MANAGING CHANGE AND TRANSITION

?? Change is defined in the Collins English dictionary as “to make or become different: transform or be transformed.” Reflecting on the changes faced by organizations and transformation that has taken place in recent years across the world, it appears difficult to visualize anything other than an increasing rate of change that will continue to affect the policies, procedures and practices of organisations and the lives of people who work in them. The 2008 ?global economic meltdown is a case in point. Many organizations, the world over ?closed down operations. Employees ?lost their jobs since majority of the organizations had upheld retrenchment strategies. Organizations essentially embarked on cutting costs to enable them remain afloat. Again, the outbreak? of Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 which resulted to death of millions of people around the world and disruption caused in global supply chain due to measures like lockdown and shutdown of business operations brought untold hardship to people around the world. Furthermore , the outbreak? of war between Russia and Ukraine disrupted global economy resulting to? hike in energy cost, food insecurity and hike in policy rates by US Federal Reserve Bank and Central Banks around the world with a view to controlling inflation.

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Furthermore, changes to western economies from the 1970s and the rapid expansion of Eastern economies confirmed the need to understand the internal environment within organisations and the forces from the external environment that could affect businesses. Successful organisations have proved to be those that respond best to the external environment by promoting positive policies which link strategic and operational change to the needs of the internal and external environment.

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Five(5) Major Forces For Change

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The five major forces that have been identified and which continue to promote rapid change include:

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·???????? Technical obsolescence and technical improvements

·???????? Political and social events

·???????? Tendency for organisations and markets to become global

·???????? Changes in the size, complexity and specialization of organisations

·???????? Greater strategic awareness and skills of managers.

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Our objectives here are to consider some of the issues listed above that generate and drive changes; to examine frameworks that will allow managers to develop an appreciation of change factors affecting the internal and external business environment; and to provide an appreciation of factors affecting organizational structure and culture. The main body of information provided in this write-up concentrates on environmental analysis, culture and organizational structure.

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The work of Andrew Pettigrew and Richard Whipp is particularly relevant in providing a framework for considering the internal and external environment. They consider five central factors for managing change and argue that environmental sensitivity is crucial to organizational survival. The process of determining strategy should not simply be a technique that is the responsibility of one functional manager or department; rather it should be considerable as a continuous learning process which is the responsibility of a wide range of staff representing all departments.

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Sue Dopson and Rosemary Steward in their work provide a view of the role of middle managers that is an interesting contrast with the views of Russel Ackoff presented in their work.

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Dopson and Stewart compare and contrast two views. The gloomy view is that the number of middle managers will decline and be caught in the crossfire between internal and external forces for change. Their position in the hierarchy loss of technical expertise and disillusionment with their careers will lead to low commitment to organizational goals. The optimistic view based on their own research found that middle managers in today’s organisations are responding well to internal and external forces for change. They conclude that the decline in numbers of middle managers means that those remaining have a more important role to play in managing change than ever before and many believe that this provides opportunities for greater job satisfaction.

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The Internal and External Environment

Environmental Sensitivity: SWOT and PESTEL

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The best known structure for considering how managers in organizations can assess pressures exerted by the internal and external environment is promoted by Ansoff. He has referred to the analysis of strengths and weaknesses of organizations following the formulation of objectives; and to threats and opportunities in the process of strategic change. This can be developed into what is known as SWOT analysis, which focuses on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing organizations.

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Strengths are those positive aspects of the organization which it can build upon, for example personal contacts of employees. By searching out opportunities which match its strength, the organization can optimize its effectiveness.

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Weaknesses are those deficiencies ?in the present skills and resources of organization which need to be corrected and action taken to minimize their effect on the organization.

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Opportunities usually arise from the nature of environmental change. The organization needs to be sensitive to the problems of business strategy and responsive to change in, for example, products, markets or technology.

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Threats are the converse of opportunities and refer to external developments which are likely to endanger the operations of the organization, for example, the introduction of a radically new product by competitors or a downturn in the economy affecting the price of product or service. Organization need to be responsive to changes that have already occurred, to plan for anticipated significant changes in the environment and be prepared to meet them.

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The Management of Opportunities and Risks

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Every business needs to have a strategy and this strategy must be related to changing environmental conditions. In order to survive and maintain growth and expansion, top management must protect the business from potentially harmful influences, and be ready to take maximum advantage of the challenges and opportunities presented. Whilst top management must always accept the need for innovation, there is still the decision as to which opportunities it wishes to develop in relation to its resources and which it chooses not to pursue. An effective business strategy depends upon the successful management of opportunities and risks.

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Drucker suggests that strategy should be based on the priority of maximum opportunities and that risks should be viewed not as grounds of action but as limitations on action. He classifies three kinds of opportunities and four kinds of risks.

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·?????????????? Additive. These arise from chances to exploit more fully existing resources. For example, establishing additional markets for existing product lines. Additive opportunities do not change the basic character of the business. Risks involved should be small and additive opportunities should not be permitted to take resources away from higher priority opportunities.

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·?????????????? Complementary. These consist of the addition of new products or activities which complement existing business and provide a synergistic effect. Complementary opportunities change the structure of the business and require at least one new area of expertise. There is a higher level of risk and such opportunities should be evaluated in terms of the likely wealth-producing capacity to the business as a whole. One example could be the provision of financial and legal advice by estate agents.

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·?????????????? Breakthrough. These change the fundamental characteristics of the business. Breakthrough opportunities demand first-class resources, particularly human resources, great effort and high expenditure on research and development. Risks are always high and such opportunities need not be evaluated in terms of a correspondingly high return. Examples of breakthrough opportunities would appear to arise from development in the field of information technology.

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·?????????????? The risk one must accept. This is inherent in the very nature of the business and must be accepted to ensure survival. Drucker quotes the example of the development and marketing of new systematic drugs when not enough is known about the behavior of the body to test for all possible side effects. An example could be the American Company Eli, Lily Industries which offered Compensation payments without admission of liability, to alleged victims of the banned arthritis drug Opren.

