UNIT IV
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE, CREATIVITY AND DEVELOPMENT AT WORK PLACE
DEFINITION OF ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
1. Daft says "organisational change may be defined as the adoption of new idea or a behaviour by an organisation"
2. Greenberg and Baron say organizational change means "Planned or unplanned transformations in an organisation's structure, technology, and or people".
Features of Organisational Change
(1) Organisational change is a way of changing an existing idea or a behaviour to increase its effectiveness.
(2) Successful organisational change should continuously aim at adopting new ideas or behaviour as per the new developments like changes in customer's preferences, regulatory norms, economic environment, technological changes etc.
(3) An organisation that is able to change itself as per the needs of the situation can survive and stay ahead in the competition.
(4) The whole organization is affected. A small change in any part of the organisation affects the whole organization.
Factors for organisational change are of two types:
(l) Internal Factors
(II) External Factors
- Internal Factors
Any change in organization's internal factors may lead to organisational change. Various internal factors that lead to organisational change are as follows:
(1) Change in the top management:
(a) Change in the top management results in change in the idea to run the organization this leads to change in the system, structure and processes.
(b) Old managers are replaced by new managers which are needed because of retirement, promotion, transfer or dismissal.
(c) New manager brings his own ideas and style of working into the organization.
(d) The formal or informal relationships within an organisation may change because of change in top management.
(e) Also, attitudes behaviour, thinking, leadership style of the new manager may be different from the earlier one, this will be seen in their actions and decisions.
(f) As a result, an organization has to change accordingly.
(2) Change in the size of the organization: Change in the organization's size leads to change in the internal structure of the organization.
(3) Performance gaps: When an organisation finds a gap between set target and actual performance, in terms of market share, employee
Productivity, profit etc. it has to change itself to reduce the gap.
(4) Employee needs and values:
(a) With changing needs and values of the employees, organizations change their policies. For example, attractive financial incentives, growth opportunities, freedom to make decisions, flexible work hours good working conditions etc. may be provided by an organization to attract and retain its employees.
(5) Deficiency in existing organisational arrangement:
(a) Sometimes, change is necessary because of deficiency in the present organizational arrangement and process.
(b) These deficiencies may be in the form of continuous change in top management large number of managerial levels, lack of co-ordination between various departments, problems
Communication, many committees, lack of uniformity in policy decisions, lack of co-operation between line and staff, frequent conflicts among manager and employees, politics organisation etc.
(II) External factors
(a) Each organization has goals and responsibility related to others in its environment.
(b) Thus, an organization must give importance to the goals of others, i while it fulfills its goals and conducts its activities.
(c) Today's environment is dynamic and will continue to be dynamic.
(d) Changes in social, political, economic, technological, and legal environment force organizations to change themselves. In order to survive in the changing environment, organization needs to change.
Various external factors that lead to organisational change are as follows:
(1) Technology:
(a) Technology changes are responsible for changing the nature of the job performed at all levels in organization.
(b) When there is a change in technology, and other organizations adopt the new technology, the organization becomes less cost effective and its competitive position weakens in the market. Hence, it has to adopt new technology.
(c) When an organization adopts a new technology its work structures are affected and employees have to be trained to use it.
(d) new technology has impact on organization structure, organizational processes, and behaviour of employees.
(e) Computers internet etc. have made significant impact on organizational functioning.
(2) Business Environment
(a) Due to continuous change in the business environment and increasing competition, the needs and demands are also other and stakeholders. Organization is forced to change its working changing among the customers, methods to meet the demands of these sections.
(b) Today every organization exports its goods in the foreign market. An organization has to face competition in the market. There are two causes that affect the competitive position of an organization-other organizations supplying the same products and buyer's preferences. Any change in these factors needs suitable changes in the organization.
Similarly, there may be change in buyer’s needs, liking-disliking, income disposal for a product, etc. These changes force the organization to produce those products which meet buyer's requirements.
(3) Environmental factors:
(a) Environment factors such as economic, political demographic and legal factors play an important role in making of an organisation's policies and strategy.
(b) Any change in these factors may affect the organisation's functioning for example organizations have to change the price of their goods as per the economic environment of the country.
