Introduction to Organizational Change

Seed of Change: Diagnosis for the quasi-firm "Custom Food and Feed Corporation: CFFCo" By Patrick Darnell

Diagnosis: Seed of Change, Dynamic, and a Constant

Vice President of Human Resources has convinced the president of the company that the first change is to put a Human Resource Manager, HRM in the Tech division. The president agreed. (Task Detail; CTUOnline, 2006)
You are the newly hired Human Resource Manager for the Tech Division. As you meet your new department personnel and your purposes are disclosed, an Adage: “...the more things change, the more they stay the same;” quickly becomes the corporate chant. Try to relate “latest mandates of the Officers” with the “nonstandard ubiquity of nepotism,” stir in the total resistance and squawking that will follow, and most trials lead to no change with little in return on investment, ROI. Nevertheless, no proper gain in “better organization” is unacceptable.

Abstract

This essay reports on previous conversations of the Human Resource group. Recommendations of Models for diagnosis based on understanding organizational functions are discussed to plan changes in the Tech Department. Changes were mandated by chief officers at CFFCo. Change diagnosis methods discussions have led to much speculation throughout CFFCo. Three possible techniques have been repeatedly mentioned: Force-field analysis; Socio-technical Systems; and, Analytical or difference-integration model.

Major Risk Factors Discussed

The Value at Risk is the major thing diagnosis tackles. Return on investment is the first place the need for changes is noticed by stakeholders. Unfortunately it trails behind the human factors.
Addressing displaced, retiring, and sustainable Human Capital at CFFCo should be the first risk concern for maintaining and improving the long term and consistent growth values. Will diagnosis for the department ask first “what can be done for the already disgruntled frontline supervisors and their subordinates?” Many may feel that “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Time is the displacement factor that makes many a worker uneasy and wants to sit it out, flee or move on. For older workers, the major concern revolves around retirement and the money available to them in later years. These stress factors are mortifyingly important in making a good initial diagnosis. The worker / employer relationship is at stake in:

• Confidentiality
  Analysis Paralysis, depending on where one looks for problems
  Shortened Crisis Diagnosis
  Threatening/ Overwhelming Diagnosis
  Biased and Selective favoritism Diagnosis
  Diagnosis of symptoms without regard to basis of the problems
  (Brown, D R; 2006; pp. 142-3)

Regardless, the concern is CFFCo could do with change, because the system is flawed: the workers are inefficient: the process is incomplete: the workplace is dangerous and non-compliant? Yes, that is the report. However, analysis of CFFCo “change problem” has been delayed due to resistance in CFFCo home-grown Tech Department of self-governed obligated workers. The convolutions in CFFCo Tech Department’s structure are due to the culture of nepotism in the ranks. (Nickols, Fred; 2004)
“Many Americans like to think the United States is a meritocracy. Adam Bellow’s book, [related to Saul Bellow] however, shows that nepotism is alive and flourishing in twenty-first century America.” (Bellow, Adam; 2004)
Could it be most merit-able to go directly to the people and ask what they want for change? It is often indispensable to find common “ways and means” that many of the supervisors and workers rally around. Action then becomes a “treatment, justifying how, what, and why is [CFFCo] going to be fixed." (Nickols, Fred; 2004)

Resistance: from where does it come?

Assume, HR staff agrees at the end of the day, “In this way the change mechanic is a notion, an opinion, made up of all the inputs of those who are directly affected.” So the strategy is perceived by the whole group as their idea, and has been their idea from the very first. Workers indebted to each other for benefit of work, related to altruism, or because of nepotism, never suspect they have been divided and thus more conquerable. (Brown, D R; 2006)
Some prerequisite conditions are widespread at CFFCo. They are: Organization Leadership is dissatisfied and troubled by its situation; there is resistance to change in the organization; the precise measures needed to exact changes are not well known; externalities and the environment is imposing forces on CFFCo to enforce changes; technologies are outdated, if not altogether extinct; and, international competition is exercising market threat without boundaries. In the first model, force-field analysis, management plays the pivotal role in driving resistance factors lower, replacing with positive growth factors. (Brown, D R; 2006)

First: Force-field Analysis

One change model recommendation is “the force-field analysis method, a diagnostic technique.” This general-purpose approach views “organizational behaviors, not as a fixed pattern but a dynamic balance of forces working in opposite directions.” (Brown, D R; 2006)
Prior discussion covers the hefty anticipated human forces that define “for and against.” Sure enough both positions begin to form along many lines of contention, as soon as word gets out. (Brown, D R; 2006)
Change resistant employees want the organization to remain stable as “they perceive stability, and consequently serve to resist change.” The force-field analysis model measures the two forces and moves the “fulcrum of balance toward change resistor end” until the leverage is all in favor of the objective modifications. (Brown, D R; 2006)
The other positive, less stable, “forces encourage the change to occur. The relationship of the two forces is strained to a breaking point so that an imbalance between the two forces exists.” (Brown, D R; 2006) Only at break point will progress be made, and the planned modifications begin to grow: hopefully not wane. Therefore with complications already rearing opposing opinions, things get more obscure. Adding fuel to the fire, change installation occurs when the recipe is right and the opinions are leveraged:
· Empowering more driving forces / lessoning the restraining forces
· Adding new forces of competition, challenges and human interest
· Decreasing the strength of some forces
· Positive Results: Workers’ Ability to install changes effectively (Brown, D R; 2006)

