Management of Change: Strategies for Overcoming Resistance

This essay delves into the critical aspects of change management within modern business organizations, emphasizing the necessity of adaptation in a dynamic environment. It addresses both internal and external factors driving organizational change, including shifts in structure, technology, an...Read More

Management of
change
2019
Student’s Name
5/8/2019

Managing change 1
With the increasing complexities and the dynamic business environment, it becomes
vital for the organizations to implement changes in the strategies, structures, operational
methods, organizational culture and the technologies to sustain the competitive advantage and
become the market leader. The implementation of changes in the organization allows the
business to attract more opportunities and face the complex challenges of business in an
efficient manner. The major challenge that the organizations face in implementing the
change is the resistance of its workforce to adopt the change (Hayes, 2018).
Resistance to change is considered as the important facet of change management and
is inevitable in nature. It is in the form of overt or implicit. So the organizations cannot
eliminate resistance but can implement the strategies to minimize the hassle. The
organization must convince its workers and must provide efficient training to adopt the
change. They must involve the participation of the employees and specifying the importance
to adopt change (Doppelt, 2017). The following essay is aimed at evaluating various aspects
of change and resistance to change in the modern business organization. The aforesaid
assessment will include various factors leading to change in addition to various change
management theories.
There are variously internal and external factors that develop the emerging need to
implement change in the organization. The internal factors include changing in the
hierarchical structure, communication, and learning. The internal factors are in control of the
organization. The changes in the external business environment develop the need for the
company to hire the new leader who is able to direct the actions of the employees, adopt flat
structure where the employees and a higher level of management can easily communicate and
achieve efficiency in operations (Cameron & Green, 2015). It focuses on making open
communication channels for developing efficiency in the achievement of goals. The
technological changes and competitiveness develop the need to adopt continuous learning

Managing change 2
and train the employees for eliminating resistance to adopt the changes. The external factor
that develops the need to adopt the changes in the organization includes the changing
economic conditions, development and restrictions by the government and the changing
culture and lifestyles of the society. It becomes imperative for organizations to be responsive
to the change in the external and internal factors and develop innovative products and
services to sustain the competitive advantage of the business (Booth, 2015).
The mechanistic view of resistance reflects that resistance is a natural everyday
phenomenon and is inevitable in nature. It specifies that where the movement is involved the
occurrence of resistance is natural. It mechanistic view resistance slows down the movement
and reduces the momentum and velocity. In mechanistic view resistance is considered
neutral; it is neither bad or good nor positive or negative. Resistance is considered natural and
higher the resistance will describe higher the implementation of change in the organization. It
is not exceptional and occurs every day (Salman & Broten, 2017).
The resistance is reflected in the behavior of the employees. Example of such
behaviors includes complaining, destroying of the equipment’s, misplacing of the items, poor
performance of the employees, delays in achievement of goals and late in meetings. Such
behavior of workers lowers the efficiency and decrease the productivity of the organizations.
The everyday form of resistance helps in easy predictions of the behavior and shaping future
interactions. The mechanistic view reflects the ordinariness of resistance in the organization
and the frequency of the changing behavior that affects the performance of the organizations
slows down the momentum and velocity of the organization. The resistance of the workers is
reflected in their everyday behavior however makes it easier for the internal members to
develop the solution to mitigate the effects of resistance and if the resistance cannot be
eliminated the organization accepts it and develop the new solutions for it (Brunsson &
Olsen, 2018).

Managing change 3
According to the mechanistic view, the resistance is not exceptional and is a natural
everyday phenomenon. However, the higher degree of resistance reflects the high frequency
of change in the organization. In this regard, the mechanistic view suggests that resistance to
change is itself, ordinary and natural and may, in fact, be an expression of everyday
resistance (Georgalis et al, 2015).
The social view of resistance reflects that resistance is not a natural phenomenon and
is considered as exceptional. It is considered detrimental in nature and is considered as
attribute or product of individuals rather than of interactions. It becomes difficult for the
organization to effectively respond towards the resistance and becomes problematic for the
organization to reduce the risk of resistance and achieve the goals of the organization. The
social view opposes the mechanistic view and considers resistance as unusual and damaging
(Georgalis et al, 2015).
The social view emphasizes that resistance is something that is extraordinary. It is not
an everyday occurrence and occurs in response to the adoption of the change in an
organization. It specifies the different types of resistance which includes inactive, misdirected
and oppositional resistance. The inactive and misdirected resistance occur due to the regular
behavior while the oppositional resistance is something extraordinary (Burke, 2017).
The social view has given pejorative meaning to resistance. It considers resistance as
detrimental that reduces the efficiency of the organization and creates a disruptive working
environment. The adoption of change has become imperative for the organization to respond
to the dynamic environment and implement innovation for sustaining the competitive
advantage of the business. Resistance is considered detrimental because the implementation
of the bigger change increases the resistance which cannot be predicted earlier by the change
agents and in turn hampers the growth of the business by creating a disruptive working

