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Introduction

The final chapter of our assigned readings over, Essentials of Organizational Behavior, did a great job discussing how to adapt to change in the workplace and how to handle and manage stress in the workplace. This chapter is titled Organizational Change and Stress Management. Stress has always gone hand in hand with the workplace, and being able to handle this, along with being able to adapt to change are two very positive attributes in employees and managers. 

Chapter 17: Organizational Change and Stress Management

Change is defined within the text as, "Making things different." While this is a very basic definition, there are many different styles and types of change. A few of these are planned change, and change agents. Planned change is where change is intentional and created with a set goal in mind. Change agents are, "People who act as catalysts and assume the responsibility for managing change activities." The major difference between planned change and change agents is that planned change is set up with goals in mind and planned out, while change agents step up and act out whenever they feel it is needed.

Change is often times a difficult thing to adapt to for many people, especially those that have gone about something a certain way for a long period of time. A few ways to help people adapt, or overcome change is by communication, participation, building support/commitment, developing positive relationships, implementing change fairly and selecting people who accept change. These are the basic foundations in which the text states helping people adapt to change are. While there are many factors that go into this, it is highly recommended to be very up front and honest with employees and management during the process of change in an organization.

In our text, their are four main approaches to managing organizational change. To begin, we have Lewin's Three-Step Model. The three steps in this model consist of, unfreezing the status quo, movement to a desired end state and refreezing the new change to make it permanent. Continuing onto Kotters Eight Step Plan, this model was based around Lewin's Model, but went deeper into detail. Next is Action Research. This is a more structured approach which is "Based on the systematic collection of data and the selection of a change action based on what the analyzed data indicate." Lastly is Organizational Development, this format is based around a democratic system that seeks to improve organizations employee well being and their overall enjoyment in the work place. 

There are many different ways to go about change, there are also ways in which to create a strong culture for change. If there is not a strong culture behind the change, often times the planned changes that have been implement fail or dwindle out. A few ways to create a strong culture of change are paradox theory, innovation and learning organization. Paradox theory is based around the idea that there is no final status an organization can hold, meaning they can always plan to grow, strive for higher profits, and create a stronger and stronger culture without a final outcome. Learning organization is an organization that continues to adapt and change while continuing to grow. 

There are many things that can induce stress, the workplace often times is one of those. Things such as environmental factors, organizational factors and personal factors are all things that can create stress in the workplace. Dealing with this stress can often times be difficult, within the text we have learned a few different methods to help cope and handle stress in a better manner. These are Individual Approaches and Organizational Approaches. Individual includes time management techniques, exercise and social support to help. Organizational is based more around the workplace, creating goals, getting more involved, sabbaticals and reshaping or redesigning jobs are all ways in which this is applied.