Learning Circle (C1) Summary

Managing Organizational Change and Learning

Learning Principles and Change

• Unfreezing old learning requires people who want to learn new ways to think and act. It deals directly with resistance to change. Employees face the prospect of change with different expectations and motivations. Managers must determine these expectations and motivations in order to manage change since it's the management's responsibility to show why employees should want to change.
• Movement to new learning requires training, demonstration, and empowerment. Training had been a regular part of employee's assignments. Through training and demonstration of the appropriateness of the training itself, employees are empowered to take on behaviors they previously had not imagined possible.
• Refreezing the learned behavior occurs through the application of reinforcement and feedback. Management must guard against the possibility that what a person learned at training site is lost when that person is transferred to the actual work site. They must take into account that when people receive encouragement, rewards, supportive information or acclaim for doing something they're more likely to do the same thing in a similar situation.

Change Agent

-An intervener who bring a different perspective to a situation and challenges the status quo.

• External Change Agents-are temporary employees of the organization because they're engaged only for the duration of the change process.
• Internal Change Agents- are individuals working for the organization who knows something about its problem.
• External-Internal Change Agents- a combination of external-internal change team to intervene and develop programs. An approach that attempts to use the resources and knowledge base of both external and internal change agents. This involves designating an individual or small group within the organization to serve with the external change agent as spearheads of the change effort.

Reasons of resisting change.

• Parochial Self-interest- Individuals fear the loss of power, resources, freedom to make decisions, friendships and prestige.
• Misunderstanding and Lack of Trust- Misunderstanding the intent and consequences of organizational change is more likely to occur when trust is lacking between the person initiating the change and the affected individual. Individuals resist change when they do not fully understand why the change is occurring, as well as its implications.
• Different Assessments- Individuals view change differently, as a result they often have different assessments of the situation. Initiators of change see more positive results while those being affected and not initiating change see more costs involved with the change.
• Broad assumptions that initiators often make
• Having all the relevant data and information available to diagnose the situation.
• Affected people have the same facts
• Low Tolerance for Change- People resist change because they fear they will not be able to develop the new skills necessary to perform well. Individuals may understand clearly that change is necessary but they may be emotionally unable to make the transition. For them, making the necessary adjustments and changes is the same as admitting that some of their previous behavior, decisions and attitudes were wrong.

Reducing Resistance to Change

Management take steps to minimize the resistance to change. This steps includes:

• Education and communication (explaining and informing)
• Participation and involvement ( involving employees in the process)
• Facilitation and support ( retraining and providing a range of support)
• Negotiation and agreement ( discussion with resisters and negotiation)
• Manipulation and cooptation (bringing in supporters to guide others)
• Explicit and implicit coercion (threats, taking away rewards, job loss)

Forces for Change

•  Environmental Forces- are beyond manager's control.
• Economic Forces-includes competitors who introduce new products and a change in customers' tastes and incomes. 
• Technology- includes the computer technology and automation which already affected not only the technical conditions of work but the social conditions as well.
• Social and Political Change-includes the sophisticated mass communications and global markets that created great potential for business as well as threats for managers who can not understand these important factors. 
• Internal Forces- operates inside the firm and generally within the control of the management.
• Process problems- includes breakdowns in decision making and communication resulting to interpersonal and interdepartmental conflicts within the organization.
• Behavioral problems- includes low levels of morale and high levels of absenteeism and turnover resulting to wildcat strike or walkout .

Diagnosis of a Problem

  The diagnostic phase is facilitated through data gathering, interpreting and presenting.The accuracy, interpretation and presentation of data are extremely important.Experience and judgment are critical to this phase. 

• Questions for Sound Diagnosis of Problem
• What is the problem as distinct from the symptoms of the problem?
• What must be changed to resolve the problem?
• What outcomes are expected from the change, and how will those outcomes be measured?
• Attitude Survey- a useful diagnostic approach if the potential focus of change is the total organization.

Alternative Interventions

•  An intervention is a specific action that a change agent takes to focus the change process.
•  Depth of intended change refers to the scope and intensity of the organizational change efforts. It has two components namely: formal and informal.

