Adapting to Change
11 May 2009
Read by 1797 persons
Nowadays, a leader’s main responsibility is organizing change. This change organization allows the company to survive in a rapidly changing environment. It is necessary, of course, to adapt to the change dictated by this rapid evolution of our time. However, adapting to change is not enough: we must anticipate it, provoke it and encourage it if we want to be high-performing actors within the company and live up to its ambitions.
Encouraging change means first adopting a truly positive attitude towards the future and its opportunities. It then means seizing the opportunities of a changing environment and identifying the hidden strengths and weaknesses of the company through the development of a diagnostic of the existing situation. After which, define policies and programs focused on achieving essential objectives.
To do this, the leader must have increasingly effective tools and increasingly qualified personnel whom he must encourage to actively participate in the change.
Changes are never constant but accelerated: some of them are predictable and others unpredictable. Hence the constant vigilance required of the leader to adapt, because it is not enough to be effective but efficient to assert oneself and create new development opportunities: “efficiency is only doing things well, effective power is doing what is advantageous”. Indeed, efficiency, while necessary, is not a sufficient condition for adaptation.
In the company, individuals resist any change for several reasons, including: habits, personal interests, misunderstanding, lack of trust, low tolerance for constraints and problems, a threat to prestige and social relations, and attention to the leader’s power.
This means that radical change involves significant risks. It would therefore be advisable to avoid these risks by reacting correctly with lucidity, and to spare human resources from suffering heavy losses in terms of motivation, trust, pleasure and cohesion.
Indeed, when we are deprived of our comfort, our network, our privileges or our territory and we are asked to give our maximum potential, we are upset, even weakened: our motivation may decrease, then our energy tends to weaken which negatively impacts our health.
To tell the truth, any radical change can inevitably cause insecurity. By losing self-confidence, one can be afraid of not being able to adapt, of being supplanted by colleagues or abandoned by the business leader: one begins to doubt oneself and others.
Furthermore, in difficult situations of change, there are always collaborators who poorly control their emotions: their often violent reactions contaminate the work climate and end up affecting us personally. As a harmful consequence, team spirit turns into an “everyone for themselves”. We find ourselves isolated and helpless. Therefore, the leader must make a precise diagnosis of these reasons for resistance to change in order to act effectively with his subordinates.
It is important to point out that the number of reasons why individuals resist change is infinite. Consequently, the diagnosis must be sufficiently thorough: its insufficiency can lead the leader to get bogged down in useless arguments and confrontations, or in continuous problems. Also, the leader must carefully evaluate the causes of resistance and choose an appropriate strategy to overcome this resistance. Especially since he must consider change as inevitable in the life of the company and seek appropriate ways to constructively influence individuals and groups during minor or major changes that occur.
For their part, those reluctant to change must consider that it is an acceptable, even desirable, approach for the implementation of new equipment, new procedures, new methods and new personnel and/or new schedules necessary for the evolution and modernization of the company.
In fact, fighting against change is useless since all change is generally dictated by exogenous constraints and pressures. Therefore, let us ensure that this change takes place according to stages guaranteeing its success, including: education through communication, participation and involvement, encouragement and help from management, incentives and negotiations, and avoiding as much as possible the use of manipulation and coercion because they contradict the processes of modern management which favors listening and negotiation.
Thus, the company leader can take a few months to implement the change in the organization. This relatively long duration makes it possible to hold extensive consultations with managers on the planned changes and allows for the collection of their suggestions. It gives time to carefully instill the planned changes in the personnel. It represents a wise and intelligent attitude giving great consideration to the employees’ points of view.
This atmosphere of mutual respect undoubtedly allows both human and material resources to be channeled into dynamic and well-regulated organizational units, the goal being to satisfy both those for whom the work is accomplished, and to foster good morale and a sense of accomplishment on the part of individuals and the group. Especially since it is indeed on the employees’ adherence and their level of commitment that the success of any change and any transformation project rests.
