Some names of people and places have been modified to protect the individual privacy.
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A quiet afternoon in 2011; Mrs. Garcia, owner and director of a child day-care, sat down by her desk. She faced one of the most difficult decisions in her career: To dismiss an employee who had collaborated with her the past 15 years due to her resistance to change. In 2008, the day care, had been completely redesigned, rebranded and relocated to adapt to a new market. The changes encountered resistance from the operational staff, especially from the manager on duty: Mrs Moreno, whose dismissal was then being considered. This paper will analyse the process of adaptation to a new market, the roll of leadership styles in change management, deviant behaviour as resistance and the implementation of change. It will be proven that resistance to change is good, however to effectively introduce change in an organization there should be strong participative management.
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Nowadays organizations face the challenge of intense transformation responding to environmental change, restrictions, requirements, and emerging opportunities (N?stase, M, Giuclea, M, & Bold, O 2012). Change is inevitable but it has to be implemented by humans. People need to acquire new knowledge, tackle new tasks, improve competences, change work habits, values and attitudes. In this topic there are two main forms of change: Organizational Transformation and Organizational Development. The first is a dramatic transformation responding to external factors and outcome oriented.? The second form of change is planned and incremental, focused on an internal development with a long-term perspective (Waddell et al 2011).
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In 1989, Mrs Garcia founded The Panamerican Pedagogic Institute, a day-care facility in Mexico City. It performed successfully until 1998 when it was relocated and left in the hands of outsourced management. After 10 years, Mrs. Garcia regained the ownership of the institute. The Institute moved to the original location branded under a new name in 2008 with a new design, added security features, Internet site, digital distribution, and online security cameras for parent?s supervision. The mission and vision statement changed to focus on a younger market of parents concerned not only with academic learning but also interested in security, environmental performance and technology.? After those changes where implemented the market responded well and by 2011 the business was taking care of 36 children on a daily basis. The staff was also required to perform monthly psychological test on the kids to assess their development in key competency areas; the uniform change to a more casual attire and the tasks were redistributed to assure fairness and control by management.
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As shown on the case, it underwent an Organizational Transformation driven by external forces to stay in the market. This transformation was dramatic and not very well implemented. The owner focused on market driven approach and did not consult the staff to ensure that they had the professional knowledge to perform according to the new standards. A previous market analysis and internal analysis could have been important before the unfreezing stage started. In order to keep up to market trends the business? management needs to switch to an organizational development approach, adapting the internal procedures and strategies. The internal development of the business should have involved the staff and the clients to produce a new business strategy that matched both stakeholders? interests. In this case, it is shown that a change driven only by the market can cause internal turmoil and resistance even if some key performance factors show success.
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A participative leadership style is required to carry out the organizational change. The leadership style is the result of the combination of the manager?s ideas, believes, norms and values. Different types of leadership have been studied such as: authoritarian, democratic and laissez faire (Iqbal et al 2012). Leadership has been defined as the interpersonal capacity to reach goals through effective communication (Limbare 2012). When implementing change the leader needs to adjust his or her style to the situation getting a better understanding of his or her behaviour and its effect in the team (Waddell, 2012).
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When Mrs Garcia reassumed the direction of the business, the only member of the old staff carried to the new concept was Mrs Moreno hired as duty manager. Mrs Garcia assumed a laissez faire leadership style, while Mrs Moreno acted as an authoritarian leader. Mrs Garcia lost power among the staff and Mrs Moreno applied the old standards to the new organization because it served better her interest. The new organization strived to have a better command chain and integrated psychological and academic appraisals delivered to the parents on a monthly basis. Every teacher was doing her part in the new scheme however Mrs Moreno was the only one acting against the new policies.
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Mrs Garcia should have assumed a transactional leadership style to implement change and retain control of the staff while they were learning the new abilities required. In this case the new strategies could not be implemented as desired because of a weak laissez faire approach from management. It is also important to take into consideration that in the Mexican culture there is a long power distance (The Hofstede Centre, 2013) therefore we can conclude that the management has a great influence in the way that change is introduced. If we compare Australia?s and Mexico?s Power Distance charts the first scored 36 while the second shows 81 (The Hofstede Centre, 2013) When management showed a weak leadership, the strongest one in the line of command took the power. Taking into consideration the cultural aspect, the theory and the facts we conclude that a strong authoritarian leadership is required to introduce change and then a smoother democratic approach can buy the staff commitment to change.