(4) Social Changes:
(a) Social Changes take place in terms of employee’s expectations, their needs, and their way of working.
(b) Social changes have taken place because of the several factors like level of education, urbanization, need to be independent increased awareness about employee's rights, international
Impact, due to new information sources. These social changes affect the behaviour employees in the organization.
(c) Hence for employee satisfaction and welfare an organisation has to make changes in its working so that it fulfils their expectations.
Kurt Lewin's model of organisational change is one of the early models of planned change. It mentions that organisational change moves from one static (constant) state through a professional shift to another static (constant) state. In this model change takes place at three levels.
(1) Individual level
(2) Structure and systems level and
(3) Organisational Climate
All the levels of an organisation change in three steps, as follows:
(1) Unfreeze -
(a) This step involves creating the right situation for the change to take place
(b) People connect to a sense of identity to their environment so they refuse change.
(c) In this stage, factors which maintain the status quo in the organisation are reduced by considering that there is a need for something new, new behaviour attitude, value system, or organisational structure.
(c) Change is needed because of environment factors such as increased competition, reduced productivity, decline in performance etc.
Some measures which help in undertaking unfreezing process are as follows:
- Changing employee routines, sources of information and social relationships
- Criticising and demeaning experiences to help individuals see their old attitudes or behaviours as of no use, motivating them to change it.
- The constant linking of reward with willingness to change and of punishment with lack of willingness to change
(d) Initially, the employees may not be comfortable with the idea of change.
(e) The challenge is to move people towards change
(2) Changing
(a) This stage involves shift in behaviour of the organisation by changing system, process, technology and people.
(b) This is a period of confusion
(c) Actual change takes place in this stage.
(d) As roles change, efficiency of employees gets reduced and goals are lowered.
(3) Refreeze
(a) Refreeze means to look the newly acquired behaviour, values, structures, etc.
(b) In this stage the change becomes stable and permanent.
(c) A new status Quo is established at this stage. (d) Employees are comfortable with the changes. (e) Employees are provided with support to overcome difficulties in the change process.
(f) Reinforcement (rewards or punishment) important role in change process. It is necessary for bringing and maintaining the change in the employees.
(g) This stage takes employees from low productivity in the change stage to productive state.
Kurt Lewin's model of organisational change and Development
Creativity thinking is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new association with the existing ones. The products of creative thinking usually have both originality and appropriateness (correctness).
Scientists, musicians, artists, writers, teachers, etc. make use of creative thinking. Major inventions, great works of music, art, literature, etc. are possible due to creativity of individuals.
Qualities of a Creative Person
(1) Problem sensitivity: Creative people quickly detect their problems. They detect them even if there are slight changes. Problem solving is an individual's ability to ask naive (lacking experience or judgement) but fruitful questions.
For e.g. Why does the sky look blue?
Why there are 24 hours in a day?
(2) Restructuring problem: Creative people have the ability to restructure problem in interesting ways.
(3) Curious and imaginative: Creative people are always curious to learn new things. They are also imaginative by nature.
For e.g. If someone asks them about the use of a particular medicine. Most would think it gives relief from pains. But some might look at its round shape and wonder whether it could be used as a button, or whether it could be used in making some artistic product or whether one could make a joke about it.
(4) Flexibility: It is the key ability of creative thinkers. Flexibility is an individual 's ability to adapt to different circumstances. Creative thinkers are always flexible.
(5) The ability to guess the causes of problem or situations: Creative thinkers have the ability to guess the cause of problems or situations. They are good at guessing as they possess a wide range of knowledge and interests.
For e.g. This is the ability that distinguishes a first-rate scientist from an average one.
(6) Elaborative ability: It is the ability to take an idea or a thing i and bend and stretch it in interesting ways. Management is full of tools and techniques, each of these need elaborative ability.
(7) Originality: Originality means not a copy. Originality is a crown of creative intelligence. All the features of creative people, fluency, flexibility, problem sensitivity, problem restricting ability, guessing ability, elaboration ability etc. contribute to originality, either individually or in combination.
(8) Independent and Assertive: Creative thinkers have independent thinking. They may not be influenced by the opinions of other people. They make decisions and judgements on the basis of their own thinking and are ready to be assertive (speaking and doing things in a confident and forceful way) even if it needs going against the conventional way (a way in which something is usually done).