If it is true that the leader’s primary responsibility is to ensure the survival of the company, in today’s world he must also guarantee its future security by promoting and planning change. For their part, employees must consider this period of change as an opportunity for learning, evolution and personal development.
Published on April 13, 2009
Posted online on May 4, 2009
entreprendre.ma
Encouraging change means first adopting a truly positive attitude towards the future and its opportunities. It then means seizing the opportunities of a changing environment and identifying the hidden strengths and weaknesses of the company through the development of a diagnostic of the existing situation. After which, define policies and programs focused on achieving essential objectives.
To do this, the leader must have increasingly effective tools and increasingly qualified personnel whom he must encourage to actively participate in the change.
Changes are never constant but accelerated: some of them are predictable and others unpredictable. Hence the constant vigilance required of the leader to adapt, because it is not enough to be effective but efficient to assert oneself and create new development opportunities: “efficiency is only doing things well, effective power is doing what is advantageous”. Indeed, efficiency, while necessary, is not a sufficient condition for adaptation.
In the company, individuals resist any change for several reasons, including: habits, personal interests, misunderstanding, lack of trust, low tolerance for constraints and problems, a threat to prestige and social relations, and attention to the leader’s power.
This means that radical change involves significant risks. It would therefore be advisable to avoid these risks by reacting correctly with lucidity, and to spare human resources from suffering heavy losses in terms of motivation, trust, pleasure and cohesion.
Indeed, when we are deprived of our comfort, our network, our privileges or our territory and we are asked to give our maximum potential, we are upset, even weakened: our motivation may decrease, then our energy tends to weaken which negatively impacts our health.
To tell the truth, any radical change can inevitably cause insecurity. By losing self-confidence, one can be afraid of not being able to adapt, of being supplanted by colleagues or abandoned by the business leader: one begins to doubt oneself and others.
Furthermore, in difficult situations of change, there are always collaborators who poorly control their emotions: their often violent reactions contaminate the work climate and end up affecting us personally. As a harmful consequence, team spirit turns into an “everyone for themselves”. We find ourselves isolated and helpless. Therefore, the leader must make a precise diagnosis of these reasons for resistance to change in order to act effectively with his subordinates.
It is important to point out that the number of reasons why individuals resist change is infinite. Consequently, the diagnosis must be sufficiently thorough: its insufficiency can lead the leader to get bogged down in useless arguments and confrontations, or in continuous problems. Also, the leader must carefully evaluate the causes of resistance and choose an appropriate strategy to overcome this resistance. Especially since he must consider change as inevitable in the life of the company and seek appropriate ways to constructively influence individuals and groups during minor or major changes that occur.
For their part, those reluctant to change must consider that it is an acceptable, even desirable, approach for the implementation of new equipment, new procedures, new methods and new personnel and/or new schedules necessary for the evolution and modernization of the company.
In fact, fighting against change is useless since all change is generally dictated by exogenous constraints and pressures. Therefore, let us ensure that this change takes place according to stages guaranteeing its success, including: education through communication, participation and involvement, encouragement and help from management, incentives and negotiations, and avoiding as much as possible the use of manipulation and coercion because they contradict the processes of modern management which favors listening and negotiation.
Thus, the company leader can take a few months to implement the change in the organization. This relatively long duration makes it possible to hold extensive consultations with managers on the planned changes and allows for the collection of their suggestions. It gives time to carefully instill the planned changes in the personnel. It represents a wise and intelligent attitude giving great consideration to the employees’ points of view.
This atmosphere of mutual respect undoubtedly allows both human and material resources to be channeled into dynamic and well-regulated organizational units, the goal being to satisfy both those for whom the work is accomplished, and to foster good morale and a sense of accomplishment on the part of individuals and the group. Especially since it is indeed on the employees’ adherence and their level of commitment that the success of any change and any transformation project rests.
If it is true that the leader’s primary responsibility is to ensure the survival of the company, in today’s world he must also guarantee its future security by promoting and planning change. For their part, employees must consider this period of change as an opportunity for learning, evolution and personal development.
Published on April 13, 2009
Posted online on May 4, 2009
entreprendre.ma
