DISCUSSION AND REVIEW QUESTION
1. Why is diagnosis so vital in organizational change programs?
- through diagnosis, management associates the problem with skill, attitudinal, behavioral, and causes and selects the appropriate intervention. If employee participation is inappropriate because the necessary preconditions don't exist, management must unilaterally define the problem and select the appropriate method. Whether the problem is related to skill or attitudinal, behavioral or structural causes, the strategy must include provision of learning principles.
- An intervention is a specific action that a change agent takes to focus the change process. Although the term has a generally used meaning, it has a specific meaning in the context of organizational development where it refers to a formal activity.
Why is it important for managers to reduce the resistance to change exhibited or covertly practiced by employees?
3.Might some managers attempt to implement a particular intervention, such as TQM, without first diagnosing whether the intervention would be appropriate for their organization's problem?
- Without first diagnosing about the particular intervention that an organization wants to implement might cause a negative result in the entire organization. If an organization is attempting to change something, this must first be planned carefully.
4. Why is it important for managers to reduce the resistance to change exhibited or covertly practiced by employees?
- resisting change is a human response, and management must take steps to minimize it. Reducing resistance can cut down on the time needed for a change to be accepted or tolerated. Also, the performance of employees can rebound more quickly if resistance is minimized.
5. Evaluate the ethical issues associated with downsizing an organization by reducing its labor force to increase the organization's long - run chance of survival. What other ethical issues can you identify in the practice of organizational development as you understand it thus far?
- Declining revenues and increasing cost, merges, and international competition have intensified the need for organization to be more efficient and productive. Many companies have responded to this need by downsizing. This major action involves reducing the size of the workforce and often closing some operations and consolidating others.
The core task of the downsizing effort is determining what operations should be closed and which positions should be eliminated in the organization. Once the downsizing decision has been made, the most traumatic aspect of downsizing occurs-- the actual shutdown of operations and employee layoffs.
Downsizing is often an essential organizational change for companies striving to remain competitive in demanding external environment. However, the change is necessarily a painful one in many aspects. Effective downsizing requires careful analysis of the companies' operations and a well-planned implementation that minimizes unnecessary human costs.
6. Management must remain committed to the effort throughout all its steps, from diagnosis through implementation and evaluation.
- In an organizational change it all starts with the diagnosis of the problem to the evaluation, effort is the passion and time given towards the said particular activity. In this case we must commit all of our efforts all throughout so that there can be an assurance in the result of each and every activity that we will do. An organization will not undergo a change for a second so we must be very patience in every step of it. This efforts that we will give will not only account for the success of the organization but also provides such contentment in every member that they have done their job well.
7. How is the appreciative inquiry approach to organizational change different from a problem-solving approach?
- Appreciative inquiry is a method of focusing on positive or potential opportunities. Appreciation means to value, see the best in others, and recognize positive potential. The concept of inquiry refers to the systematic analysis and the openness to discovery. In essence appreciative inquiry involves a method for bringing about positive change.
8. What would be the characteristics of an organization or situation for which the use of reason would be an effective approach for managing change? Are such organizations and situations relatively rare?
- As mangers contemplate the futures of their organization as the first decade of the 21st century unfolds, they can't change the inevitability of change. Change is certainly among the most frequently used words on the business pages of every newspaper in the world. Effective managers must view managing change as an integral responsibility rather than as a peripheral one. But we must accept the reality that not all organizations will successfully make the appropriate changes. Those with the best chance for success are relatively small and compete in industries in which research and development expenditures have traditionally been relatively high and barriers to entry are relatively low.
9. Explain the difficulties that you would encounter in attempting to obtain diagnostic information from members of two groups that believe they're competing for scarce resources.
- The diagnosis of present and potential problems involves the collection of information that reflects the level of organizational effectiveness. Data that measure the current state of production, efficiency, satisfaction, adaptiveness, and development must be gathered and analyzed. The purpose of diagnosis is to trace the cause of the problem. In addition to serving as the basis for problem identification, the diagnostic data also establish the basis for subsequent evaluation of the organizational development.
10. Explain why a change program should be evaluated and why such an evaluation is so difficult to conduct.
- The last step of the change process is the evaluation procedure. The ideal situation would be to structure the procedure in the manner of an experimental design. That is, the end results should be operationally defined, and measurements should be taken, before and after, both in the organization undergoing development and in a second organization (the control group). If the scope of the program is limited to a subunit, a second subunit could serve as a control group. An evaluation not only enables management to account for its use of resources but also provides feedback. Based on this feedback, corrections can be taken in the implementation phase.
Case for analysis: Bayer’s Major Changes in One plant
The plant had changed ownership three times and the workforce seemed to have dissolved as fast as the analgesic tablets rolling off production lines - down from 800-360 workers in less than a year. That was a lot of change to absorb in a facility that had been steadily producing over-the-counter and prescription pharmaceuticals for more than half a century. But there's more: employees were uncertain about what it would be like to work for Bayer, a German-owned company, and the plant manager post had been vacant for a while. Morale among workers plummeted, and job security became a running joke.
Before Bayer's acquisition, the management style at the facility was top-down rather than collaborative and reactive instead of proactive. Knowing that Myerstown employees were skeptical of new management programs because of past failure, plant manager John O' Neil and the HR team addressed workers at an all-out employee meeting about the first initiative -- developing a site strategy and goals. Myerstown employees felt that communication was so important in getting and receiving information about site performance, department projects, and rumors that they initiated the "Myerstown Information exchange."
The thing that is appreciative in the process was that managers listened to what everyone had to say, treating them equals, and really valued their opinions. Resistance to change can be overcome by acknowledging not only the business rationale for change but also the hopes, fears, and dreams of those affected. In the race to make change happen, organizational leaders are often fail to tell the straight story to people who then write their best scripts. Progressive companies go to great lengths to involve people in a transformation that affects them, which sends critical messages about validation and involvement.
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