Organizational Behavior: Dealing with Resistance, Communication Barriers, and Power in the Workplace

This article discusses the challenges of dealing with resistance, communication barriers, and power in the workplace. It provides insights on how to identify the causes of resistance, minimize communication barriers, and manage different types of power dynamics. The article also includes a case study on a law firm that attempted to change its office layout and the resistance it faced from employees.

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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
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Organizational behavior
Question 1a
An open office layout is a type of office layout where employees work in an open setting
or side by side with other employees. In this type of office layout, employees are able to interact
and communicate without being blocked due to office partition. Additionally, an organization
using this type of office will be able to minimize its expenses when it comes to daily operations
by being able to share pieces of office equipment in the organization. In the case study,
Cheetham and Wynne is a fast-growing firm with the aim of changing the outlook of their office.
The senior partners sent a memo to other employees about changing the office layout to be open.
With this, the company was aiming at minimizing the cost involved in running the daily
operations of the company. Their efforts to change into an open layout was stopped by
employees resisting the change.
As an illustration, there are many reasons why employees were resisting this kind of
organizational change. First, there is shock and fear of the unknown. During the organizational
change, there are a group of employees who may want to cling to their past lives. They may also
resist changing their behaviors. They have the perception that, the less the organization knows
about their lives, the better. According to the case study, employees were claiming that they
won’t be able to talk to their boyfriends. The open office layout will be exposing the private lives
of employees. This was something that employees were not prepared to handle especially in a
multicultural working environment.
Secondly, employees felt that there is a loss of control of their working environment
(Duncan et al., 2013. P. 16). Being asked to change the way they operate makes them powerless

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hence making it hard to accept change. Some employees within an organization resist change
due to being weak to engage in a new routine. This shows a lack of competence which may
affect the overall performance of the organization (Khazanchi et al., 2018, p.17). Lastly, there is
the issue of office politics where there will be rumors going on within the organization. This is
evident in the case study because some employees were basing their ideas with unrealistic
information. In the case study, employees were discussing that a section of employees were
being treated better than others. These petty office politics makes it hard for change to take place.
Question 1b
The first step towards minimizing resistance from employees is the identification of the
cause of resistance. The major symptoms of organizational resistance can be observed. Some of
the symptoms include; the past performance of the organization with change, inadequate
awareness in the causes of organizational resistance, and inadequate support and commitment
from the top management among employees. When the causes have been identified, the
management should come up with strategies on how they can be reduced (Tharim, Samad and
Ismail, 2018, p. 17). From the case study, the senior partners of the law firm ought to have
conducted a meeting with other partners and employees to inform them of the reasons why the
office layout was being changed. Through this, employees would be able to mentally and
psychologically prepare to be working in an open office layout (Otterbring et al., 2018, p.333).
The next step will involve the use of resistance managers who will be able to take leadership
actions and handle the resistance. This may involve outsourcing managers or using available top
executives within the organization.

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Question 2a
Communication is an essential factor to be considered when it comes to organizational
success. However, in certain situations, there are barriers towards effective communication
which lead to organizational conflicts and other challenges (Saha, Perera and Murphy, 2017,
p.275). According to the case study, one of the identified barriers of communication include
emotional barriers which usually arise due to mistrust and suspicion. In the case study, Anna
Ivanova was suspicious because she had the perception that one of the senior partners had never
nicely talked to her. This was bothering her making her be unhappy about her job. There is also
the issue of biasness which normally arises due to human nature and self-perception. In the case
study, there is an employee who was not sure whether her boss believes in her or not. This type
of cognitive bias makes it hard for employees to increase their job performance due to fear of not
being appreciated (Conway, Tsourtos and Lawn, 2017, p.319). Thirdly, there is misinterpretation
which usually occurs during phone communication or face to face communication.
Question 2b
Effective communication will only occur if there are minimal barriers. The first step
towards dealing with biases as a barrier to communication is that employees or management
should stop stereotyping each other. In this case, it is important for everyone to have a grasp of
the actual information rather than having a stereotype of them. Assuming listeners will lead to
misinterpretation of information. For Anna, she has to stop the perception of stereotyping her
boss. Furthermore, employees should be able to recognize the perspectives of people such as
cultural differences, priorities and personal values (Ritchie, 2007, p.57). This will open a
platform for understanding the other person hence opening a channel of free communication with
minimal barriers.