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·???????? The risk one can afford to take. This is the risk of the lost effort and money in pursuit of an opportunity where even the worst failure would not cripple the business. An example might be an unsuccessful drilling exploration for oil or gas if the costs involved are greater than the business can lose and still survive, it cannot afford the opportunity.

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·???????? The risk one cannot afford to take. This is, in part, the opposite of the risk one can afford to take. The Major risk under this heading is being unable to exploit success through lack of capital, knowledge, technical skill or market information. For example, a new venture into the field of information technology is unlikely to be successful without sufficient technical expertise, full knowledge of the potential market and the likely direction of future technology developments.

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·???????? The risk one cannot afford not to take. This is associated with the breakthrough opportunity where the business cannot afford to be left out of possible major new developments; for example, as in the potential development of atomic energy as a practical source of electric power. Such a risk must be justified by very high rewards should the effort prove successful. For example, manufacturers of watch could not hardly have ignored the development of quartz crystals and the fashion for digital displays. Another example could be the need for expenditure by oil companies on the search for alternative sources of energy.

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Drucker points out that whilst it is not possible to ensure that the right opportunities are chosen, it is certain that the right opportunities will not be selected unless:

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1.???????? The focus is on maximizing opportunities rather than on minimizing risks.

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2.???????? Major opportunities are scrutinized collectively and in respect of their characteristics rather than single and in isolation.

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3.???????? Opportunities and risks are understood in terms of the appropriateness of their fit to a particular business.

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4.???????? A balance is struck between immediate and easy opportunities for improvement and more difficult, long-range opportunities for innovation and changing the character of the business.

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If business is to be successful then its organization structure must be related to its objectives and to its strategy.

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The structure must be designed so as to be appropriate to environmental influences, the continued development of the business, and the management of opportunities and risks.

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The Inner and Outer Contexts

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Professor Pettigrew gives an additional dimensions to this analysis, by providing a model for determining the present state of the organization in terms of strengths and weaknesses. He considers what he calls the inner and outer contexts of an organization and links this analysis to management of change.

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In assessing the inner context he suggests that organisations should ask the follow questions:

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·???????? Where are we?

·???????? What are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

·???????? What will happen if we continue to respond to internal and external demands as we currently do?

·???????? What needs to change?

·???????? Do we want to change and are we ready for change?

·???????? What resources, leverage, access to power do we have?

·???????? Do we have the necessary skills?

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All these should be considered against factors and change outside the organization.

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The following factors should be considered when assessing the outer context:

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·???????? The economy

·???????? Suppliers

·???????? Government policies

·???????? Shareholders

·???????? Financing community

·???????? Franchises

·???????? Media

·???????? The public

·???????? Technology

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Another way of considering the outer context uses another model which is termed PEST or PESTEL analysis

Political

Economy

Social

Technology

Environmental

Legal

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Thus following the formulation of objectives, SWOT, PESTEL the Pettigrew analysis provide tools for focusing on both internal and external factors when considering strategic change.

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If the business is to be successful then its organizational structure must be related to its objectives and to its strategy. The structure must be designed so as to be appropriate to cope with environmental influences, the continued development of the business, and the management of opportunities.

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Organizational Structure and culture

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Culture has been defined in many ways: the glue that sticks things together; an umbrella; an iceberg; the ideas, customs and beliefs shared by a particular work group; the feeling of a persuasive way of life; deep-set beliefs; a set of normal patterns of behavior.

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Morgan (1997) states that itmust be understood as an active living phenomenon through which people create and recreate the worlds in which they live; Handy suggests that organizational culture will determine the way work should be organized, the way authority should be exercised, people rewarded and controlled. The study of organizational culture concentrates on the way things are done and understood within the organization and this may not reflect the intended motives of managers.

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Types of Culture

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Using research undertaken by Roger Harrison, Charles Handy identifies and examines four varieties of organizational culture, which are described below. He visualizes a physical structure with certain characteristics that he uses to describe each culture in terms of activities and systems.

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1.???????? Power Culture

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Handy visualizes this culture as a web with a central power source and rays of power and influence spreading from a centre figure. He promotes an image of a spider sitting at the centre of its web exercising power through the strands of the web itself. Transferring this vision to an organizational context, the rings of power created are centres of activity and influence and are connected by functional or specialist strings.

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The organization depends on trust and empathy for its effectiveness and on personal influence for communication. The people at the centre will expect all staff to think in the same way as themselves.

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There are few rules and procedures and little bureaucracy. Control is exercised by key individuals who exercise political influence rather than through rational decision making.

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This is likely to be a strong, proud culture that responds quickly and positively to change. However, the quality of decision making is dependent on the abilities of those in power. Resource power with some elements of personal power are the major power bases. People who prosper in this system take on the values and identify themselves closely with the culture. Power cultures are often found in small entrepreneurial organizations with strong leaders at the centre of the web, often founders figures. If the central figure leaves the web and influence declines, the web falls into disrepair and the organization loses its focus and identity.

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2.???????? Role Culture

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Handy visualizes this culture as a structure that resembles a Greek temple. Its foundations are based on a reasoned, rational approach to decision making. It is characterized by a focus on rules, systems and procedures. The role is often more important than the person who fills it and can be performed by a number of individuals. Position power is the major power source, personal power is not seen as functional, and expert power should be limited to certain situations. Rules and procedures are the main methods of influence. Role cultures are often found in large bureaucratic organisations and will survive well as long as they can operate in a stable environment. Role cultures are slow to recognize change and reluctant to change even when the need is recognized.

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3.???????? Task Culture

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Handy visualizes this as a net with some of the strands of the net thicker and stronger than others. Much of the power and influence lies at the joints in the net at the knots. This culture is job or project oriented with the matrix organization as one form that appears to be currently fashionable. The focus of the task structure is getting the job done. It is a team culture with influence based more on expert power than position or personal power. This culture is extremely adaptable, responds quickly to change and can form project teams or task groups to deal with new issues and reform or change the membership of task groups easily. Individuals should be able to exert a high level of control over their work and would expect to be judged by results. Product groups of marketing departments, management consultants and new venture sections of real estate offices are all places where this culture should flourish.

