PA2

1

Resistance towards Change in Organization

Runze Du

Chee Piong

BUS 700

Jan 31 2021

Resistance towards Change in Organization

Question 1

A change in an organization is inevitable, but even during such time, it might be resistance by people who are otherwise expected to support it (Amarantou, Kazakopoulou, Chatzoudes & Chatzoglou, 2018). When a change is being implemented in an organization, some symptoms can be encountered, and I have encountered some of them. One of these symptoms was reduced staff morale in their mandated duties. Staff was not motivated to discharge their duties or even increase their productivity. The second symptom that I have also encountered is low productivity. This is because of the lost self-motivation and staff morale. The third symptom that I believe was resistance to change was paralysis of any decision that was being made. This is because we're never ready to implement anything that was linked to the change being implemented.

Question 2

Although I have not experienced any active form of resistance, there are many occasions when I have experienced a passive form of resistance. This is where people resist a certain change with no use of violence or force. In this passive resistance, staff could ignore mandated duties in regard to the change implementation, and others could fault their duties. Other staff could complain about the non-functionality of the change being implemented. It was a form of failing the employer for him to give up on the change proposed for implementation.

Question 3

The funny hat this happened is that I was a resistor myself. This was a time when I, among other staff, had to resist a change in motivation that the employer wanted to put in place. During this time, the employer wanted to change the reporting in and out hours for everybody. These hours were too harsh for some people, but some were for these hours. In this case, the employer wanted some people to be coming to work late, and their departure time is shifting into the late evening. Since we were used to coming to work early, this was quite unfortunate, and I had to resist myself.

Question 4

The obvious reason for resistance during this time was because people were being subjected to a tight evening schedule. Most people valued evening hours with their families. Therefore, changing report-out hours meant that staff was left with less time for their families during the evening. The second scenario where I have seen people resist was when a change in remuneration was being suggested. Besides, I have also seen staff resist change in adopting new technology that would render some of their skills obsolete. The last scenario I have seen resistance was where an organization was considering outscoring senior officers to play executive management.

Question 5

In my opinion, the top three resistance to change was on remuneration, outsourcing in executive leadership, and even adoption of intensive use of technology in production. These three reasons are top because in some cases, an organization needs to change remuneration, especially to increase the motivation of staff and as the budget demands. In regard to management, employees tend to resist change of executive management because they are afraid of the relationship with a new executive leader.

Question 6

As a manager, there is a need to understand the common reason why a change might be resisted by staff. One reason why staff would resist a change is fear of losing their status in an organization or fear of their job security. Another staff might resist change because of a resultant rewards system that employees might feel is poorly aligned. The third reason why change may be resisted in an organization is the mistrust of staff behind the change being suggested. In other cases, a change is resisted just because of peer influence from one staff to another. Other employees might resist change because they fear failing while working following the new system.

Question 7

Of all these reasons, I believe the top three are mistrust, fear of losing a job, and thirdly, fear of being unable to operate in the new system. To start with mistrust, it isn't easy to buy one's trust once they realize that certain procedures will not favor them as long as they wish. With respect to fear of losing one's status, it becomes difficult to have employees embrace change while they fear losing their job. This is because they want to avoid losing more once their job is gone. Those who fear the new system thinks so because they assume their skill will not be applicable in the new system, and hence their efficiency might not be reflected in the new system as in the old and existing system.

Question 8

Although I have never worked with a company where senior managers resisted change, I have experienced some. Almost everyone who ever lived in the US knows about Toys R US, a giant toy company that failed due to resistance from management. The company's senor resistance started in 2004 when the management resistance a chance to continue collaboration with amazon. During this time, the company missed the opportunity to establish its e-platform; its footprint on the internet was surpassed too far by giants like Amazon. Finally, the company collapsed (Chavie, 2018), retrievable from https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/3/17932344/toys-r-us-liquidation-coming-back.

Question 9

If I were a Toys R US manager, I would not have rejected the continuation collaboration with Amazon. This is to avoid being so much interested in short-run benefit while foregoing the long term benefits in the organization. Therefore, I would have encouraged this collaboration to help Toys R US establish its e-commerce footprint early on time and remain relevant even in the cloud space. If this action was taken during this time, the company would have been successful even today.

Question 10

Different approaches to management can be used in different case scenarios. One that excites and attracts me the moment is step-wise change implementation. This approach dictates implementation change in faces rather than a one-time implementation. This approach is effete because it gives staff enough time to learn what is being done and what is being changed. Therefore, they develop new skills and improve on their skills regarding the change being implemented. This approach is effective because it acquires more support for the staff, and hence resistance is minimal (Thakur & Srivastava, 2018).

Question 11

The reason why this excites me the most is that it allows for ample time for negotiations. This implies that when employees do not have trust with a certain stage of change implementation, it is broken down and explained to them. Although this approach might be time-consuming, it facilitates bit to bit gaining of trust from staff to support the implementation.

REFERENCES:

Amarantou, V., Kazakopoulou, S., Chatzoudes, D., & Chatzoglou, P. (2018). Resistance to change: an empirical investigation of its antecedents. Journal of Organizational Change Management.

Thakur, R. R., & Srivastava, S. (2018). From resistance to readiness: The role of mediating variables. Journal of Organizational Change Management.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/3/17932344/toys-r-us-liquidation-coming-back