The problem of strategies for organizational change. Identifying challenges in implementing strategic change

Implementation of the strategy involves carrying out the necessary changes, without which even the most well-developed strategy can fail. Therefore, we can confidently say that strategic change is the key to strategy execution.

Carrying out strategic changes in an organization is a very difficult task. The difficulties in solving this problem are primarily due to the fact that any change is met resistance, which can sometimes be so strong that it cannot be overcome by those making changes. Therefore, in order to make changes, it is necessary, at a minimum, to do the following:

Reveal, analyze and predict what resistance the planned change may encounter;

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

Establish the status quo of a new state.

The bearers of resistance, as well as the 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 strive to prevent changes in order not to find themselves in a new situation that is not entirely clear to them, in which they will have to do things differently than they are already used to doing, and do something different from what they did before.

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

Fig 5 3 Matrix “change - resistance”

The management of the organization, based on conversations, interviews, questionnaires and other forms of information collection, should try to find out what type of reaction to changes will be observed in the organization, which of the organization's employees will take the position of supporters of the changes, and who will end up in one of the three remaining positions. This type of forecast is especially relevant in large organizations and in organizations that have existed without change for a fairly long period of time, since in these organizations resistance to change can be quite strong and widespread.

Reducing resistance to change plays a key role in implementing change. Analysis of potential forces of resistance allows us to reveal those individual members of the organization or those groups in the organization who will resist change, and to understand the motives for not accepting the change. In order to reduce potential resistance, it is useful to unite people in creative groups, which will facilitate the change, involve a wide range of employees in the development of the change program, and conduct extensive explanatory work among the organization’s employees aimed at convincing them of the need to carry out the change to solve the problems facing the organization.

The success of a change depends on how management implements it. Managers must remember that when making changes they must demonstrate high level confidence in its rightness and necessity and try to be, if possible, consistent in implementing the change program. At the same time, they must always remember that people's positions may change as the change is carried out. Therefore, they should not pay attention to slight resistance to change and treat normally people who initially resisted change and then stopped this resistance.

Big influence the extent to which management manages to eliminate resistance to change is influenced by style carrying out the change. A leader can be tough and inflexible in eliminating resistance, or he can be flexible. It is believed that the autocratic style can only be useful in very specific situations that require the immediate elimination of resistance to very important changes. In most cases, a style in which management reduces resistance to change by winning over those who were initially opposed to change is considered more acceptable. Participative leadership style, in which many members of the organization are involved in resolving issues, is very successful in this regard.

When resolved conflicts, that may arise in an organization during change, managers may use different leadership styles. The most pronounced styles are the following:

competitive style, emphasizing strength, based on perseverance, assertion of one’s rights, based on the fact that conflict resolution presupposes the presence of a winner and a loser;

withdrawal style manifested in the fact that management demonstrates low persistence and at the same time does not strive to find ways to cooperate with dissenting members of the organization;

style of compromise implying moderate insistence by management on the implementation of its approaches to resolving the conflict and at the same time moderate desire by management to cooperate with those who resist;

fixture style, expressed in the desire of management to establish cooperation in resolving the conflict while at the same time weakly insisting on the adoption of the decisions it proposes;

collaboration style, characterized by the fact that management strives both to implement its approaches to change and to establish cooperative relationships with dissenting members of the organization.

It is impossible to say unequivocally that any of the five styles mentioned is more acceptable for resolving conflicts, and some less so. It all depends on the situation, what change is being made, what problems are being solved and what forces are resisting. It is also important to consider the nature of the conflict. It is completely wrong to assume that conflicts always have only a negative, destructive nature. Any conflict contains both negative and positive principles. If the negative principle predominates, then the conflict is destructive in nature, and in this case, any style that can effectively prevent the destructive consequences of the conflict is applicable. If the conflict leads to positive results, such as, for example, bringing people out of an indifferent state, creating new communication channels or increasing the level of awareness of organization members about the processes taking place in it, then it is important to use this style of resolving conflicts arising in connection with changes, which would contribute to the emergence of the widest possible range of positive results carrying out the change.