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4.???????? Person Culture

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The vision of this culture is that of a cluster or galaxy of stars, each independent but part of a common system. In this culture the individual is the central or focal point and the organization exists to serve and assist the individual. If there is a structure it is minimal and perhaps can best be described as a cluster of individuals. Some small consultancy firms or partnerships promote this culture, which is characterized by individuals `doing their own thing’ but perhaps sharing an office or other resources. The organization’s interests are subordinate to those of the individual, hence it is rare to find larger organizations with this culture. It is not unusual, however, to find individuals who prefer this culture even though they operate within, say, a role or task culture – for example, valuable specialists who are difficult to replace and feel little allegiance to the organization but who consider the organization a suitable place to do their own thing and are prepared to provide some benefit to the employer. These staff are often difficult to manage, particularly if they are difficult to replace, as there is often little influence that can be exerted on them.

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Handy also lists principal factors which influence a choice of culture and structure for an organization. History and ownership will affect culture. Centralized ownership will often result in a power culture. As time passes the organization may increase in size, systems and procedures may modify the power culture and more towards a role culture.

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Technology will influence structure and culture, high cost. Rapidly changing technologies in large organizations need some of the characteristics of power and role cultures, but unit production requires power or task cultures. Goals and objectives of organization influence and are influenced by culture and structure. Quality of products is more easily monitored in a role culture. Growth goals are one appropriate to a power or task culture.

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Environmental influences such as the economic environment, the market, competition and the geographical and societal environment are all important determinants of culture. Different national values, sensitivity to changes in the environment and the ability to cope with diversity all promote different pressures on the choice of an appropriate culture.

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The way in which the organization is structured and the existing culture will clearly affect the ability of the organization to respond to change. Faced with these pressures and the uncertainty and complexity of the business environment, organizations often find that they are pushed towards at least two and sometimes three of the cultures when coping with change.

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Culture and Organisational Design

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As discussed above, many organisations evolve from power culture promoted by the founder who built the organisation through toil, sweat, and tears and therefore wanted direct control over the main activities of the organisation. With success, a typical organisation grows and the ways of working become more formalized with perhaps a greater degree of specialization. As maturity grows, the culture begins to change, the structure of the organisation, the planning and control of work and the process of decision making are delegated by the founder, thus moving towards a role culture. The next culture shift is promoted by the need to respond to events more quickly, and flexibly. As the organisation becomes more complex, managers realize that the prevailing organizational culture cannot cope easily with change. There is a realization that one way of coping with change is to encourage cultural diversity to fit the requirements of different parts of the organisation.

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Handy, following this theme, provides a model which links activities in different parts of the organisation to culture. He suggests that there are four principal activity types:

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·?????????????? Steady state – involving those activities which are routine and can be programmed. These tasks lend themselves to a role culture.

·?????????????? Innovation – includes tasks that focus on change e.g. research and development parts of marketing, corporate planning. These tasks lend themselves to a task culture.

·?????????????? Crisis – dealing with uncertainty and complexity such as breakdowns in production or new challenges from competitors. These tasks lend themselves to a power culture, particularly when time is short.

·?????????????? Policy – the overall guidance and direction of activities and allocation of resources.

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As with the crisis, these tasks lend themselves to a power culture.

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However, a main challenge to managers coping with change, therefore, is to retain integrity of a mainstream organisational culture while at the same time encouraging different cultures that fit particular tasks in different part of the organisation and allowing them to co-exist in an integrated way. The greater the differentiation between tasks and culture, the greater potential exists for conflict and the greater the need for managers to use integrative devices to prevent or minimize conflict.

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Analysis of Change: New Organizational Paradigms and Effective Managerial Behavior

Here we present recent views of researchers who have investigated the characteristics of managers who cope successfully with change. These conventional theories and approaches consider the way in which organisations are structured and managed, and the way in which change has been introduced.

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Frameworks can be used to understand the change process. The classical approach viewed organisations as machines and people as component parts of the mechanism. This approach was challenged by the Human Relations approach, which viewed organisations as social systems that required the co-operation and commitment of their personnel to ensure success.

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Contingency theory proposed that there is no one best theory: the approach that an organisation adopts should be dependent on specific circumstances.

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This topic builds on these notions and examines new organizational paradigms that take into account the rapid changes that are occurring in organisations today. Leading management practitioners, researchers and thinkers have promoted visions of the future which are summarized below and provide an exciting new dimension to effective managerial action when dealing with uncertainty and complexity.

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New Paradigms

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Many social scientists over the years have stressed the notion and importance of paradigms. Kuhn defined a paradigm as a universally recognized scientific achievement that over a period of time provides model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners. In the context of managing change, a paradigm can be defined as a way of looking at and interpreting the world; a framework of basic assumptions, theories and models that are commonly accepted and shared within a particular field of activity at a particular point in time. However, situations change, existing paradigms lose their relevance and new ones emerge.

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We here examine three paradigms that have dominated western managerial thinking in recent years.

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·???????? Culture Excellence Approach

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This is a response to Japanese competitiveness. It emerged in the 1980s and 1990s and its principal exponents are peters and waterman, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, John Kotter and Charles Andy.

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·???????? Japanese Approach

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This developed in Japan and has been successful for 50 years; with Japanese organisations capturing many markets from the West. Because of the success until recently of the Japanese economy and Japanese Companies, many western organisations have tried to use the paradigm, especially in the UK where organisations like Honda, Nissan, Toyota practice Japanese paradigms in a UK culture. These have been viewed as successful organisations whose paradigm should be copied.

