Change Management in Organizations: A Comprehensive Report

This report delves into the critical aspects of change management within organizations. It defines organizational change, categorizing it into technological, structural, and human-related changes, while emphasizing the importance of aligning these changes with core organizational values. The report identifies both external and internal forces influencing change, such as technology, competition, and employee attitudes, and distinguishes between planned and reactive change. It highlights the significance of managerial roles in guiding change, emphasizing trust, organizational learning, and adaptability. The report then presents a comprehensive seven-step model for change management, including recognizing the need, establishing goals, diagnosing variables, selecting interventions, planning implementation, implementing the change, and evaluating the results. Furthermore, the report examines several change management models, including Lewin's, McKinsey's, and ADKAR models, analyzing their advantages and disadvantages. The study also offers insights into the application of change management principles, using Google as a case study to illustrate innovative change implementation.

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change Management
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Organizational change is an undisputable reality for every business. It is necessary for
every organization to make certain changes in certain aspects to gain and retain competitive
advantage in the market (Frankland et al. 2013). It has become so important for
organizational advancement that several theories have been conceived to manage
organizational change. Organizational change can be defined as any alteration that is made in
a business organization (Cameron and Green 2015). These changes could be implemented in
different areas. It could be introduction of a new model for organizational operation,
launching a new product or a new process, creating changes in the structure of the
organization or making changes in policies related to employees and personnel (Doppelt
2017). Changes related to work schedules, design of the organization and its hierarchy and
other specters. In this respect, the managers and the leaders have the responsibility to decide
how and when an organization needs change. They also have the responsibility to prepare the
employees for the inevitable and give them direction and confidence (Holten and Brenner
2015). The role of innovation and its ability bring effective change in an organization cannot
be overlooked here. Successful organizations focus on different innovation techniques to
inspire changes in an organization (Kuipers et al. 2014). In this study, the factors that affect
an organization has been discussed, the different models that facilitate organizational change
has been analyzed and the importance of innovation as well as different innovative
techniques are also explored. Moreover, the situation of Google has been taken as an example
to see how they have managed to implement organizational change in an innovative
environment while keeping up their performance quality and competitive advantage.
The changes in an organizations can be divided into three types, technological
changes that are brought in an organization due to changes in recent computer technologies,
structural changes where the design of an organization goes through several modifications
and human changes that are brought by changing people and their behavior and enhancing the

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capabilities of the managers of an organization (Pugh 2016). The most challenging aspect of
organizational change that the managers have faced till now is to align the technological and
other changes with the basic ideas and values of an organization (Worley and Mohrman
2014). There are several factors that affect changes in the organization. These forces can be
divided into two types, External and Internal (Hayes 2018). External forces are those forces
that work from the general or task related environments of an organization. The forces like
technology, competition, governmental laws and policies, economic factors and social trends
affect change in an organization. Internal forces that affect change are management style and
policies, organizational systems and procedures, technology and attitude of the employees
(Goetsch and Davis 2014). For example, if an organization is attempting to change its goal
orientation from long term to short term, then it is likely that many departments in the
organization may have to reorganize their operation procedures so that they might facilitate
that change. Even internal forces might be generated due to some external factors (Ashkenas
2013). For example, with time, socio-cultural values change. Depending on that the need and
demands of the workers might change. They might want different working schedules or
conditions due to shift in their job goals.
According to Voet, (2014), managing change in an organization may be needed in
two scenarios. First, organizations may preplan to make changes to gain competitive
advantage or it could be imposed on the organization due to unforeseen events that might
threaten the organization (Namada 2018). The first occurrence is called planned change and
the other is known as reactive change. Ideally, planned changes are always preferable than
reactive changes and that is for obvious reasons. Planned changes are more organized and
well thought out while reactive changes are hasty and situational. Successful enterprises
implement some changes to the organization almost every year and large changes in four to
five years gap. It is the responsibility of the managers to know when change is necessary for

