BUSN221 Organizational Behavior

In today’s fast changing business world, being able to adapt to changes is the foremost quality that each and every successful organization needs. It is very important for the companies to implement changes so that they can survive in today’s technological world for long term. One of the biggest problems that business executives confront is the employee resistance to change (Cameron and Green, 2015). This change resistance may take place in different forms like hostility, chronic quarrels, reduction in productivity, employee strikes etc. The major reason behind resistance to change is that employees think that these changes will threaten their personal freedom.

There are various ways which can be used to overcome the employee resistance to change in organizations. In the workplaces, companies can manage this resistance to by understanding and assisting the people who fear and resist the change. In order to manage change resistance, the managers should develop an organizational culture of transparent and shared communication, culture of trust, positive interpersonal relationships and engaged employees. It is significant for the organizations to involve the employees in implementing change process so that they can accept them (Georgalis, Samaratunge, Kimberley, and Lu, 2015). This process will not only assist the top management to overcome change resistance but it will encourage them to perform in change situations.

For effective implementation of changes in workplace, there is need of an effective leader who is ready to take risks and can motivate his followers in change process (Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans, 2015). In order to prevent resistance and implement changes successfully, organizations can use 3 stages model of Kurt Lewin i.e.

• Unfreezing: This first stage includes preparing the organization and its people to adapt the changes are necessary.
• Changing: After unfreezing the environment, the company will be able to make changes and individuals will look for new ways to perform new things.
• Refreezing: When the changes are shaping and employees are engaged in new ways, workplace is ready to refreeze (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown, 2016).

In this way, the organizations can use different ways and models and they can prevent the employee resistance to change.

References

Cameron, Esther, and Mike Green. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers, 2015.

Cummings, Stephen, Todd Bridgman, and Kenneth G. Brown. "Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management." human relations 69, no. 1 (2016): 33-60.

Georgalis, Joanna, Ramanie Samaratunge, Nell Kimberley, and Ying Lu. "Change process characteristics and resistance to organisational change: The role of employee perceptions of justice." Australian Journal of Management 40, no. 1 (2015): 89-113.

Luthans, Fred, Brett C. Luthans, and Kyle W. Luthans. Organizational Behavior: An EvidenceBased Approach. Information Age Publishing, 2015.