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·???????? Organisational Learning Approach

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This came to the fore in the early 1990s. Academics such as Chris Argyris have been interested in organizational learning for over 40 years, however, the use of this paradigm to promote organizational effectiveness has gained popularity as a result of people like Senge (1990) in the USA, Peddler, Boydell, Burgoyne in the UK.

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The culture excellence approach, with its focus on achieving excellence and the Japanese passion for quality have some similarities; however, they also have significant differences that we will consider later.

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Culture Excellence Approach

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More has been written about this paradigm in recent years than either of the other two discussed in the chapter. Because of this, the western focus, a good deal of attention will be given to this approach. The following writers are all practicing and internationally recognized management consultants, with professors Kotter Handy and Moss Kanter, being distinguished academics as well.

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They have attempted to predict how organisations should operate in future based on their empirical studies over recent years of excellent organisations and managers who work in them.

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Charles Handy focuses on the UK business environment whilst the others research and consult in the USA.

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Clearly, therefore, they view things from a perspective conditioned by the economic environment of individualism and free market liberalism prevailing in their own country.

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John Kotter

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John Kotter of the Harvard Business School has suggested a framework for understanding the behavior of effective general managers. This begins with the observation that a typical day for the general manager bears little (if any) resemblance to the planning, organizing and staffing activities suggested in management Lore. He found instead that the behavior he observed fell into 12 categories. General Managers:

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1.????????????????? Spend most of their time with others;

2.????????????????? Regularly go around the formal chain of command;

3.????????????????? Discuss virtually anything and everything even remotely associated with their business;

4.????????????????? Typically ask a lot of questions;

5.????????????????? Rarely seem to make `big’ decisions;

6.????????????????? Joke and discuss non-work-related issues;

7.????????????????? Regularly engage in activities that even they regard as a waste of time;

8.????????????????? Seldom `tell’? people what to do;

9.????????????????? Frequently attempt to influence others;

10.????????????? Often react to others’ initiatives, much of the typical day is unplanned;

11.????????????? Spend most of their time with others in short, disjointed conversations

12.????????????? Work long hours averaging just under 60 hours per week.

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To make sense of those managerial behaviours, Kotter begins by looking at the sorts of challenges and dilemmas inherent in the manager’s job, which he describes as: figuring out what to do through a large and diverse set of people despite having little direct control over most of them.

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For Kotter, the diversity of complex demands is the fundamental fact that sets the job of the general manager apart from other managerial and professional jobs. In view of those demands, the observed behavior of general managers is grouped under the two broad headings of agenda setting and network building.

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·???????????????????? Agenda Setting

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Agenda setting is the executive’s response to the demand of finding out what to do and provides the backdrop for much (seemingly random) interpersonal behavior on the part of general managers (GMs). Kotter argues that during their first six to twelve months in a new job, GMs usually spend considerable time establishing their agenda. Later, they continue to update them but in a less time-consuming process. Effective executives develop agendas that are made up of loosely connected goals and plans; they included both vague and specific items. Specific observed behaviours (spending much time with others, going around formal chain of command, asking a lot of questions etc) support the view of the executive as a data gatherer for this process of agenda setting.

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·???????????????????? Network Building

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Kotter labels as `network building’ the executive’s approach to the challenge of getting things done through people. In addition to setting agendas, effective GMs allocate significant time and effort to developing a network of co-operative relationships among the people they feel are needed to satisfy their emerging agendas.

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The create a network that is different from, but generally consistent with the formal organisational structure.

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The basic task of the executive is to get network to implement agendas. Viewed this way, much previously unexplained behavior begins to appear purposive (wide ranging discussions including joking and kidding and non-work-related issues; frequent attempts to include others, short and disjointed conversations).

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Kotter suggests four implications of his model:

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1.????????????????? The notion of the professional manager is problematic. The development of an appropriate agenda requires a base familiarity with the business and with the network of individuals who must execute it. Putting someone in a GM job who does not know the business or the people involved is probably very risky.

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2.????????????????? Management training and education probably over-emphasize formal tools, unambiguous problems and situations that deal simplistically with human relationships.

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3.????????????????? New general managers can probably be integrated more quickly into organisations if, during the first three to six months, there are no demands from superiors to accomplish specific task or work on pet projects. These early months are better spent getting a sense of the surroundings in the same way that any production run requires and unhurried set-up.

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4.????????????????? Typical formal planning systems hinder effective performance by structuring the relationships between GMs and their subordinate managers such that the subtleties of networking are undermined. A good planning system should help a GM create an intelligent agenda and a strong network.

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Tom Peters and Robert Waterman

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Peters and waterman argue that there are eight key attributes that organisations must possess if they are to achieve excellence.

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1.???????? A Bias for Action

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Excellent companies favour method that encourage a rapid and appropriate response to problems and issues. One of the methods described by peters and waterman is what they term `chunking.’ Problems are broken down into manageable chunks and then solved by small work groups brought together for that purpose. This facilitates organizational fluidity and encourages action as well as developing a sense of understanding and ownership.

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2.???????? Close to the Customer

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Excellent companies really get close to their customers and encourage them to help improve the product, quality, reliability and service.

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3.???????? Autonomy and Entrepreneurship

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Peters and Waterman perceive this to be most important element of a successful Companies. They suggest that it is vital to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit among staff and to encourage staff to develop positive attitudes through championing systems consisting of:

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·?????????????? The Product Champion: someone who strongly believes in a product.

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·?????????????? The successful Executing Champion: someone who has been through the process of championing the product before.

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·?????????????? The Godfather: an experienced leader who provides the role model for champions.

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In some companies, product champions are allocated responsibility for new teams that operate like small independent businesses and are rewarded on the results they achieve. Good no-holds barred communication is seen to be vital and is characterized by informality and visible support, including physical and material support, and is informal spontaneous and intense. This system acts as a control system and enables staff to keep abreast of developments. Senior management is more tolerant of failure in this system in order to encourage successful innovation.