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an organization (Noruzy et al. 2013). If organizational change is ignored for too long the
result can be disastrous for the organization and in turn for the managers and the employees.
The managers in an organization has the responsibility to create strategies to
implement changes once they identify the areas and aspects of the organization that might
need it. The philosophy that managers should follow to bring effective transformation in an
organization has three aspects, Trust, Organizational Learning and Adaptability (Martin and
Osterling 2014). Trust is one of the most important factor in any environment. In an
organizational environment trust gives the employees assurance. It is necessary that the
managers build a sense of trust among the employees so that when they implement changes,
the employees are not fearful of it. It will ensure that the process of change goes smoothly.
The managers must ensure that the new ideas are integrated within the system and innovate
new ways to execute the operations (Alonso-Almeida, Bremser and Llach 2015). This
concept is known as organizational learning and it is extremely essential for effective
organizational change. Adaptability on the other hand is the preparedness for the changes that
are going to take place in the organization.
In organizations where leaders bring effective changes, create a comprehensive model
of change that is applicable to both planned and reactive scenario. There are seven steps in
this comprehensive model. These are:
Recognizing the need to change: it is necessary for managers of an organization to
accept the fact that change is needed in organizations and determine the time when the
change making would prove to be optimal. They understand this from their knowledge of
recent market trend or upcoming market potential, any expectation or opinion of experts on
the change in socio-economic scenario or impact of technological changes. In this case, they

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bring changes as they know that these changes will be necessary in upcoming times
(Klöckner 2013).
Establishing goals for bringing change: once the manager have decided on the
aspects of the organization that need change, he must list the goals that will facilitate the
changes that he has proposed. These goals can have different directions and agenda including
investment, market opportunity, new product introduction, employee motivation or settle an
internal dispute.
Diagnosis of relevant variables: to bring effective change, the managers must
identify the factors existing in the organization that have brought about the need for such
changes. For example, increased rate of employee attrition might bring situations where
change becomes necessary. The managers need to determine the reasons that have caused
such heavy employee attrition. The reasons could be anything like, poor payment, bad
working conditions, job dissatisfaction and many more. In order to determine what has
caused the scenario for change the managers might discuss with employees what is troubling
them and try to find solutions that would mitigate the problems (Prochaska, Redding and
Evers 2015).
Selection of change intervention: when the managers have a clear idea and
understanding about the problems and their causes, they have to determine a change
intervention so that they can accomplish the set goals. This step is necessary to bring changes
in the particular aspects or objectives that is the root of the problem. For example, if the
reason behind employee attrition is unsatisfactory pay then the organization needs to update
their pay scale or introduce some new reward system that would eradicate the issue whereas
if the root cause is bad supervision then the internal structure and interpersonal skills needs to
be improved through training of the supervisors (Bareil 2013).

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Planning the implementation: in the next step, the managers’ responsibility is to
plan the process of implementation. This part includes several considerations like the costing,
effects of the change in other areas and the necessary extent of employee involvement to
make the change successful. Hasty or forced changes may cause more harm than good. For
example, if the change is concerned with new technology, equipment or infrastructure, the
managers must make sure that the installation process is complete and the employees have
been trained thoroughly on the use of them before any change is implemented. If the change
happens too quickly and forcefully, the workers might resist the changes more than
necessary.
Implementation of change: change implementation should be systematically planned
so that the process is smooth and the organization experiences lesser obstacles as compared to
hasty ones. In order to successfully implement plans regarding organizational change, careful
and adequate planning is necessary.
Evaluation of the change: even after implementation of the change the procedure is
not complete. The final step is verifying whether the plans that they have implemented have
been able to accomplish the goals and targets that were set at the beginning. It may happen
sometimes that the organization fails to reach their intended goals even after following all the
steps (Benn, Edwards and Williams 2014). It might happen due to reasons like the setting of
goals were wrong, the diagnosis of the root cause of the problem was wrong or the selection
of intervention method was incorrect.
There are several models and processes through which change management can be
carried out successfully. The models and processes for change management are: Lewin’s
Model of Change Management, McKinsey 7S Model for Change Management, Kotter’s
Theory of Change Management, Nudge Theory, ADKAR Model for Change Management,