Second: Socio-Technical Systems Change Model

On a different horizon is the Socio-technical Systems Change Model. It is based upon three general principles: 1. Tech Department is combined with Technology and Social Interest, thus the name Socio-technical System. 2. In the workplace, members must interact with their environment. The system is open as it relates to many aspects of human resource and how it will be compliant with diversity, as mandated in the 21st century. 3. Last, within this model, solutions to problem areas derived from social sciences are analyzed in strong technical rationale. (Brown, D R; 2006)
Individual and team behaviors, organizational group and team culture, management practices, leadership style, the degree of communication and openness, and individual needs, wants, and desires, dresses out the Sociological attributes of the model. (Decker, C; 2006)
Sartorial splendor is achieved when the model is accessorized with Technologic archetypes of production technology such as:
· limited priority mass customization production, with lower inventories
· Level of interdependence: such as Pooled, Sequential, and Reciprocal
· Physical work setting and Time constraints
· Complexity of production process with Variety and ability to be analyzed
· Response to Environment and status of raw materials (Brown, D R; 2006)

Where and when in time and space these co-habitats meet, will the offering of socio-technical system of diagnosis will find its place in the system of change at CFFCo. Other Socio-Technical guidelines in question at CFFCo are compliance with federal and state regulatory regulations: (Task Detail; CTUOnline, 2006)
· Safety in the workplace for all employees
· Environment toward the triple bottom-line corporation
· Quality re-defined in newer slicker production
· Federal and State Labor Laws compliance, toward global operations
· Equal Employment Opportunity and ADA guidelines transcendence

Number Three is a Simpler Sculpt: Analytic Model

Precursor to the previous “...the analytical model, also known as the difference-integration model stresses foundation of planned change” as the organization’s grounding for analytical diagnosis of CFFCo problem areas.
Four concepts for Tech Department in evaluations are:
· Degree of structure
· Time orientation of workers, distaff, and Chief Officers
· Interpersonal orientation of members toward peers, environment and Managers
· Departments’ members’ commitments to CFFCo change goals
“Diagnosis by analytical approach can be extremely vague in determining specifically root issues” at the base of CFFCo problem areas. Outside consultants are required to achieve objective analysis, is expensive; better saved for the most perilous change issues. (Brown, D R; 2006)

Diagnosis SWOT

The more implacable CFFCo is in “identifying the two dynamic forces -- supportive and degenerative” -- before plans to make changes are announced, the more CFFCo will be proficient in implements of the change. Upfront, Simple Strengths/Weaknesses that make opportunities or threats identifiable effectively increase efficiency. (Brown, D R; 2006)
Strength
Weakness
Opportunities
Threat

References

Encarta Dictionary, 2003 MSN Define Nepotism: Modulus of Elasticity in Nepotism: Diagnosis Nepotism: favoritism shown by somebody in power to relatives and friends, especially in appointing them to good positions

Dooley, Jeff; 1998; A Whole-Person/Systemic Approach to Organization Change Management “Over the past few decades large-scale organization change has become...”
Website: http://www.contingencyanalysis.com/ glossary direct link: http://www.riskglossary.com/ copyright © Contingency Analysis, 2004 Fred Nickols 2004 change Management 101: A Primer ©

Holton, Glyn A; Defining Risk, Perspectives, Financial Analysts Journal, Volume 60, Number 6; 2004, CFA Institute

Bellow, Adam; 2004; Groenewegen, John; “Who Should Control the Firm? Insights from NIE and OIE” Journal of Economic Issues 38 June 2004: 353–360 in Praise of Nepotism: A History of Family Enterprise from King David to George W. Bush, by New York: Anchor Books, Paper, ISBN 0385493894, 565 pages
The story of man cover story Source: Economist; 12/24/2005, Vol. 377 Issue 8458, p11-11, 1p, 1c Document Type: Article

Brown, D R; 2006; an Experiential Approach to Organizational Development, 7th Edition Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall
http://www.managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm , August 18, 2006
http://www.shrm.org/ August 18, 2006
http://www.johnkotter.com/videos.html August 18, 2006
http://www.fastcompany.com/guides/change.html August 18, 2006

Decker, C; 2006; live chat interview one, August 18, 2006; minute 39:30, HRM450-0603B-03: Organizational Change PH 1 DB 1: Diagnosis, Professor Carolyn Decker; August 21, 2006