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4.???????? Productivity Through People

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Excellent Companies treat their workers with respect and dignity and see them as partners. Slogans such as respect the individual, make people winners, let them stand out, treat people as adults, indicate the culture that is required and the closeness and family feeling that must be encouraged.

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5.???????? Hands-on-value-driven

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Companies must be clear about value system, what they stand for and how they can shape and sustain these values among the workforce. Senior managers must accept responsibility for implanting and cultivating these values and must lead from the front. They must carry these values from their offices to the shop floor and inspire the workforce towards the desired goal.

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6.???????? Stick to the Knitting

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Acquisition and diversification for its own sake are one of the characteristics of excellent companies. They stick to their knitting by doing what they know best, and when they diversify, they do so in an experimental fashion. As a rule they move out mainly through internally generated diversification, one manageable step at a time.

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7.???????? Simple Form, Lean Staff

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This principle promotes a simple structure with small units, typically in the form of the product division. The use of groups and teams to deal with specific projects leaves the basic structure in place and provides greater flexibility.

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8.???????? Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties

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This notion promotes the idea that excellent companies manage to control things tightly while at the same time allowing and encouraging individual innovation, autonomy and entrepreneurship.

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Company culture is the key to achieving these properties. Staff are encouraged to share the same values and beliefs. Individual members of staff know they have the freedom and are encouraged to innovate and experiment. They also know that their actions will be judged with particular attention paid to the impact they have on product quality, targets and above all the customer. The ultimate goal is to be the best company.

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Peters and Waterman maintain that the main attributes of excellent Companies are flat anti-hierarchical structures; innovation and entrepreneurship; small numbers of corporate and middle management; staff reward systems based on contribution rather than positive or length of service; brain power rather than muscle power; and strong flexible cultures.

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Peters and Waterman’s vision has been extremely influential in highlighting the importance of culture and organizational structure in quality organisations, and the attributes listed above remain the goal of many forward-thinking organisations today.

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Rosabeth MossKanter

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As well as being professor at the Harvard Business School, Kanter is a leading and influential management consultant. She builds on the work of Peters and Waterman by considering the strategies that post-entrepreneurial organisations should follow.

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·???????????????????? Restructuring to find synergies

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Synergy occurs when the whole adds up to more than the sum of its constituent parts. Every part of the organisation must add value to the whole (2+2 = 5). Organisational structures must become leaner and more efficient but ensure that the essential tasks are still undertaken efficiently. Computer technology, development of responsibility with devolution of power down the organisation to business units and contracting out of services and tasks previously carried out in-house are all ways of accomplishing synergy.

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The essence of this approach is to identify and concentrate on the core business areas and to remove all obstacles to their efficient operation. The aim is to create flatter, more responsive and less complex organisations which have a greater degree of focus than in the past. These changes need to be planned and executed with ease, with a focus on increased employee motivation.

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Opening Boundaries to form strategic alliances with the slimming down of organisations and the contracting out of function there will be a greater need to pool resources with other organisations.

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The three forms of alliances advocated by Kanter

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·???????????????????? Service alliances: where two or more organisations form a cross company consortium to undertake a special project with a limited lifespan, often when the resources of the various partners are insufficient to allow them to undertake the project themselves (e.g. research and development projects).

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·???????????????????? Opportunistic Alliance: where the aim is to take advantage of a particular opportunity which has arisen. An example of this is the alliance between the Rover group and Honda motors where Rover gained Japanese know-how and Honda gained entry to the European market. (it is necessary with this alliance to consider both short-term and long-term gains and links of dependency which may favour the partners unequally thus leading to the dissolution of the partnership.

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·???????????????????? Stakeholder Alliance: This tends to be a more permanent alliance, generally to be considered as a partnership between key stake holders, these being its employees, customers, and suppliers. A co-operative rather than an adversarial approach is advocated, with focus on the objective of the organisation to serve the needs of its customers. The result of these alliances is that structures and positions on organisations will change, sometimes dramatically. Managers will have to work more closely with colleagues internally but also externally, with contributions from customers and suppliers in areas of responsibility previously considered that preserve of managers (e.g. establishment of joint design teams, or even making the suppliers responsible for most of the design work).

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·???????????????????? Creating new ventures from within – encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.

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Kanter argues that many opportunities are being missed by conventional organisations because of their inability to give staff the flexibility to pursue new ideas and develop new products, new cultures need to be created which encourage and aid innovation; old barriers and restrictions, must be eradicated. The innovative potential of employees can be tapped and the emergence of new ideas, products and ways of working must be encouraged.

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Kanter also draws attention to the effect of some of these changes on the motivation reward systems career paths, job security and lifestyle of employees.

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Ten Commandments for Executing Change

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In the challenge of organizational change Kanter (1992), proposes Ten Commandments for executing change:

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·???????? Analyse the organisation and its need for change

·???????? Create a shared vision and a common direction

·???????? Separate from the past

·???????? Create a sense of urgency

·???????? Support strong leadership role

·???????? Line up political sponsorship

·???????? Craft an implementation plan

·???????? Develop enabling structures

·???????? Communicate, involve people and be honest

·???????? Reinforce and institute change.

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Approaches to Change

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Kanter distinguishes between `Bold strokes’, major strategic decisions or economic initiatives and long marches relatively small-scale, operationally focused initiative which are shown to implement with benefits occurring long term rather than short-term. Bold strokes are often taken by a few senior managers and do not rely on support from the rest of the organisation for support. The long march approach needs involvement and commitment from the majority of the workforce to succeed. Kanter argues that Companies may need both approaches if they are to succeed in transforming themselves.

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Innovation

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In Innovation: Breakthrough thinking at 3M, Dupont GE, Pfizer and Rubbermaid (1979) Kanter draws on the culture excellence model and her ability to provide guidance to the above companies to demonstrate the significance of innovation to organizational success. Tom Peters, in a foreword to the text, argues that Tomorrow’s victories will go to the masters of innovation period!