The creative person is curious, sensitive, independent, complex, imaginative, visionary, moody, and yet realistic. He has a desire to grow, innovate, pioneer, change the present status, and does not stop when he faces various kinds of fears that come in the way of making bold ideas.
Certain motives plays an important role in the case of creative persons. Most people, mainly professionals, have a strong desire to succeed, to achieve, it go ahead, to be respected and admired and so on, while creative persons have a strong desire to use their capability, do something new, unique, pioneering or innovative.
(9) Intelligence: Most creative people possess high level of intelligence. While some creative people also possess average or above average intelligence. This shows that creative people always need not have high level of intelligence. In fact, studies have shown that IQ and creativity are not related to each other.
(10) Knowledge and interest: Creative people like to gather more and more knowledge. They also have wide range of interests. It is this ability of the creative thinkers that makes them more and more i creative. Creative thinkers always have a desire to increase their knowledge and interests.
Research has shown that all people possess some creativity, it is up to them to use it. Creativity is important in decision making because it helps in increasing the available options in decision-making. For effective decision making, an organisation needs many new ideas. An organisation can enhance its creativity for effective decision making in the following ways:
(1) Making employees participate in the decision-making process.
(2) Changing group membership to stimulate new ideas.
(3) Creating a climate of mutual respect and acceptance among individual. i so that they can share their opinions.
(4) Support creativity even if results in mistake.
(5) Creating an environment for creativity development. An environment where ideas are shared without any fear.
(6) Providing resources for decision making.
(7) Developing diverse groups where people support different opinions.
(8) Providing organisational support that helps in creativity.
(9) Brainstorming -
(a) Brainstorming is another popular way of generating a long list of ideas quickly.
(b) To be effective, a brainstorming session should include at least two people and probably not more than 8 or 10.
(c) The rules for a brainstorming session are:
(1) No evaluation of any kind is permitted
(2) All participants should think of the wildest ideas possible.
(3) The group should be encouraged to come up with as many ideas as possible.
(4) Participants should try to build upon or modify ideas of others.
(10) Metaphorical thinking:
(a) Three kinds metaphors can be used systematically to enhance creativity, direct analogy, personal analogy and fantasy analogy.
(i) Direct analogy involves thinking about how others have solved problems similar to the one under considerations.
(ii) Personal analogy means to imagine a variety of personal situations that are related in some way to the given problem.
(iii) In fantasy analogy, the group tries to come up with truly far. Fetched, fantastic, and ideal solutions.
(11) Nominal Group technique (NGT)
(a) Individuals in each group write down as many ideas as they can on a piece of paper.
(b) Then each individual in turn presents one of his ideas.
(c) The group leader records these ideas on a chalkboard or flip chart.
(d) Discussion begins after ideas from each participant are written down.
(e) At the end, each individual writes down his ranking or ratingof the ideas.
(f) These are then combined mathematically to arrive at a group decision.
(12) Devil's advocacy and dialectical inquiry Individuals take sides in a debate. The main advantage of this kind of approach is that it can help a group of individuals consider a problem from multiple perspectives.
Creative Problem Solving is a proven method for approaching a problem or a challenge in an imaginative and innovative way. It is a tool that helps people re-define the problems they face, come up with breakthrough ideas and then take action on these new ideas. Alex Osborn and Sidney Pames conducted extensive research on the steps that are involved when people solve problems, the result of which is the following 6 steps that are broken down into 3 stages:
Creative problem Solving is a structured process, it's also very flexible. When creative problem solving becomes part of an individual's way of thinking and working. He can use one step at a time as and when he needs it. Once he understands the basics of creative problem solving, he can use this process in every situation.
Stage - 1
Explore the Challenge
(a) Objective Finding - Identify Goal, Wish or Challenge
This could be a wish or a goal. It might be the initial dissatisfaction or a desire that opens the door to using the creative problem-solving process.
(b) Fact Finding
An individual has to Assess and review all the data that relates to the given situation. Who's involved, what's involved, when, where and why it's important. Make a list of the facts and information, as well as feelings, perceptions, and assumptions around the situation. In this step. All the data is taken into consideration to review the objective and begin to innovate.