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Bridges Transition Model, and Kübler-Ross Five Stage Model. In the following part, the
Lewin’s model, McKinsey’s model and ADKAR model are discussed and their advantages
and disadvantages are analyzed.
Lewin’s Model of Change Management
This model of change management was developed during the 1950s by Kurt Lewin
and is an extremely popular model to structured organizational change. There are three stages
in this model:
Unfreeze: in this first stage the preparation for change goes on. The organization must
realize that change is necessary and a must for the organization. In most cases, people
instinctually resist change and this stage helps breaking the status quo. The managers must
explain the subordinates why change is necessary and how that will help in profit making. the
organization must look closely into the core of its structure and operations and examine it so
that it can identify the portions where change is needed (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown
2016).
Change: this is the place that the major changes take place and is a time taking
procedure. The reason behind this is people’s behavior. People take time to accept any
change that take place around them. The presence of a good leader and reassurance from the
leader is necessary at this stage as the employees will feel much confident about the change
with this process. Thus, proper communication and utilization of time are the key factors for
this stage to become successful (Sarayreh, Khudair and Barakat 2013).
Refreeze: by this stage, the need of change has already been accepted by the people
and has been embraced by them. The implementation of the change is also done, so the
condition of the organization slowly becomes stable. Thus, this phase is known as refreeze as

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this is the phase where the operations and structure of the organization gains a stable routine
as well as pace. The importance of this phase is to make sure that the changes that have been
brought into the organization are in use and people are not reverting back to their earlier
practices (Martinuzzi and Krumay 2013). Finally, the employees are comfortable with the
new changes and feel confident that they will be able to work with them.
The advantages and disadvantages of this model is that it involves force field analysis
of all the potential factors that give a visual overall of the factors that will support or oppose
the change process and create a singular graph from the consolidated decision. Another
advantage is that the analysis goes far beyond the quantitative information and looks into the
qualitative factors impacting the outcome of the decision. One of the disadvantages is that the
plan is theoretical. The model does not incorporate human feelings and reactions into effect
and thus has a chance of failure when the actual implementation is done (Paun 2013).
Another disadvantage is that force field theory requires complete involvement of all the
employees of the organization into the process and thus is a problem as in many cases
complete involvement is not possible. Even if that becomes possible the force field theory is
likely to cause a rift among the employees between those who support the decision and those
who does not.
McKinsey 7S Model for Change Management
This model was developed in 1980s by the consultants of McKinsey & Company
which involves seven stages of change management. The stages are:
Strategy- the plan creation stage of a change procedure which helps in overcoming
the competition and reach desired goals.

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Structure- refers to the way an organization has been built internally (Ravanfar
2015).
Systems- relates to the day-to-day activities that are followed in an organization to
complete a task.
Shared values- refers to the basic beliefs and values that are the foundation stones of
the organization.
Style- the way of adoption and implementation of the methods of change in an
organization is referred to as style (Singh 2013).
Staff- the human resource of the organization and their ability to work is referred.
Skills- the skills and experience, the competency and capability of the staff is
referred.
According to Channon and Caldart (2015), this model has several advantages and
disadvantages. One of the advantages of this model is that it gives an insight into the
workings of an organization. Another advantage of the model is that it incorporates both
emotional and practical aspects of change process which helps the managers to take
necessary steps to ensure employee satisfaction during the process. The model is built in such
a way that all the parts or stages are given equal importance and deals with each stage in
equal measure which is another advantage of this model. The disadvantages are firstly, the
interrelated nature of all the stages and their interdependency with each other. Due to this
feature if any of the seven stages fail the subsequent stages will follow. Second, the structure
and execution of this model is complex and thus most organizations that have followed this
model for change have experienced failure.
ADKAR model of Change Management