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Charles Handy

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Charles Handy is a professor in the London Business School and a Consultant to a wide range of organisations in business government, the voluntary sector, education, and health. He argues that British companies are moving towards new knowledge based structures run by a few smart people at their core who control a host of equally smart computerized machines. He builds on Kanter’s view that organisations will gain their added value from the knowledge and creativity of people rather than muscle power. Fewer, better, motivated people can create much more added value than large groups of unthinking demotivated ones.

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Handy reinforces the view that emerging future organisations will be smaller, more flexible and less hierarchical and will need to treat people as assets to be developed and motivated. He recognizes that Companies will need to respond in different ways to future uncertainty and complexity and therefore suggests that, instead of trying to establish one best way for all organisations, three generic types of organisation will dominate the future.

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1.???????? The Shamrock Organisation

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This form of organisation is composed of three groups of workers who are treated differently and have different expectations: `Core’ workers, a contractual fringe, and a flexible labour force.

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·???????????????????? Core workers will be a group of essential, specialist, professional workers who form the brain or nerve centre of the organisation. These staff will be half the people, paid twice as much, working three times as effectively, as the old workers (Handy, 1989: 118-19). They will be expected to be loyal to the organisation and totally committed to their work; they work as colleagues and partners rather than superiors and subordinates. They will be rewarded by their achievements rather than by hierarchical position and should be managed differently by consent.

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·???????????????????? The second leaf of the Shamrock is the contractual fringe, workers who are small in number and contracted to carry out specific services or tasks for which they are paid a fee based on results. This allows more flexibility and however risk and is cheaper.

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·???????????????????? The third and fastest growing leaf is the flexible workforce, which consists of a pool of part time workers available for use by organisations, increasingly, young or retired executives who prefer to move around have joined other more traditional part-time groups of workers who fit in other activities around their employment.

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The overall structure therefore creates a workforce that is well suited to the provision of high-performance products and services to rapidly changing markets.

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2.???????? The Federal Organisation

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Handy defines this organisation as a variety of individual groups of organisations allied together under a common flag with some showed identity. Federalism implies the granting of autonomy to Shamrocks, who are headed by their own separate chief executives supported by a team of core workers who take full responsibility for running the Company.

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The federal centre provides a common platform for the integration of the activities of the Shamrocks, including the role of generating and collating ideas and making them into concrete, achievable strategic objectives. The Federal Centre is concerned mainly with the future, with the aim of moving the organisation forward and keeping it ahead of its rivals.

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3.???????? The Triple 1 Organisation

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The significance of core workers and the need to re-evaluate the criteria for assessing organizational effectiveness has been argued in the first two organizational forms. The third concentrates on the intellectual capital of emerging organisations. The Tripple 1 organisation focuses on

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·???????? Intelligence

·???????? Information

·???????? Ideas

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The core workers are therefore the most important asset of the organisation and will add most value. It follows that organisations will need to invest in smart machines, recruit skilled people to control the machines and ensure that this group of skilled people is rewarded equitably. This places an emphasis on creating a learning organisation, promoting opportunities for staff to devote time and effort to learning and study at all levels of the organisation.

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Triple 1 organisation will expect all staff to think and learn as well as do. The prevailing culture must be consent rather than instruction career paths will become less certain and permanent.

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Handy’s views are similar to those of Kanter, Kotter, Peters and Waterman. However, he explicitly acknowledges that all organisations will not adopt the same form or move at the same pace. He agrees with Stewart that choice and judgment will become increasingly important for effective management of organisations and that Companies must develop the culture required to encourage learning organisations over time. He promotes the view that organisations must treat everyone as equal partners. However, the reward systems will create some more equal than others i.e. core workers will be treated and rewarded differently from the contractual fringe or flexible labour force.

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A review of the research set out above indicates that new organizational forms are radically different from what has gone before. Contrasting old and new brain power is now more important than muscle power; thus managers must focus on creating the ability to use intelligent information and to add value. Organisational structures will be flatter and thus managerial roles and skills must move from directing and controlling to facilitating and networking. Career paths will be less intelligible and new motivational tools must be used. Organisational culture, power and politics are topics that need to be considered alongside these scenarios.

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The Manager’s Network of Relationships. The literature on leadership and management has been preoccupied with superior – subordinate relationships and has paid less attention to lateral relationships, although much of the manager’s time is spent with people outside of the vertical structure.

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Managers enter into lateral relationships for a variety of reasons, but one single feature is common; they depend on these people and cannot get their jobs done without them. Managers cannot be self-sufficient and must `trade’ with others to get what they need. Rosabeth Moss Kanter in men and women of the corporation observed that:

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Beyond the people in the most routine functions no one has all of the things he or she needs to carry out his or her job.

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Kotter in power in management observed that executives he interviewed felt that: dozens of people affect the performance of our jobs, most of whom we have no control over. Many of these are crucial.

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Dalton in men who manage found that effective managers were adroit at moving in and out of clique activities; less effective managers were unable to form cliques or participate in clique behaviour to win the informal strength eventually necessary for larger official action.

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·???????????????????? When managers have little or no formal authority over people and need to complete their tasks effectively, they resort to trading. They obtain what they need by providing others with what they in turn require.

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·???????????????????? The excellent performers’ asked, encouraged, cajoled, praised, rewarded, demanded, manipulated and generally motivated others with great skill in face-to-face situations.

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·???????????????????? Organisations cannot grant networks to managers: managers must cultivate them. This is something that happens naturally but also something that managers can do deliberately. Relationship can develop quickly but relationship that stand up to heavy pressure long term are much more difficult to maintain.

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Japanese Approach to Management

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There are distinctive practices and policies that can be described as the Japanese approach to management. The notion of combining hard (rule-based or systems) and soft (behavioural) practices to further organisation efficiencies is a tried and tested approach.

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Williams Oudus (1981) text on Japanese Management Theory z: How American Business can meet the Japanese challenge argued that Japanese success came from the involvement and commitment of the entire workforce. This was built on trust and strong personal ties between individuals and the organisation particularly their own workgroup. He drew particular attention to practices such as lifetime employment, slow evaluation, and promotion and collective decision making.