(c) Problem Finding
In this step, an individual explores the facts and data to find all the problems and challenges inherent in the situation, and all the opportunities they represent. This is about making sure he's focusing on the right problem. It is possible to come up with the right answer to the wrong problem. He has to Re-define what he wants or what's stopping him.
Stage - 2
Generate Ideas
(a) Generate Ideas
Generating ideas is much more than brainstorming. During this step an individual should be vigilant about deferring judgement and coming up with wild, outrageous, out-of-the-box ideas. This is where he explores ideas that are possible solutions and have the most fun. It's also where he needs to stretch to make connections, take risks, and try new combinations to find potentially innovative solutions.
Stage - 3
Prepare for Action
(a) Solution Finding-Select and Strengthen Solutions
First he should try to strengthen and improve the best ideas generated. Next, generate the criteria that needs to be considered to evaluate the ideas for success. Apply that criteria to the top ideas and decide which are most likely to solve the redefined problem. The best idea needs to meet criteria that makes it actionable before it becomes the solution. A creative idea is not really useful if it won't be implemented.
(b) Acceptance Finding -Plan for Action
In this step an individual should look at who's responsible, what has to be done by whom and what resources are available in order to put this idea into action as a solution to the problem.
Definition for Organizational Development
Richard Beckhard says "Organisational Development is an effort, planned, organisation-wide and managed from the top, to increase organisation effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organisation's processes, using Behavioural science knowledge."
In simple words organisational Development is an applied Behavioural science which focuses on improving the effectiveness of the organisation and also people working in it. It considers social processes in the organisation, Organisation culture. Decision of work structure of the organisation, strategy etc.
Need for Organisational Development
Organisational development is needed because of the following reasons:
(1) To meet the organisation's Goals:
(a) To be successful, an organisation needs to use modern management techniques this is possible by undertaking organisation development.
(b) Organisational Development is needed to treat employees well, this helps in reducing turnover and hiring best employees.
(c) OD helps in teamwork; teamwork is needed in today's organisations.
(d) OD is needed to help employees in accepting and promoting change in the organisation.
(e) OD is needed for increasing consistency (agreement) between organisational structure, processes, strategy, people and culture.
(f) OD helps in developing organisation's self-renewing capacity.
(2) To make organisation a better place to work in:
(a) OD helps in making employees happy and productive.
(b) OD helps in creating a democratic workplace.
(c) OD helps in providing good work life to the employees.
(d) OD helps in intergroup collaboration.
(e) OD helps in creating motivation among employees.
(f) OD helps in building trust and support among employees.
(1) Survey feedback:
(a) Survey feedback is a widely used OD Technique.
(b) It involves survey research and feedback of data. It starts with sequential activities involving data collection, feedback of information, developing of action a plans based on feedback and follow up.
(c) This technique provides data and information to the managers Information on attitude of employees, hours of work, working conditions, etc. are collected and the results are given to the top executive teams. They analyze the data, find out the problem, evaluate the results and develop ways to correct the problems.
(d) The teams are formed with the employees at all levels in the organizations hierarchy.
(e) Survey feedback provides the base for many managerial actions.
(f) It is cost effective means. It is a cost-effective way of implementing a comprehensive OD programmes which makes it a desirable technique.
(2) Sensitivity Training:
(a) It is also known as T-group, where "T" stands for training.
(b) This approach has been developed from the group dynamics concept of Kurt Lewin.
(c) The aim of sensitivity training is to change the behaviour of employees through unstructured group interaction.
(d) Sensitivity training consists of a small group generally 10 to 15 members brought together in a free open environment away from the workplace.
(e) Participants discuss freely their ideas, beliefs and attitudes.
(f) T groups help the participants in having increased awareness of their own behaviour and how others perceive them, greater sensitivity to the behaviour of others and increased understanding of group processes.
(g) Sensitivity Training besides this, also makes people develop the ability to understand the emotions of others, improve their listening skills, improves conflict resolving skills, more openness, respect for individual differences, etc.
(h) But, it has been found that all the positive changes are seen only during training later individual's go back to their earlier behaviour.
(3) Managerial Grid:
(a) This concept is based on grid organizational development created by Black and Mouton.