Alternative Change Techniques

• Structural Change-refers to managerial attempts to improve performance by altering the formal structure of task and authority relationships.It can alter some aspects of the formal task and authority system.
• Changes in the Nature of Jobs-originates with new methods and new machines.This includes work simplification and job enrichment. Job can be changed by altering the job description, the role expectations of a position, relationships among positions and work flow patterns.
• Changes in the Bases of Departmentalization
• Change in Line-Staff Relationships- This change include two techniques but the first and most commonly used is the creation of staff assistance as a temporary or permanent solution.
• Behavioral Change- behavioral change techniques are efforts to redirect and increase employee motivation, skills and knowledge bases. Its major objective is to coordinate performance of assigned task.
• Team building-Its purpose is to enable work groups to do their work more effectively to improve their performance.Specific aims of this intervention includes setting goals and priorities, analyzing the group's work methods, examining the group's communication and decision making processes and assessing interpersonal relationships within the group.
• Diversity Training-a form of training that attempts to make the participants more aware of themselves and of their effect on diverse others.It stresses the process rather that the content of training and emotional rather than conceptual training.
• Technological Change- includes any application of new ways of transforming resources int products or services.Technological innovations can change other aspects of the workplace. Essentially, the decision to adopt to technological change must involve consideration of the numerous behavioral and structural impacts that often occur.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI)

 -is a method of focusing on positive or potential opportunities. It proposes that organizations and individuals are creative enough to develop programs, relationships and behaviors that address success, personal growth  and fulfillment.
-a methodology that takes the idea of social construction of reality by utilizing metaphors and narratives.
- a positive approach to change that completely lets go of problems-based management.
-an emphasis on individual engagement to bring about creative solutions.

• 4D Process
• Discovering- appreciating what is the "best" in the current situation being examined.
• Dreaming- talking about ideals and the value of being in an ideal situation.
• Designing-exchanging thoughts and formulating and constructing with others a collective model of an ideal group team or work setting.
• Delivering- establishing a plan, an execution strategy, and a set of goals to change the situation being examined.

Trends in Organizational Change

• Downsizing-involves reducing the size of the workforce and often closing some operations and consolidating others. Its core task is determining what operations should  be closed and which positions should be eliminated in the organization. Effective downsizing requires careful analysis of the companies' operations and a well-planned implementation that minimizes unnecessary human costs.
• Empowerment-includes the granting of permission to individuals to utilize their talents, skills, resources and experience to make decisions about customer relationship management, investments, hiring people, just-in-time inventory management, total quality control, computer purchases, and forming alliances.This gives the responsibility for a major segment of work to team of employees .
• Telecommuting- performing all or some portion of the job at sites away from the central work site. Virtual employees are connected to their supervisor or office through computer networks.This help workers deal with work and personal life issues and cope with commuting stress and interruptions in a traditional office by providing more flexibility.
• Flextime-a work schedule or structure that provides flexible work hours theoretically provides more autonomy and discretion to employees. This gives employees a choice of starting and ending times as long as they work a core time period.

Limiting Conditions

• Leadership climate-refers to the nature of the work environment that results from the leadership style and the administrative practices of managers. Programs not supported by the management yields negative results. Management must at least slightly positive towards change.
• Formal Organization-includes the philosophy and policies of the management, as well as the legal precedent, organizational structure and the systems of control. It must be compatible with the proposed changes.
• Organizational Culture- refers to pattern of beliefs resulting from group norms, values, and informal activities. 

Dimensions of Implementing Changes

• Timing- is knowing when to make the change. Timing is strategic, it depends on a number of factors such as the organization's  operating cycle and the groundwork that has preceded the change.
• Scope- is knowing how much of a change to make. A change of considerable magnitude should not compete with ordinary operations.

Guidelines for Managing Change

1. Management and all those involved must have high and visible commitment to the effort.
2. People who are involved need to have advance information that enables them to know what is to happen and why they are being asked to do what they are to do.
3. The effort must be connected to other parts of the organization.
4. The effort needs to be directed by line managers and assisted by a change agent if necessary.
5. The effort mus be based on good diagnosis and mus be consistent with the conditions in the organization.
6. Management must remain committed to the effort throughout all its steps, from diagnosis through implementation and evaluation.
7. Evaluation is essential and must consist of more than asking people how they felt about the effort.
8. People must see clearly the relationship between the effort and the organization's mission and goals.
9. The change agent, if used, must be clearly competent and perceived as competent.

The Learning Organization
- described as a proactively creating, using and transferring knowledge to change its behavior.
- A major result of learning organization is that knowledge is managed more effectively.

GROUP C1 MEMBERS

Danga, Krisha Marie

Queja, Lovely Charmelaine

Enverzo, Ashley Joy

Rance, Jerlyn

Hallera, Rebecca

Tubaon, Pinky