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Pascale and Athos (1982) argued that Japanese Companies had developed the ability to combine the hard/ soft approaches to their competitive benefit. Working with Mckinsey, they used the 7-s framework to analyse Japanese management and concluded that western managers tended to concentrate on the hard S’s (strategy, structure and systems) whilst Japanese managers tended to combine and blend the soft S’s (staff, style, shared values and skills) with the hard S’s to their competitive benefit.

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Peter Wickins, Personnel Director of Nissan Motor Manufacturing (UK), commented that Oudus and others tended to underestimate the very strong Japanese Society cultural influence particularly relating to shop floor workers. This culture, based on a tradition of obedience and loyalty, combined with personnel policies leads to a combination of policies designed to socialize and bind employees to the organisation and promote long-term development and commitment. These policies are:

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·???????? Lifetime employment

·???????? Internal labour markets with internal promotions for deserving employees.

·???????? Seniority-based promotion and reward systems

·???????? Team work and boarding

·???????? Single Company unions

·???????? Training and education emphasizing continual development of employees

·???????? Company welfare systems covering medical treatment, education for children and housing

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They are designed to promote loyalty and gratitude to the Company, a sense of security, a strong commitment to hard work and performance improvement, an atmosphere of co-operation, not conflict, and a belief in self-development and improvement.

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Japanese business practices and work systems have been characterized by three interrelated elements; long-term planning, timeliness and quality. The role played by employees in decision making in these three areas is crucial. Employees are able to influence upwards through a procedure whereby new policies or practices are circulated throughout the organisation for comment to all those who might be affected and then action taken as a result of these comments, often leading to the modification of the original proposal. This joint decision making also appears through production councils and quality circles and covers a range of operational issues. Decision making as a result is often slow but once made, the decision tend to follow the quality philosophy of getting it right first time.

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Another feature of Japenese business is the strong links between Government and Business. In the past when the Japanese economy was strong the collaborative approach worked well, but in recent years the economy has been in recession, unemployment has increased to record levels and political scandals have undermined the co-operative stability of previous years.

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Organisational Learning Approach

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Organisational learning came to the fore in the 1990s, although academics such as Chris Argyris have been writing about organizational learning for over 40 years. The pace of change that organisations are facing today, coupled with the change in emphasis from quantity to quality and products to services, financial pressures and new working practices, requires managers to cope with situations of increasing uncertainty and complexity.

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As discussed above, with Japanese penetration of Western markets, many commentators argued that the strength of Japanese Companies is their ability to respond quickly to changing market requirements and to provide the right product in right time and at the right price. A strong feature of this ability is that Japanese organisations have been able to translate a commitment to individual learning into organizational learning (Hedland and Nonaka, 1993). Probst and Buchel (1997) argue that organizational learning offers an alternative paradigm by which systems can change, thus permitting us to redefine the economy and society.

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The terms `organizational learning’ and the learning organisation are often used interchangeably. However, Burns (2000) suggest that: organizational learning describes the attempts by organisations to become learning organisations by promoting learning in a conscious, systematic and synergistic fashion which involves everyone in the organisation. A learning organisation is a high state of organizational learning in which the organisation has achieved the ability to transform itself continuously through the development and involvement of all its members.

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Unfortunately, there are a number of definitions or models of organizational learning promoted by academics. However, a complementary definition from Probst and Buchel seems to characterize the main characteristics and objectives of the process.

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Organisational learning is a process by which the organisation’s knowledge and value base changes, leading to improved problem-solving ability and capacity for action.

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Peter Senge (1990) stresses the attributes an organisation needs to possess in order to learn, and argues that there are five interrelated disciplines which organisations need to forster among individuals and groups in order to promote learning and success.

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1.???????? Personal mastery – individual growth and learning

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2.???????? Mental models – deeply ingrained assumption that affect the way in which individuals think about people, situations and organisations.

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3.???????? Shared visions – the development of a common view of the organisation’s future.

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4.???????? Team learning – the shift from individual learning to collective learning.

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5.???????? Systems thinking – the fifth discipline which links the others together and which Senge argues, is missing in most organisations.

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Argyris and Schon (1978) stress the learning styles or individuals and organisations and propose a three-level evolutionary model of learning.

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Level 1 – Single loop learning This involves detecting and rectifying errors or exceptions from standards of best practice in the organisation to ensure its objectives are met.

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Level 2 – Double loop learning. This goes beyond rectifying errors and challenges. It questions whether these standards are appropriate. For example it might question whether some functions should be outsourced rather than continue to be performed in-house. Changes adopted then become the new norms and standards.

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Level 3 – triple loop learning. This involves questioning the rationale for the organisation and as a result radically reforming it. For example, a manufacturing organisation reinventing itself as a service organisation with all the resultant implications.

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Probst and Buchel claim that, organizational learning is unique to an institution and therefore organisations may find their own way to become a learning organisation. They argue that there are at least four generic approaches.

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·???????????????????? Learning by developing a strategy – shaping the organisation’s future through a participative? and practical learning exercise.

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·???????????????????? Learning by developing a structure – developing structural forms such as matrix and network structures in order to promote learning.

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·???????????????????? Learning by developing a culture – creation of shared values, norms and attitudes that promote collective success over individual attainment.

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·???????????????????? Learning by developing human resources: Developing staff through participative and group-oriented learning.

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Managing Change

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Change is the single most important element of successful business management today. To remain competitive in increasingly aggressive markets, organisations (and individuals in them) have to adopt a positive attitude to change. Ignoring or trivializing a changing trend can be costly.

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Therefore understanding and managing change are the dominant themes of management today. Adapting to the ever-changing present is essential for success in the unpredictable future.

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Understanding Change

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·???????????????????? Why Change?

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Change affects every aspect of life, taking a proactive approach to change is the only way to take charge of the future, either as an individual or as an organisation. Approach it with an open mind, and learn to develop its positive elements.