(b) It is an OD programme which aims at individuals, group and organization as a whole.
(c) Grid Training promotes organizational effectiveness.
(d) It identifies a range of management behaviour based on different ways that how production oriented and employee-oriented states interact with each other.
(e) It consists of individual and group exercises, for developing awareness of individual managerial style, interpersonal competence and group effectiveness. Hence, Grid training is related to the leadership styles.
(4) Management by Objective (MBO)
(a) MBO is a management system in which each member of the organization participates and involves himself.
(b) The system gives full scope to individuals strength and responsibility
(c) MBO links the goal of an individual with the organizations goal.
(d) This technique involves five processes.
(i) Step 1: Designing and developing objectives by the top management.
(ii) Step 2: Clarifying organizational goals-sometimes ani organizational goals are not properly clarified and specific responsibility for achieving these objectives is not fixed. There should be very clear assignment of task and responsibility.
(iii) Step 3: Develop action plan -Jobs descriptions for various positions must define the goals to be achieved. Resources for this should be identified and allocated. Then, means for implementation of plans are decided Goals and resources should match together.
(iv) Step 4: Periodic reviews: They are done at regular intervals to see the performance. Reviews are done by the superiors and subordinate. If needed, the goals are modified. Ways for improving performance in future are identified.
(v) Step 5: Appraisal of yearly performance. A detailed individual performance is done every year. Rewards are decided on the basis of annual appraisal.
(5) Team Building
(a) It is an effective approach to develop and maintain a team culture in an organization, which helps the group members to enhance their interpersonal and problem-solving skills.
(b) It also helps team members to develop a higher level of motivation to carry out the group decisions by overcoming specific problems like general lack of interest among members,
Complaints within the group, confusion in assignments, low participation in meetings lack of innovation and initiation, Team building be used for the following types of teams:
(i) Group or Team reporting to the same supervisor/manager
(ii) Group or Team involving people with common organizational goals.
(iii) Temporary group or team formed to perform a specific, one-time task.
(iv) Group or Team consisting of people whose work roles are interdependent.
(6) Process consultation:
(a) It focuses on interpersonal relation and the factors that bring change in the working of the work group.
(b) The process consultant helps group members in finding problems in group functioning and take proper solutions to solve their group process problem such as conflict, ineffective norms, poor communication, etc.
(c) The process consultant gathers data, through various sources such as Questionnaires, observations and interviews.
(d) Information collected is processed to understand the problem and the causes.
(e) He coaches and counsels’ individuals and groups in changing their behaviour
(f) If needed. He may also make structural changes in the group.
Stress has become an inevitable part in everyone's life. Examples of stress are as follows:
(1) Conflict with boss, co-workers, etc.
(2) Pressure to do work on time.
(3) Joining a new job.
(4) Pressure to keep up with the demands of the society.
(5) Separation from a loved one, etc.
In simple words stress can be defined as "mental or emotional tension or strain that leads to discomfort in the body".
Many events in an individual's life strain or exceed an individual's ability to cope. This leads to stress.
Stress may be classified into two types:
(1) Positive stress (Eustress)
(a) Moderate and manageable levels of stress for a reasonable period of time can be handled by the body it is accompanied by positive emotions such as, enjoyment, satisfaction, excitement motivation, happiness, etc.
(b) This beneficial stress is called Eustress (EU-meaning good). It is often known as pleasant stress which is very important for a person to generate maximum performance and output. Eustress, or positive stress, has the following features:
- Motivates,
- Is Short-term
- Can be handed by an individual
- Feels exciting
- Generates good performance
Some of the examples of Eustress are:
- Getting promotion
- Birth of a child
- Winning a competition
- Excitement of Achieving a goal, etc.
(2) Negative stress (Distress)-It is an overload of stress that affects physical, mental or emotional wellbeing of an individual. It is bad stress or negative stress. This has been termed as distress.
Distress, or negative stress, has the following features:
- Causes anxiety
- Can be short-or long-term
- Is considered as outside of an individual's coping abilities
- Feels unpleasant
- Decreases performance at work.
- Can lead to mental and physical problems.
Examples of negative personal stressors include: -
- Being neglected
- Being abused
- Dominating Boss
- Having non-co-operative college
- Jobs that require working in noise.
