Managing For Change

The subject of change management has always been interesting curriculum and source of research for management specialists. In fact, change management has for a long time as a discipline existed within the academic discussions and lectures of management, but only has recently been given a name because of the importance of change management as a specific focus of lesson and study.

The first question that is required of us to answer is why do employees resist change? In order to answer this question, we could be able to identify and list specific variables and identifying circumstances drawing from various disciplines such as labor economics and also the accompanying literature on change management.

In 2001, a study was published discussing the various relevant factors affecting employees non-desire for change (Aladwani, 2001). One factor that the study has identified is the process argument of labor economics that states that employees and other human resources within a firm or organization have for a long time already been used to a specific process in order for them to be able to create optimal output for such processes.

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In labor economics and management, other than monetary costs, there is a concept such as opportunity costs which says that change within an organization integrates various personal and psychic costs to employees that are not necessarily captured by wage rates and renumerations. Another relevant factor that makes it difficult for managers to implement new strategies such as organizational structures and processes is that there is a perceived risk that employees face when undergoing changes within an organizational structure organization process (Hayes, 2006).

However, this is only one view of change management theory. Other research and academic circles in the area of resistance to change identified that the problem is not from the perspective of human resources and employees -- basically a micro approach -- but rather comes from a larger perception of the company and attributes change resistance to higher level managers and stakeholders (Lorenzi & Riley, 2000).

As such school of thought specifies, the problem of resistance to change, although initially might be perceived as a direct result of management decision-making, is actually the result of collective action of human resources and other employees in a firm that managers are forced to adapt in the face of various future expected difficulties like organization of labor unions and so forth.

In fact, this approach specifies that change management, when computing for long-term growth and profitability of firms, integrates within it specific change costs to stakeholders and managers of organizations and can conceivably be more costly especially if we take into consideration that change management is not an instant but rather a gradual process.

The second question that is required for us his analysis of the decision-making process of leaders and whether or not bad decisions should be the mark that would be given to a leader even though the overall result was positive and profitable for the firm. The reason why some decision-makers have case studies are written about them is because of various innovative decisions and out-of-the-box reasoning and thinking which might at first be a direct opposite of existing management literature and best practice management.

In fact, just to cite an example, in today's technology industry where case studies are made about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the founders of Google -- and more recently Facebook -- they are given specific focus and management case studies because of decision-making which although did not fit into best practice and best management scenarios, nevertheless resulted in profitability for the firm.

Coming from the opposite side of the argument, however, in considering leaders that have made bad decisions that have resulted in profitable company outcomes, it is important to strike a balance between giving them credit while at the same time not forgetting the mistakes they have made. Focusing on one aspect would eventually be problematic because for one, it ignores the chance for learning for future managers when faced with more or less the same scenario and, for another reason, give them credit even if there are mistakes that must be identified and highlighted -- again to prevent such management mistakes.

One current event that we may be able to highlight that directly overlaps the various lessons and readings that we have studied is the product launch of Windows 7 -- a long-awaited replacement for the popular failure of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. Because of the failure of Windows Vista to meet the expected needs of consumers, an extensive management overhaul was made in the halls of Microsoft Corporation and resulted to the creation of a product that is expected -- at least in popular recent consumer reviews -- to pay for the failure of the recent operating system launched by the software giant.

After the success of Windows Vista's predecessor -- Windows XP -- employees in human resources, and even stakeholders and managers, within the company have been lax in the development process and release an operating system that was not going to meet the expectations of consumers. In fact, as various case studies and industry experts have pointed out, Windows Vista and its failure was a direct result not of the inability to produce such technologies, but rather a management failure in order to organize human resources and employees of Microsoft in order to make a more efficient product.

In fact, academic literature in management have pointed towards the development of Windows 7 operating system to be an overhaul not only in current technology trends but also in the management methods that are found in Microsoft Corp.

References Aladwani, A. M. (2001). Change management strategies for successful ERP implementation. Business Process Management Journal, 7(3), 266-275. Hayes, J. (2006). The theory and practice of change management. Asian Business & Management, 5, 153-155. Lorenzi, N. M. , & Riley, R. T. (2000). Managing Change An Overview (Vol. 7, pp. 116-124). Am Med Inform Assoc.