To Change Or Not To Change…

We read Chapter 11 “Organizational Change and Change-Related Communication” to prepare for class on Monday and apply the concepts we had read to the movie Inside Job. Our textbook defines change as “ the process by which alteration occurs in the structure and function of a social system; the difference between two or more successive conditions, states, or moments of time; or, a succession of differences in time within a persisting identity.” Our book explains a model of change as suggested by Kert Lewin that makes it easy to apply to organizations: see that there is a need, come up with a plan for action, imply that new plan, and make that new plan a routine. It seems so easy, right?! If change seems this easy then why is implementing a change in routine so difficult to grasp in organizations?
Change is the result of communication. Lewin’s model involves COMMUNICATING a need for change, COMUNICATING a plan, and COMMUNICATING that new plan and making it happen by implementing it throughout the organization. Communication is very important to change because without it, there would be no change. What would it be like with no change? Boring. Same routine every day, every week, every month.
Communicating the change to different people involved with the organization is very important. Our book explains that communication must be designed around whom the change is being communicated to. For example, if a new plan for change is being implemented in the organization and they are letting the employees know then they might tell the facts, hold a meeting where the groups of employees are all present, and target the important information to the supervisors. Where is the stakeholders are being informed then it might be on a “need to know basis” and information may be released often enough to keep participation equal. There are six dimensions of change: degree, type, intentionality, timing, impetus, and control. All of these are important to successfully implementing change. To whether the degree of change is major/minor or when to execute the new plan for change, each dimension serves as an important role for successful change. Successful change is then measured by whether it is accepted, if the goals of the organization were fulfilled, and what the consequences were of the new change and how those are managed within the organization.
In class, we watched Inside Job, which is about events that happened over time to result in our current economic crisis. Different “key players” in the banking industry were interviewed and they talked about their roles or the roles of others in the banking industry to result in this crisis. The information that was so shocking to me was the amount that the CEO’s and other executives in the banking industry take home each year when our economy was dwindling down. Executives were said to have several airplanes, helicopters, yachts, vacation homes, etc. Is all this necessary? We were given a note sheet to keep track of interesting facts and answer questions that required us to apply concepts from Chapter 11 to this movie.
What do you think could have been done to implement change in the banking industry to lessen the crisis that we are currently in? Are organizations that you are a part of communicating change effectively? If not, what do you think they can do to change the way they communicate change to make the process of implementing new plans more effective?

By: Randi Bellew