CAUSES OF JOB STRESS
(1) Task Demands
(a) It is one of the important causes of job stress. (b) Task demand's includes factors such as design of the individual's job, working conditions and physical layout.
(c) The more an individual's task is interdependent on the task of other's more are the chances of stress.
(d) Jobs which involve working in noise or high temperature lead to increase in stress and anxiety levels.
(e) Working in an overcrowded room also leads to stress and discomfort in the individual.
(f) Job security also relates to stress. An individual who has secure job is happy as he will not lose it while an individual who does not have a secure job may worry as he can lose it.
(g) Change is another stressful demand that people fact at work. Change leads to uncertainty, and lack of predictability in an individual's daily job tasks change in technology also creates.
Change and uncertainty among employees. They have to make adjustment by getting trained, and developing their skills. This leads to stress among them
(h) Lack of Control also leads to job stress. An individual may not be able to complete the tasks on time because it is difficult or demanding. He may not be able to exercise direct control over the work results. Hence, lack of control leads to stress.
(i) Overload of Work- Overload of work takes place when an individual has to do many things in title time. This leads to stress at work.
(2) Role Demands-Role demands means the pressures that are placed on a person as a function of a particular role he plays in the organisation. It includes role conflicts, role ambiguity and role overload
(a) Role conflict occurs when an individual is faced with role expectations that clash. This happens when fulfilling requirement of one role makes it difficult to comply with another.
For E.g. - An organisation may expect a manger to stay late at work his wife and children want him to devote free hours with them. This leads to role conflicts. It an employee perceives role conflicts to be severe, he may experience stress.
(b) Role Ambiguity -An individual experiences role ambiguity when he does not know what is expected out of him
(c) Role Overload-It takes place when too much is expected out of an individual which he cannot fulfil. Role overload puts a lot of load on the individual, then he can handle. The role played by him demands a lot from him. This creates stress.
(3) Interpersonal Demands
(a) Every individual has different personality, behaviour, style attitude, thinking etc.
(b) At workplace all individual have different personality, behaviour thinking etc.
(c) An individual has to make adjustments with different people, at workplace.
(d) It he is not able to make adjustment with other employees and colleagues, this leads to lack of social support and poor interpersonal relationships. Hence, stress takes place.
(4) Leadership styles
(a) It means the leadership style of senior managers.
(b) Leadership style adopted by the management also leads to stress.
(c) In organisations all employees have difficult personality, what is liked by an individual may not be liked by another.
(d) For E.g. It the management adopts authoritarian style, the employees who are used to authoritarian style will be comfortable while others may feel lack of freedom and anxiety as they are not used to it, they are used to participative leadership.
(d) Some managements create an environment of fear of punishment, this leads to stress.
(5) Some managements put a lot of load on employees, then they can handle. They expect employees to perform exceptionally well in short period of time this leads to work stress.
(6) At some workplaces, individuals have to follow strict schedules and excessive norms (rules), this also has negative impact on them.
(7) Hence, an organisation's leadership style plays an important role in job stress.
CONSEQUENCES OF JOB STRESS
Consequences of job stress are as follows:
(1) Job stress leads to job dissatisfaction.
(2) Multiple and conflicting role demands, lack of clarity of about an individual's duties, etc. leads to job dissatisfaction.
(3) The lesser the individuals have control over their work, greater is the job dissatisfaction.
(4) Symptoms of stress at work include changes in productivity of employees, turnover and absence as well as changes in habits, smoking, rapid speech, consumption of alcohol, etc.
Some strategies that organisations used to manage job stress are as follows:
(1)Proper personnel selection and job placement leading to proper person job. Fit, this reduces the chances of nonperformance of employees and hence, stress can be reduced.
(2) Training in stress management is another technique used by organisations to reduce stress.
(3) Good organisational communication helps in reducing confusion, hence, decreasing stress levels.
(4) Using realistic goal setting, redesigning of jobs can help in properly assigning jobs to individuals this reduces stress.
(5) Increasing employee involvement, improving motivation. Commitment, etc. also helps in reducing stress in organisation.
(6) Giving proper pay package and incentives to deserving employees and having proper 'Human Relations' mechanism also helps in reducing stress at job.
