational, analytical perspective, a problem is nothing more than a situation requiring action but in which the required action is not known. Hence, there is a requirement to search for a solution, a course of action that will lead to the solved state. This search activity is known as “problem solving.”

From the preceding discussion, it follows that “problem finding” is the search for situations requiring action. Whether we choose to call these situations “problems” (because they are troublesome or spell bad news), or whether we choose to call them “opportunities” (either for reasons of political sensitivity or because the time is ripe to exploit a situation) is immaterial. In both cases, the practical matter is one of identifying and settling on a course of action that will bring about some desired and predetermined change in the situation.

The Change Problem

At the heart of change management lies the change problem, that is, some future state to be realized, some current state to be left behind, and some structured, organized process for getting from the one to the other. The change problem might be large or small in scope and scale, and it might focus on individuals or groups, on one or more divisions or departments, the entire organization, or one or on more aspects of the organization’s environment.

At a conceptual level, the change problem is a matter of moving from one state (A) to another state (A’). Moving from A to A’ is typically accomplished as a result of setting up and achieving three types of goals: transform, reduce, and apply. Transform goals are concerned with identifying differences between the two states. Reduce goals are concerned with determining ways of eliminating these differences. Apply goals are concerned with putting into play operators that actually effect the elimination of these differences (see Newell & Simon).

As the preceding goal types suggest, the analysis of a change problem will at various times focus on defining the outcomes of the change effort, on identifying the changes necessary to produce these outcomes, and on finding and implementing ways and means of making the required changes. In simpler terms, the change problem can be treated as smaller problems having to do with the how, what, and why of change.

The Organisational Change Process

The Change Process as “Unfreezing, Changing and Refreezing”


The process of change has been characterized as having three basic stages: unfreezing, changing, and re-freezing. This view draws heavily on Kurt Lewin’s adoption of the systems concept of homeostasis or dynamic stability.


What is useful about this framework is that it gives rise to thinking about a staged approach to changing things. Looking before you leap is usually sound practice.


What is not useful about this framework is that it does not allow for change efforts that begin with the organization in extremis (i.e., already “unfrozen”), nor does it allow for organizations faced with the prospect of having to “hang loose” for extended periods of time (i.e., staying “unfrozen”).


In other words, the beginning and ending point of the unfreeze-change-refreeze model is stability — which, for some people and some organizations, is a luxury. For others, internal stability spells disaster. A tortoise on the move can overtake even the fastest hare if that hare stands still.

Stimulating Innovation and Change

All the giants like Montgomery Ward Woolworth, Smith Corona, TWA, Bethlehem Steel, and WorldCom went out of action in business. Other giants, such as Sears, Boeing, and lucent Technologies implemented huge cost cutting programs and eliminated thousands of jobs to avoid going broke. Today’s successful organizations must foster innovation and master the art of change or they’ll become candidates for extinction. Victory will go to the organizations that maintain their flexibility, continually improve their quality, and beat their competition to the market place with a constant stream of innovative products and services. Domino’s single-handedly brought on the demise of thousands of small pizza parlors whose managers thought they could continue dong what they been doing for years. Amazon.com is putting a lot of independent bookstores out of business as it proves you can successfully sell books from an Internet Web site. Dell has become the world’s largest seller of computers by continually reinventing itself and outsmarting its competition.

An organization’s employees can be the impetus for innovation and change or they can be major stumbling block. The challenge for managers is to stimulate their employees’ creativity and tolerance for change. The field of OB provides a wealth of ideas and techniques to aid in realizing these goals.

Coping with “Temporariness”:

With change comes temporariness. Globalization, expanded capacity, and advances in technology have combined in recent years to make it imperative that organizations be fast and flexible if they are to survive. The result is that most managers and employees today work in a climate best characterized as “temporary”.

Evidence of temporariness is everywhere in organizations. Jobs are continually being redesigned; tasks are increasingly being done by flexible teams rather than individuals; companies are relying more on temporary workers; jobs are being subcontracted out to other firms; and pensions are being redesigned to move with people as they change jobs.

Workers need to continually update their knowledge and skills to perform new job requirements. For example, production employees at companies such as caterpillar, Ford, and Alcoa now need to know how to operate computerized production equipment. That was not part of their job descriptions 20 years ago. Work groups are also increasingly in a state of flux. In the past, employees were assigned to a specific work group, and that assignment was relatively permanent. There was a considerable amount of security in working with the same people day in and day out. That predictability has been replaced by temporary work groups, teams that include members from different departments and whose members change all the time, and the increased use of employee rotation to fill constantly changing work assignments. Finally organizations themselves are in a state of flux. They continually reorganize their various divisions, sell off poor-performing businesses, downsize operations, subcontract non-critical services and operations to other organizations, and replace permanent employees with temporary workers.