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This model was developed by Jeff Hiatt that concentrates on individual. There are five
blocks or mile stones in this model that an individual has to obtain before they can manage
change successfully. This model is people oriented and it is the responsibility of the managers
and leaders to create the change environment in such a way so that the employees are able to
go through the steps or stages swiftly and unobtrusively. The five blocks that constitutes the
model are:
A- Awareness of the need for change- the first phase is the awareness that a change is
necessary. The understanding of the aspects and particularities of the necessities of
change are included here. The rationale and reasoning behind the change is developed
here and explained to the employees in detail and all their fears and queries are dealt
with (Hornstein 2015). The aim is to make employees comfortable with the idea of the
upcoming change and to make the reason clear to them.
D- Desire to participate in the change and support it- in this stage the decision falls on
the employees. They must now decide whether to support the change process and take
active participation in it. If the employees are confident and sure of the necessity of
for the change and their position in the organization, they will participate in the
process. Some organizations also provide incentives to the employees to motivate
them to continue to the path to change.
K- Knowledge on how to change- in the third stage information and knowledge about
the intended change is shared with the employees and they are trained for the change.
They are also trained on how the employees should behave after the implementation
of the change process. The sustainability of the change process is much more
necessary than the change process itself.

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A- Ability to implement the skills and behaviors- in this stage the employees are
expected to implement the knowledge and training that they have received in the
former stage. This is the longest of all the stages and constant feedback is necessary
(Parker et al. 2013).
R- Reinforcement to sustain the change- in the last stage the sustainability of the
change is focused upon. The management tries to keep up the new [practices and
ensure that the employees are not reverting back to the old practices. Feedback,
reward programs, performance appraisal and corrective actions are ways to ensure
that the change that has been applied to the organization is help up even after months.
The advantages of this model are the focus that it places on the employees and their
reaction, the role of leadership and goal orientation. The disadvantages are the application of
the model are narrow based and thus for macro-level changes might become difficult if this
model is followed. The main challenge that change process face in every situation is to keep
the changes that were made and sustain the practice a long time after they were implemented
(Calder 2013). The idea of change gives birth to the concept of Innovation as leaders
regularly come up with innovative ideas, products and services to keep the organization
going.
Innovation is a concept that is closely related to change in an organization. Innovation
in an organization is dependent upon two dimensions, Technology and Market (Dodgson,
Gann and Phillips 2013). depending on these two aspects there are four types of innovation
that can take place in an organization. These are Incremental Innovation, Disruptive
Innovation, Architectural Innovation and Radical Innovation (Goetsch and Davis 2014).
The most common kind of innovation that are seen in an organization is the
Incremental innovation. It involves the process of utilizing the technology that are existing in

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the organization and enhance values for the customer in the existing market (Norman and
Verganti 2014). For example, when an organization upgrades or adds new features to an
existing product or service this falls into the category of Incremental Innovation.
In the view of King and Baatartogtokh (2015), Disruptive Innovation involves
introduction of new technology or process to the existing market. this innovation is much
risky as the new offerings made to the market is not yet fully developed and it takes quite a
few trails before it can surpass the earlier method or service. For example, when Apple
launched their first smartphone, it was an example of Disruptive innovation. Earlier versions
of phones in the market had keypads. With this launch they had to make sure that they
provide a touch screen that has amazing sensor and applications that will overthrow any
competition that existing market had.
Architectural innovation is where different aspects of existing technology and services
are kept unaltered and they are applied to a market that is completely new. This method of
innovation is extremely effective if the organization is aiming at gaining new customers. It is
a low risk innovation method as it is mostly dependent upon the products, services and
technologies that are existing in the organization and have already proven to be successful
(Pisano 2015). The only challenge lies in the fact that the market is new and thus most of the
times the products or services are modified according to the intended market. For example,
when McDonalds expanded their business to India, they had to rethink their offered menus.
Since most people in India do not consume beef, selling the existing menu exactly would not
serve their purpose of attracting a lot of customers (Volberda, Bosch and Heij 2013). They
kept the menu visually similar and kept some classics intact along with which they introduced
options that were suitable for the market. It proved to be a successful step as within some
years, McDonalds had opened several outlets in many metro cities of India.