The change must be completed establishing 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 is not just formally established, but is accepted by members of the organization and becomes a reality. Therefore, management should not be mistaken and confuse reality with formally established new structures or norms of relations. If the actions to implement the change did not lead to the emergence of a new stable status quo, then the change cannot be considered complete and work on its implementation should continue until the old situation is replaced with a new one in the organization.

Towards acceptance of change. As practice shows, changes meet resistance from employees if the atmosphere of psychological comfort changes or hidden threats to a person’s position in the organization are felt. Typically, employees have a negative attitude towards possible changes for several reasons, such as  

What are the main problems that arise in an organization when making strategic changes?  

When tasks and technologies are taken into account during change, work design, socio-technical systems, quality circles, business process reengineering, total quality management methods are typically used. When focusing on changing the structure, their adaptive types are used: parallel, metric and network. Strategic change requires, for example, the use of an open planning system. Comprehensive organizational change programs, regardless of what they focus on, often involve simultaneous changes to several aspects of the organization. Managers and employees need to be informed and aware of the potential ethical issues that accompany the process of change in an organization.  

Thus, when creating it is necessary to make changes in the company, which can cause (and, as a rule, cause) resistance. This problem concerns the implementation of a strategic management system to a greater extent than other changes, since the transition to strategic behavior requires a rethinking of the company’s activities by everyone who works in it. Therefore, insufficient awareness by the management and employees of the company of the need for organizational changes and the lack of appropriate measures for this can ruin any intentions to improve management.  

After the company’s mission has been formulated and regulatory documents have been developed (or adjusted) to carry out diagnostic work and implement changes, it is necessary to form a team of creative workers capable of reorienting the organizational culture of the enterprise to new values, the essence of which is determined by consumer problems. And this is the third stage of change. Obviously, the team should consist of creatively thinking workers who are not afraid of change, boldly apply new concepts, can argue their positions in public discussions and, naturally, enjoy respect in the team. One of the most important requirements for a team is to have a unifying goal (not to be confused with the goal of a marketing plan). This goal is to change the organizational culture and is therefore strategic for the enterprise. This goal must be shared by all team members. Let's list the essential requirements (except for a single goal) for the team  

The strategic importance of white-collar workers has become apparent when shortages of skilled workers, especially in technical fields, intensify competition for human resources. Moreover, these shortages are expected to worsen. These trends force strategic planning to pay significantly more attention to the problem of human resources than in the recent past. The prospects for strategic success are largely determined by the ability to manage the corporation's human resources. Employees and how they are managed can be important. Because of their importance to competitiveness, employees are receiving increasing attention in the organizational planning of large organizations. Research has shown that more sophisticated and thorough human resource planning, recruitment, and selection strategies are associated with increased productivity, especially in capital-intensive organizations. Also, a large-scale study of nearly a thousand firms in the United States found that good work practices are associated with lower turnover, higher productivity, and more efficient short- and long-term financial performance, leading the famous management theorist J. Pfeffer to state that achieving success in competition through people involves a significant change in the way we think about labor and employment relations. This means that success must be achieved by working with people, not by replacing them or limiting their ability to act. This entails viewing labor as a source of strategic advantage rather than as a revenue item that should be minimized or avoided altogether. A firm that embraces these perspectives is often able to outmaneuver and outperform its competitors.  

The implementation of a strategy itself presupposes a number of changes, without which even the most well-developed strategy may fail. It is safe to say that strategic change is the key to strategy implementation. Carrying out strategic change in an organization is a very difficult task. First of all, the difficulties of solving this problem are determined by the fact that any change certainly meets resistance, which can be so strong that those who carry out the changes cannot overcome it. Therefore, in order to make strategic changes, it is important, at a minimum:

• uncover, analyze and predict what resistance the planned change may encounter;
• reduce this resistance to the minimum possible;
• establish the status quo of this new state.