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When it comes to dealing with communication barriers, the management or employees
within an organization should be in a position to form and establish a relationship among each
other. The next step will be communication among employees (Yuriev et al., 2018. p.182). Once
there is a relationship, people will stop their negative bias during communication. For the
management, they should be able to practice full disclosure where the give out full information
about the organizational performance and organizational requirements. With this, employees will
not be able to have different information in regards to the information being given by the
management.
The organization should have a chain of command or a line of communication. This can
either be vertical or horizontal. Having a chain of command helps in ensuring that there is a
procedure to be followed when there is a problem within the organization. For example, when an
employee as an issue to deal with his/her salary, the human resource manager should be
contacted. The next step will be informing the top executives of the issue. Communication chain
should be short. With this, in case of a problem that has been identified with the management,
the employee should be directly communicated to with an objective of addressing the issues
affecting him or her (Boutellier et al., 2008, p.373). In most cases, employees may distort
information because of seeking favors from others.
Moreover, distortion of messages can occur when there is a long communication chain
hence leading to the message being filtered. Effective communication is characterized by anger
control. In this scenario, employees should refrain from overreacting when told to correct a
mistake. They should learn that mistakes are parts of human nature. Therefore, once a mistake is
made, it should be fixed, and lessons should be learnt to prevent the occurrences of similar
mistakes.

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Question 3a
An organization is always made up of people who exercise power through interpersonal
relationship or forcing it. According to the cases study, there are different types of power which
have been used hence influencing organizational management response from employees. As an
illustration, in the case study, there is the use of legitimate power. This type of power is also
known as positional power (Klein, 2017, pg. 56). An example can be given by junior employees
reporting to their senior such as managers.
Additionally, the senior leaders can assign tasks to the juniors to be completed with a
specific time. When it comes to legitimate power, the high the hierarchy level, the higher the
power. In the case study, the senior partners in the law firms had the upper hand when it comes
to addressing issues affecting the company. Additionally, there were in a position to dictate
organizational practices. For instance, the senior partners in the law firm were dictating the type
of layout to be adopted by the organization. They were sending other junior partner emails
regarding the organizational change. With legitimate power, employees were feeling left out and
abandoned. This resulted in numerous complaints from employees. In the case study, employees
were complaining about how they were treated. An example can be given by employees
complaining about a section of employees being treated better. This was a time when the senior
partners of the organization were advocating for change in office layout.
With legitimate power, ineffective interpersonal relationships were existing between the
senior employees and junior employees. For instance; junior employees were feeling that their
work was not being appreciated despite the numerous effort that they were applying in the
organization. Employees in the organization were resistant to change. This made it hard for the
senior partners to come up with an organizational change.

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The second form of power is expert power. In the case study, there were lawyers and
secretaries. Each of these employees had a role to play in the organization. Additionally, there
were senior lawyers and junior lawyers. This was based on their level of experience and
accumulated knowledge in the line of duty. With this type of power, certain employees were
feeling that their efforts were not being appreciated and they were also being underpaid based on
their level of expertise (Moron and Mujtaba 2018, p.15).
Question 3b
The senior partners have been able to use attractive offers to win over employees into
their firm. As an illustration, when Anna was employed by the firm, she was promised a good
salary if she had a high performance. Anna was able to perform well in the organization once she
was employed. Consequently, she has been working for the organization without any future of
her salary increasing. This tactic also made the organization get an accountant since the
organization was lacking one. The organization was able to use employ lucrative offers which
they were not able to fulfill. This led to a majority of the employees being stranded on how to
approach the issue.
The organization is also working on teamwork through the introduction of an open layout
where all employees will be able to interact and share ideas (Thompson, 2017, pg. 139). This is
an objective that is aimed at increasing the performance of the organization. Initially, the
organization considered the closed office layout to be derailing the performance of the
organization. When it comes to the interior design of the open office layout, the organization
opted for colorful space based on the preference of the employees. This is a strategy towards
ensuring that all employees are in a workplace where they feel comfortable and connected. This
is a strategy toward motivating employees both mentally and psychologically. Without satisfying

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the interest of the employees, it will be difficult for the employees to achieve optimal
performance.

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