Managing change 4
environment. It becomes difficult for the organization to handle the disagreements and
negative sounding behavior of the workers. The social view does not consider products as a
part of interactions but treats resistance as the personal property of the individual. It treats is
as a tendency of individual and is reflected in the form of personality disorders, exaggeration,
poor communication and irrational thinking of the individuals (Burke, 2017).
The conversational view of resistance reflects that the organization is made of
recursive, simultaneous conversations undertaken by various networks. It denotes that the
members of the organization use different communication languages and the change agent
cannot use a single language to communicate with the members. It comprises of different
language texts, language communities so the use of the single language leads to
misinterpretation of information and creates complexity in the achievement of the goals. Such
a difference in conversations creates the need for the change agent to adopt different delivery
methods. It cannot use the language game of its choice and dominate the others to follow it.
The change agent must work within the message recipient’s meanings (Dievernich, Tokarski
& Gong, 2016).
Resistance to change is viewed in a negative manner because if they are not addressed
on time then it leads to the disruptive working environment and lowers the morale of the
employees. The productivity of the organization gets hampered and creates difficulty in
sustaining the business for a longer period of time. The disruption in the working
environment leads to dissatisfaction among the workforce and directly hampers the growth of
the business. However, the managers can adopt various theories and strategies to positively
and actively manage the resistance over the change implemented in the organizations (Bryan,
2018).

Managing change 5
The company can use Lewin’s model of change under which it consists of three
phases namely unfreeze, make changes and refreeze. Under the first phase, the company will
set aside the old process and perceptions and will open the analysis to achieve new ways of
achieving the objectives. Under the second phase, the organizations will adopt new policies,
procedures and will learn new ideas to bring change in the organization (Hussain et al, 2018).
This phase is critical because under this the managers must effectively communicate within
all the levels of hierarchy and will support and guide the action to effectively implement
change in the organization. The last phase in the one under which the measures taken at the
above phases are implemented. It takes place when the desired changes are implemented in
the system. The new strategies are actually implemented in this phase. By adopting the
Lewin’s model of change the managers must adopt the new strategies into regular working to
make the employees understand the need for change and understanding of the new practices.
Under this model, the key focus is to manage the resistance of the employees (Cummings,
Bridgman & Brown, 2016).
The managers can use Kotter’s theory for successful management of resistance in the
organization. It covers eight steps. The first step is the creation of the urgency under which
the managers must convince its stakeholders by describing the urgency to adopt the change. It
must specify the repercussions of not adopting the change and the opportunities that lie in the
external environment. The second step is to form the powerful guiding coalitions under which
the managers must develop the team and choose the leader who will effectively manage the
change in the organization (Rajan & Ganesan, 2017). The third step calls for developing the
vision and strategy to implement change in the organization and developing proper
understanding to the leaders for implementing change. The fourth step is to communicate the
vision with full power and convincing the people by properly handling the issues and
involving with them. The fifth step is the most crucial under which the company the manager

Managing change 6
must focus on removing the obstacles and taking the proactive actions to eliminate the
resistance of the workforce towards the implementation of change. The manager must reward
the people who accept and implements the change (Allen, Porter & Angle, 2015). The sixth
step involves the development of short term wins under which the company must develop
short term goals and must reward the people for the achievement of short term goals. The
seventh step includes consolidating of gain by continuous review of achievements and
making alterations. The last step is anchoring change in the corporate culture under which the
managers adopt change in organizational culture and must focus that all the leaders support
the implementation of change in the organization (Courpasson, 2016).
For the successful implementation of change, the manager must engage the employees
to foster innovative and creative solutions. It must be persuasive and must share the success
stories to influence the workforce towards the adoption of change. The leader must be
supportive and positive towards employees and must develop the organizational culture that
effectively adapts to the changes. It must focus on resolving the conflicts quickly and creating
a positive working environment by developing trust and respect for each other. The
organization must focus on rewarding the workforce to motivate them and leading to
effective change management (Obholzer & Miller, 2018).
From the above analysis, it is critical to note that the implementation of change in the
organization has become imperative for sustaining the competitive advantage and developing
innovations in the product and the services. It is analyzed that resistance to change creates a
negative environment and hampers the growth of the organization. It creates a disruptive
working environment and lowers the morale of the employees which in turn decreases the
productivity of the company.

Managing change 7
From the above paragraphs, it is observed that resistance is reflected from three
different views and considers the attributes and behavior of the individuals. The effective
management of resistance has become crucial for the successful achievement of the desired
goals. However, the managers must focus on adopting different models and strategies to
effectively manage the resistance and further adopting the changing culture in the
organization. The managers must actively involve employees in the process of change and
must take continuous feedback in response to the adoption of the change. Lewin’s model and
Kotter’s theory of change management will guide the manager to positively handle the
resistance of the stakeholders towards the adoption of the change.

Managing change 8
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Managing change 9
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