Response to strategic change

The bearers of resistance, just like the bearers of change, are people. We can say that people are not afraid of change, they can be afraid of being changed. A person is afraid that organizational changes will affect his work, his position in the organization, or the existing status quo. Based on this, they try to interfere with changes in order not to get into a situation that is not entirely clear and new to them, in which people will have to do a lot of things differently from what they are already used to doing, and do something different from what they previously did.

Attitude to change is usually considered as a combination of factor states (Fig. 1):

1. acceptance or non-acceptance of the change;
2. open or hidden demonstration of attitude towards change.

Rice. 1. Matrix “change - resistance”

The head of the organization in conversations, interviews, survey and other forms of information collection should try to understand what type of reaction to change is observed in the organization, which of the employees can take the position of a supporter of the changes, and which will end up in the remaining positions. Such forecasts are especially relevant in large organizations and in organizations that have existed without changes for a long period of time, since in such organizations resistance to change can become quite strong.

Reducing resistance to change

Reducing resistance to strategic change is key to implementing change. Analyzing possible forces of resistance helps to identify those individual members or those groups in the organization who will resist the change, and to understand the motives for rejecting the change. In order to reduce potential resistance, it is necessary to unite people into creative groups that will facilitate the change, involve a large number of employees in the development of a behavioral change program, and conduct explanatory work among employees aimed at convincing them of the need for changes to solve the problems facing the organization .

The success of a change is determined by how management implements it. The manager must remember that when implementing a change, he should demonstrate high confidence in its necessity and correctness and try, if possible, to be consistent in implementing the change program. At the same time, the manager must always remember that as the change is implemented, people's positions may change; attention to slight resistance to change and to treat normally people who previously resisted change and then stopped this resistance.

The style of implementing the change has a significant influence on the extent to which a manager can eliminate resistance to change. When eliminating resistance, a leader can be tough and unyielding, or he can be flexible. It is generally accepted that the authoritarian style is useful only in specific situations that require the rapid elimination of resistance when making important changes. For the most part, a more acceptable style is one in which the leader reduces resistance to change by winning over those who were initially opposed to the change. Quite successful in this regard is the participatory leadership style, in which many members of the organization can be involved in resolving issues.

Conflicts during strategic change

When resolving conflicts that arise in an organization during a change, a manager can use different leadership styles. The most popular styles are:

• competitive style, which emphasizes strength, persistence, assertion of rights, and assumes that conflict resolution implies the presence of a winner and a loser;
• a style of self-withdrawal, which manifests itself in the fact that the leader is characterized by low persistence and does not strive to find ways to cooperate with dissenting members of the organization;
• a style of compromise, which involves the leader’s moderate insistence on implementing his approach to resolving the conflict and at the same time the leader’s moderate desire for cooperation with those who resist;
• style of adaptation, which is expressed in the desire of the leader to establish cooperation in resolving the conflict while at the same time weakly insisting on his acceptance of the proposed decisions;
• a collaborative style, which is characterized by the fact that the leader strives both to implement his approach to change and to establish cooperation with dissenting members of the organization.

It is clear to say that any of the listed styles is more acceptable in a conflict situation, and some less so. Everything is determined by the situation and what change is being made, what problems are being solved and what forces are resisting. It is also necessary to take into account the nature of the conflict.

Let us note that conflicts do not always have only a negative, destructive nature. Every conflict has both a negative and a positive beginning. When the negative principle predominates, the conflict is destructive in nature, and in this case, any style that is able to prevent the destructiveness of the conflict is applicable. If conflict leads to positive outcomes, then a style of resolving change-related conflicts should be used that promotes a wide range of positive change outcomes.

Changes must necessarily end with the establishment of a new status quo in the organization. It is quite important not only to eliminate resistance to strategic changes, but also to ensure that the new state of affairs for the organization is not just formally established, but becomes accepted by all members of the organization.

Conclusion

So, management should not be mistaken and replace reality with new formally established structures or norms of relations in the organization. If actions implementation of the change did not lead to the emergence of a new stable status quo, then, therefore, the change cannot be considered completed and it is necessary to continue working on its implementation until the moment when the old situation is truly replaced by a new one in the organization.