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Management - Vikhanskiy OS

3.3. Problems of strategic changes

Implementation of the strategy involves making the necessary changes, without which even the most well-developed strategy can fail. Therefore, with full confidence, it can be argued that strategic change is the key to implementing a strategy.

Carrying out strategic changes in the organization is a very difficult task. The difficulties in solving this problem are primarily due to the fact that any change meets resistance, which can sometimes be so strong that it can not be overcome by the one who makes the changes. Therefore, in order to make changes, it is necessary, at least, to do the following:

• to uncover, analyze and predict what resistance can be encountered by the planned change;

• Reduce to the minimum possible this resistance (potential and real);

• Set the status quo of the new state.

Resistance carriers, as well as bearers of change, are people. In principle, people are not afraid of change, they are afraid of being changed. People are afraid that changes in the organization will affect their work, their position in the organization, i.e. The existing status quo. Therefore, they are trying to prevent changes so as not to fall into a new situation, which is not quite clear for them, in which they have to do things differently than they are already accustomed to doing, and not to do what they did before.

Attitude to change can be considered as a combination of states of two factors: 1) acceptance or non-acceptance of a change; 2) an open or hidden demonstration of the attitude toward change (Figure 5.3).

Figure 5 3 Change-Resistance Matrix

The management of the organization on the basis of interviews, interviews, questionnaires and other forms of information gathering should try to find out what type of reaction to changes will be observed in the organization, who from the employees of the organization will take the position of advocates of change, and who will be in one of the three remaining provisions. Such forecasts are of particular relevance in large organizations and organizations that have not changed for quite a long time, since in these organizations resistance to change can be quite strong and widespread.

Reducing resistance to change is key to the implementation of change. An analysis of the potential resistance forces makes it possible to reveal those individual members of the organization or those groups in the organization that will resist resistance to change, and to understand the motives for rejecting change. In order to reduce the potential resistance, it is useful to bring people together into creative groups that will facilitate the change, involve a wide range of employees in the development of the change management program, conduct extensive awareness-raising among the organization's employees to convince them of the need to conduct Change to solve the tasks facing the organization.

The success of the change depends on how the management will implement it. Managers should remember that by making changes, they should demonstrate a high level of confidence in their rightness and necessity and try to be, as far as possible, consistent in implementing the change program. At the same time, they must always remember that as people change their position, people's position may change. Therefore, they should not pay attention to a small resistance to change and normally treat people who initially resisted change, and then stopped this resistance.

A great influence on the extent to which management manages to eliminate resistance to change is provided by the style of change. A leader can be tough and adamant in eliminating resistance, or may exhibit flexibility. It is believed that the autocratic style can be useful only in very specific situations, requiring immediate elimination of resistance in the implementation of very important changes. In most cases, it is considered more acceptable style, in which management reduces the resistance to change by attracting to their side those who initially opposed the change. Very successful in this regard is the participative style of leadership, in which many members of the organization are involved in resolving issues.

When resolving conflicts that may arise in the organization at the time of the change, managers can use different styles of management. The most pronounced styles are the following:

• a competitive style that emphasizes strength based on perseverance, asserting one's rights, proceeding from the fact that conflict resolution presupposes the winner and the defeated;

• a style of self-elimination, manifested in the fact that management demonstrates low perseverance and at the same time does not seek to find ways to cooperate with dissenting members of the organization;

• a style of compromise, presupposing a moderate insistence of the leadership on the implementation of its approaches to resolving the conflict and the simultaneous moderate desire of the leadership to cooperate with those who resist;

• the style of adaptation, expressed in the desire of the leadership to establish cooperation in resolving the conflict, while at the same time insisting on insisting on the adoption of the proposed solutions;

• a style of cooperation characterized by the fact that management seeks both to implement its approaches to change and to establish cooperative relations with dissenting members of the organization.

It is impossible to say unambiguously that one of the five styles mentioned above is more acceptable for conflict resolution, but some less. Everything depends on the situation, on what changes are being made, on what tasks are being accomplished and on what forces are resisting. It is also important to take into account the nature of the conflict. It is completely wrong to consider that conflicts always have only a negative, destructive character. Any conflict includes both negative and positive beginnings. If a negative start prevails, then the conflict is destructive and in this case any style that is able to effectively prevent the destructive consequences of the conflict is applicable. If the conflict leads to positive results, such as the removal of people from an indifferent state, the creation of new communication channels or an increase in the level of awareness of the members of the organization about the processes occurring in it, it is important to use this style of conflict resolution arising from changes, Which would contribute to the emergence of the widest possible range of positive results of the change.

The change must be completed by the establishment of a new status quo in the organization. It is very important not only to eliminate resistance to change, but also to ensure that the new state of affairs in the organization not only turned out to be formally established, but was accepted by the members of the organization and became a reality. Therefore, management should not be mistaken and confuse reality with formally established new structures or norms of relations. If the change does not lead to the emergence of a new stable status quo, then the change can not be considered complete and the work should continue until the real situation in the organization is replaced by a new one.