Today’s managers and employees must learn to cope with temporariness they have to learn to live with flexibility spontaneity and unpredictability. The study of OB can provide important insights into helping in better understanding a work world of continual change, how to overcome resistance to change, and how best to create an organizational culture that thrives on change.Computerization, the Internet, and the ability to link computers within organizations and between organizations have created a different workplace for many employees – a networked. It allows people to communicate and work together though they may be thousands of miles apart. It also allows people to become independent contractors, who can telecommute via computer to workplaces around the globe and change employers as the demand for tier services changes. Software programs, graphic designers, system analysts, technical writers, photo researchers, book editors, and medical transcribes are a few examples of jobs that people can now perform from home or other non-office locations.

Ref: CiteHR

Motivating Employees In The Changing Business Environment

In the past, business and workers had an unspoken, but very real, agreement.

Business said to the worker, “If you will sacrifice your mind, body, and spirit for the good of the corporation—or at least to what your managers say is for the good of the corporation—then we will keep faith in you. We will provide you with a sizable measure of job security and predictability and we will seek to provide you with a steadily improving standard of living.” Motivating employees was relatively straightforward, although seldom easy. It was a matter of a simple exchange, the employee’s loyalty and commitment in return for job security.

In the new economy, the days of lifetime jobs and simple commitments are over. Employers readily announce layoffs. Employees just as readily leave for better offers. In an ironic twist, the new-economy knowledge organization proclaims people to be its most important asset then treats them like they are disposable. Balancing the corporation’s need for flexibility with employee demands for respect and fair treatment is becoming increasingly difficult, and effective management of human resources is critical. How do you motivate your people to higher and higher levels of performance when all of the rules have changed? How do you motivate your employees when the simple exchange of the past isn’t simple any longer?

Last year, a project was designed identifying the best ideas shared by top management thinkers about workplace best practices to deal with a changing environment. And, in the 21st century, continual change will become the norm. Here are four practices most management experts feel are essential for getting the best performance from employees. These practices all focus on motivation.

1: Provide Meaning and Purpose in Work
Employees need to have a reason for their organization’s existence that extends beyond the stock price, next month's sales, and year-end profits. Companies must have a product, a mission, or simply a vision of the industry that employees find exciting and energizing. These employees may not be with you for the long term but, while they are part of your workforce, they want to accomplish something worthwhile.

Merck is a good example of a company that provides such a purpose. This pharmaceutical manufacturer promotes itself as a company that puts people before profits and backs up that commitment with action such as putting a below-market price on its anti-AIDS drug and giving away medicine to developing countries. Maybe that's why in a recent survey, 97 percent of Merck’s employees said they were proud to work for the company and 86 percent said they thought their work had special meaning. Merck demonstrates a higher purpose than profits.

2: Be Work/Life Friendly
Offer your employees a range of benefits such as flextime, compressed workweeks, telecommuting, job sharing, on-site childcare, banking and dry cleaning. More importantly, it means working with employees in a genuine effort to be flexible. The best companies today recognize that employees have lives outside the workplace and that they can no longer neatly separate work and family, career and the rest of life. These companies don't just help employees manage their lives outside of work; they allow employees to bring their life into their work.

3: Share the Rewards
In our knowledge economy, time is becoming increasingly disconnected from value. The number of hours a person works today doesn't count except when these hours add delay or unnecessary expense, and then they count against the company and not for it. Today, value lies in the knowledge and skill which are applied to create, innovate, produce, service, entertain, and excite—not in hours expended. This change in perspective is leading best-practice companies to replace traditional compensation systems that tie base pay to hours, position and job content with compensation systems that tie base pay to skills and/or competencies, and to provide incentives tied to group and/or company performance rather than to individual performance. The latter practice usually consists of some combination of corporate-wide profit sharing and/or stock ownership or options coupled with gain-sharing and/or group incentives in major operating units. Employees today want to share in the financial rewards of what they produce, and they want to be compensated for the value they deliver, not the hours they invest.

4: Open the Books
If you really want to motivate your employees, you have to quit keeping secrets. You have to “open the books.” Two practices that are not typically found in most organizations are critical:
Business and Financial Education. You must make a concerted effort to educate your employees about the business. This usually involves mandatory training for everyone in the company.
Information Sharing. By definition, open-book management means just that—opening the books, sharing information, giving every employee access to the financial and operating data.

Conclusion
In the old workplace, few workers expected meaning and purpose from their work. At most, they hoped for a measure of job security and a slowly rising paycheck. Most workers assumed that they had to adjust their lives to their employer’s demands and could expect little, if any, accommodation in return. Work and one’s personal life were to be kept completely separate. An employee might occasionally get a small bonus, but it normally amounted to very little and was presented more as a gift from his employer than as an earned share. Finally, every company kept secrets. Only those with “a need to know” were allowed to know, and the prevailing wisdom was that most employees needed to know very little. Times really have changed. Employee expectations are certainly much different. You can’t motivate them any longer with the offer of a simple exchange—their commitment and loyalty in return for a job. Maybe that is why these four essentials are so essential.