Organizational Change Assignment, Essay Example

Introduction

Despite the fact that every company does its best to ensure its long-term success and prosperity, there are no guarantees that at a certain moment of time the situation will come when the organizational structure fails to provide for the changing needs of the customers, the employees become less committed and motivated, and the whole company comes to the end of its existence. In such a situation every organization not willing to disappear from the surface of the business world has to reconstruct itself and take a series of measures to ensure its second birth, revival and restoration of its functions. There are many situations under which the company should submit the serious, basic changes:

“Significant organizational change occurs, for example, when an organization changes its overall strategy for success, adds or removes a major section or practice, and/or wants to change the very nature by which it operates. It also occurs when an organization evolves through various life cycles, just like people must successfully evolve through life cycles” (McNamara, 2009).

Organizational Change

First of all, the person who is in charge of introducing the change into the company’s aspects of functioning has to envision the new organizational structure very clearly – in other way he or she will not be able to communicate this information to employees, thus being unable to ensure their commitment to the changing vision and mission of the company. The new structure has to be more coherent and functional, has to satisfy the needs of customers as well as employees and has to be aligned with the board of directors and shareholders. Only under these conditions it will become the one able to satisfy all elements of the company’s supply chain and to become a successful alternative for the failing company as well as the chance for it to restore its operations.

However, every person willing to introduce the changes into the company’s structure should define the procedure of the change clearly and distinctly. All employees have to be well-informed about the process of transition and change because only under these conditions they will have a complete overview of the change process and will be able to accomplish the stipulated goals correctly. It is highly necessary to understand that the complete, deep structural change is impossible without the cultural change – it lies in the basis of any change that is planned on the full scale.

There are many perspectives for studying cultural changes, and the person planning the change can adopt any of them – the main thing is to understand which perspective suits the particular organization best. For example, in the cultural perspective created by Hofstede are power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term vs. short-term orientation (Cultural Dimensions (Hofstede), 2009).  If the cultural change is completed successfully and the cultural basis is created for the newly structured company, then all other elements of the change will go on more successfully.

Besides the deeply rooted cultural changes that are introduced together with the change of the organizational structure, there should be a set of new policies introduced to the company’s daily operation – by these means it will be possible to create a much stronger commitment of all employees to the implemented changing strategy. The new policies should concern the recruitment and training techniques, tasks to be fulfilled by the management staff and other executives as well as the overall compliance with the goals of the company. Policies of encouraging internal competition as well as material bonuses for additional tasks accomplished by the staff are also highly beneficial for the newly organized company.

Conclusion

The person who will bring this change to a dying organization is necessary – during such a period of time it is vital to detect the aspects of the company’s functioning that represent the most visible pitfalls and to work out a set of measures to find the effective solution to the existing problem. The measures that should be taken to re-organize the failing company and to save it from bankruptcy have to be considered very thoroughly in the theoretical perspective at first, as without a strong tactical basis the large-scale organizational change is likely to fail.

References

Cultural Dimensions (Hofstede) (2009). Retrieved October 21, 2009, from http://www.12manage.com/methods_hofstede.html

McNamara, C. (2009). Organizational Change and Development. Retrieved October 21, 2009, from http://managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm#anchor61645