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Maurer (1996) cited in Waddell (1998) Sais that two-thirds of all major organizational changes fail because of resistance. This phenomenon is regarded as employee?s actions trying to stop, delay or alter change (Bemmels and Reshef, 1991). Thus having a negative connotation, however resent research has shown that resistance results from rational, non-rational, political and management factors (Waddell 1998). Resistance has become the most natural and healthy response to change and it can have valuable outcome when the management engage with it to improve the proposed change (Waddell 1998). Resistance points out that change is not always good, it pushes the organisation to stability, it promotes specialization and control, it looks for other solutions and outcomes. The real challenge is to find the correct balance between resistance and change. Apathy and passivity can be more harmful to change than resistance (Waddell 1998).
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Resistance to change can be turn positively by engaging in communication and consultation. When participative management is involved the employees tend to be committed and involved in change rather than just compliant with it (Maurer 1996). When the employees are involved in change they will challenge the new order and find a better outcome, as in the legislative process constant challenge ensures that the best solution is applied.
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New employees that have invested less in status quo are less likely to resist change than long serving employees or managers that have invested more in the company. Judson (1991) cited in Agboola & Salawu? (2011) identified 4 possible reactions towards change: acceptance, indifference, passive resistance, and active resistance. In the worst case resistance can manifest as deviant behaviour such as aggressive oppositions or hostile manifestations. Notable examples of deviant behaviour are absenteeism, striking, sabotage, gossip and physical violence. To overcome resistance Mooketsi (2009) cited in Agboola & Salawu ?(2011) recommends:? education and communication, foster open communication, involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement, manipulation and co-optation, implicit or explicit coercion.
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When Mrs Garcia noticed that her leadership style had put her business in danger she changed to a very hard authoritarian approach. The interests of Mrs Moreno were compromised by the new management style. She began to spread gossip among clients and staff, and making important decisions about the operations without authorization. After all, Mrs Moreno had great professional experience and she was a valuable human asset. Her dismissal was brought up to attention after she blackmailed the staff, manipulated the holiday roster to obtain an unfair advantage and started gossip among the parents to get one staff member discharged. Two years after the re-branding it was struggling to maintain the changes. There was small motivation among the staff mainly because of contradictory information coming from the management.
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The biggest resistance was presented by the manager as active deviant behaviour. The owner decided to dismiss the manager; by doing this she applied explicit coercion and reaffirmed her leadership in the organization. Shortly after the decision was taken the rest of the staff accepted the change. With an integrated authoritarian leadership the change was implemented. The owner also engaged in communication through staff meetings and negotiation. Once the new procedures were in place a new manager was assigned and the owner assumed a participative democratic leadership style. She had learnt her lesson.
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Due to the confrontation the owner realised that the organization required more staff to operate in the new standards, especially to have a fair holiday roster. Engaging in open communication allowed the owner to know that most of the staff lacked the knowledge to perform the desired psychological appraisals of the kids; this was tackled with a training program delivered on the premises by expert childhood development psychologists. It was also brought to attention that the parents desired to have more psychological and pedagogical couching, thus opening a new business opportunity in partnership with a private psychologist. As we can see, resistance is often a symptom of a more delicate organizational dysfunction. At this point she had lost two years trying to implement change without consulting the staff, thus loosing valuable time and money.
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Having analyse the change process of this particular child day care ?and how it was managed by the owner we will now apply Professor William Pietersen?s (2004) framework as de ?recommended? way to deal with change: The framework starts by creating a simple and compelling statement; this was well done by the owner by adapting to the changes of the environment and redefining the mission and vision statement. The second step is: honest and constant communication; the owner should have keep the management power engaging in open communication to the staff and clients to assess the real implications of change. Most of the problems encountered by the business were due to poor communication. The third step is: maximize participation; from the beginning the teachers and management should have been consulted on their knowledge and capacity to implement the change. The clients should have also been consulted regarding their satisfaction level and how it could be meet. The fourth step is: remove all those who resist if there is no other option; this was executed however the organization had spent 2 years already with financial and human loss. The fifth step is: set short term wins; the owner should have implemented a small wins reward system based on achievements. Step sixth is: set a good example; the owner should have set a good example by implementing all the changes herself, inspiring the staff to be like her and to have discipline.
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As we have seen most of the research on change management is old, coming from the 90?s and developing very few new tools on the recent years. Technology has enabled new techniques in management to arise, however they are not being implemented towards change management yet. We will discus ?Gamification? as a possible tool to help managing resistance to change.
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Gamification is based on the psychological fact the human beings are goal oriented by nature and that organizations can build upon these goals to encourage desired behaviours on costumers and staff (Newman 2012). Gamification has been applied mainly in marketing strategies by new researchers such as Gabe Zichermann. People love to play games, because they are fun, but the definition between what is fun and what is not is a very arbitrary line. We can make everything fun depending on its design (Gabe Zichermann 2010). Nowadays there is a game about air traffic control, which is one of the most stressful activities in the world and it has a big suicide rate, however there is a fun game about it. If air traffic control is fun, anything can be fun. ?Let?s think about Gamification as non-fiction gaming. It is gaming with your real friends, with your real money and your real stuff in the real world? (Gabe Zichermann, 2010)
Games are designed to maximize reward; they can make people take actions against their self-interest, in a predictable way, without the use of force (Gabe Zichermann, 2010). This is why it has been mostly used in marketing to engage buyers into desired behaviour patters driven by a physical or physiological reward. Gamification has slowly been introduced into human resources management designing learning games. These strategies have reported: improvement on performance and knowledge, enhanced achievement orientation, unparalleled levels of engagement, and it reinforces learning and development (Cook, 2013).
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We could apply Gamification theory to change management. We would need to identify the goal as the desired state of the organization. Breaking the goal into smaller stages we could? ?unlock? achievements. Employees would engage better in change if they could see how their behaviour is helping the change in a chart based on experience points that could be up dated to share in the community. The employees with more points would have a physiological reward.? Change does not need to be boring; organizations could engage in roll play. There could be also virtual currency involved in change to raise engagement. Resistance to change would drop significantly if all staff members are committed in a fun, nourishing and challenging activity that would give them a reward. The use of new strategies has become more important with the incorporation of the Y generation in to the labour market. We need to transform our organizations in order to adapt to their new mind set.
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At the end of this essay it is concluded that change is necessary to adapt to the external environment and meet the market expectations; that change is good as it nourishes change but it can be a set back if deviant behaviour is involved; and that a democratic/participative management style is necessary to deal with deviant behaviour and make the best out of resistance. We have also applied Professor William Pietersen?s framework to highlight that change wasn?t implemented well in the business and that the owner response to resistance happened to late. We have also recommended to apply Gamification strategies as a new tool in change management to increase employee engagement and participation.
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This essay asks us to think about the future of change management. As a new generation pushes through the labour market we need to adapt and change with it. We have been using the same management theory for years and it is time for us to change. We are about to experience a bigger change, a change in generations; and the new generation is even more different than we can even imagine. How would we deal with our own resistance to change our management theory? We need to expand our tools using our imagination as creativity, after all as Dr Seuss in 1975 said, ?think left, think right, and think low and think high. Oh! ?The thinks you can think up if you only try!?
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Bemmels, B. and Reshef, Y. 1991, ?Manufacturing, employees and technological change?, Journal of Labour Research, Vol. 12 No. 3, Summer, pp. 231-46.
Choi, M 2011, ?Employees? attitudes toward organizational change: A literature review?, Human Resource Management, 50, 4, pp. 479-500, viewed 5 March 2013. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost.
Cook, W 2013, ?Five Reasons Why You Can?t Ignore Gamification?, Incentive, 187, 1, pp. 22-23, viewed 6 March 2013. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost.
Google Tech Talks, Video, available in Youtube. Presented by Gabe Zichermann. October 26 2010. Viewed on 5 March 2013.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O1gNVeaE4g>
Iqbal, J, Inayat, S, Ijaz, M, & Zahid, A 2012, ?Leadership styles: identifying approaches and dimensions of leaders?, Interdisciplinary Journal Of Contemporary Research In Business, 4, 3, pp. 641-659, viewed 5 March 2013. Business Soure Complete, EBSCOhost.
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NEWMAN, B 2012, ?Can gamification help your company??, Westchester County Business Journal, 48, 51, p. 5, , viewed 6 March 2013. Regional Business News, EBSCOhost.
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Seuss, Dr.? 1975 , Oh, the thinks you can think! ?New York Beginners Books, New York USA
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The Hofstede Centre 2013 ?Mexico in comparison with the below? viewed on 4 March 2013
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