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·???????????????????? Be Open to Change

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For organisations, change is the way to stay competitive and to grow. For individuals, the opportunities created by change enrich careers and personal lives. You can deal with change in three ways: by resisting, following, or learning.

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A resister tries to stay put, which is not possible in changing situations; the majority of people in organisations who start by resisting eventually find they have to follow, trying to catch up – if it fails, they face competitive disadvantage. Seeking to anticipate and lead change is thus, paradoxically, safer as well as more adventurous.

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·???????????????????? Seeing the Effect of Change

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Positive aspect of change may be less obvious at first than negative ones. New ventures, expansion, promotions, and booms often bring challenges before delivering gains. But, however, it appears, approach change positively as potential opportunity. Use it as a stimulus to encourage new ideas and harness enthusiasm for further progress.

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Understanding? the Causes of Change

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To deal effectively with increasing rates of change, you need to understand the underlying causes. Specific changes in an organisation’s internal structure and external markets often derive from wider changes in society, economics, or technology.

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1.???????? Social Causes

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General trends in society, politics, and demography touch everyone. Businesses are affected by such trends, which influence consumer demand and other economic patterns. Managers need an informed awareness of changes and their reasons. Reading materials on social and political issues, and drawing conclusions from what you read and observe, will help you deal with changing trends and even predict them.

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2.???????? Economic Causes

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The tide of economics change quite slowly, but with inexorable power. Within their relatively stable trends, however, markets and monetary flows can fluctuate sharply, competitive ways can alter dramatically, and technologically and innovation can fracture established patterns. This compels organisations to be ready to adjust to sudden change on any level. But it is also prudent for managers to have basic contingency plans and funds to call on during periods of uncertainty.

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3.???????? Technological Causes

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At accelerating speed, the revolution in information technology (IT) is having a profound impact on methods of management, manufacture, service, purchasing, and selling. It is part of a drive to accomplish current tasks more efficiently. Managers need the technological changes either for competitive survival and/or for competitive success. Try to maintain an informed openness to technological developments, since new technologies that appear irrelevant at first may be the next winner.

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Goals of Change Management

Change is defined in the Collins English dictionary as “to make or become different: transform or be transformed.Change management is a set of processes employed to ensure that significant changes are implemented in a controlled and systematic manner(University of Adelaide, Change management guide,2010).

Organizations no matter their sizes must manage change and to make the change management work effectively, they must manage transition. Organizations? are? essentially exposed to different forces that are existing in the external business environment that are uncontrollable.

The five major forces that have been identified and which continue to promote rapid change include:

?????? Technical obsolescence and technological improvements

?????? Political and social events

?????? Tendency for organisations and markets to become global

?????? Changes in the size, complexity and specialization of organisations

?????? Greater strategic awareness and skills of managers.

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One of the? goals of change management is the alignment of people and culture with the strategic shifts in the organisation, to overcome resistance to change in order to increase engagement and achievement of organisational goals for effective transformation.

Achieving sustainable change begins with a clear understanding of the current state of the organisation, followed by the implementation of appropriate and targeted strategies. The focus of change management is on the outcome the change will produce-The new arrangement that must be understood. Change processes usually apply to a task and/or structural change and can be either; Incremental or transformational ,Situational .A comprehensive change management strategy should lead to the desired objective and create a sense of ownership, enable sustained and measurable improvement and build capability to respond to the future change/

Managing ??Transition

When organizations are managing change, they are expected to manage transition too. There are several models available to understand, frame thinking and help lead change. One of the pre-eminent thinkers in change management is John P. Kotter who teaches Leadership at Harvard business School.

Kotter’s Eight Stage Process of Creating Major Change in Organization

Kotter’s Process are:

?1.Establish a sense of urgency .Help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately. Examining the market and competitive realities Identifying and discussing(potential)crises

2.Creating the guiding coalition.

Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change, one with leadership skills, bias for action, credibility, communication skills and authority and analytical skills. ?Building team and forming influential coalition. Getting the group to work together like a team.

?? 3.Developing a vision and strategy

Clarifying how the future will be different from the past, and how you will make the future a reality. Creating a vision to help direct the change effort. Getting the vision and strategy right. Developing strategies to achieve the vision.

4.Communicating the change Vision

Make sure that as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and strategy.

Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate new vision and strategy. Have the guiding coalition role model-The behaviour expected of staff.?

5.Empowering Broad-Based Action

Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so. Enabling others to act on the vision by getting out obstacles and encourage risk taking. Altering system and structures that undermine the change vision.

6.Generating Short-Term Wins

Create some visible, unambiguous successes as soon as possible. Planning for and generating short term wins/improvement in performance. Creating those wins Recognising and rewarding those people who make wins possible ,

7. Consolidating Gains and producing more change

Press harder and faster after the first success Not letting up, consolidating improvements and sustaining momentum for change Use increasing credibility to change all systems, structures and policies that don’t fit together and don’t fit the transformation effort .Hiring, promoting and developing people who can implement change vision. Reinvigorating the process with projects themes and change agents.

8.Achoring new Approaches in the culture

Hold on to the new ways of behaving and make sure they succeed until they become a part of very culture of the organisation. Creating better performance through customer and productivity oriented behaviour, more and better leadership and more effective management. Anticipating the connections between new behaviours and organisational success. Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession.?

?? Transition

Change is situational. It happens when something? starts or stops, or when something that used to happen in one way starts happening in another. But acceptance of change is transitional.

People exposed to change undergo several psychological stages by which they come to terms with the new situation. Although the original model of transitions was based on five stages of grief, people exposed to change undergo similar stages.? The model has evolved into a change management tool with one popular version consisting of three phases of individual transition.The phases are Endings, Neutral Zone and Beginnings?? (Saldana,2010).

Endings involve loss of the old situation and identity.It is like a small death with typical stages of mourning.

The Neutral Zone is a state that lies between the old realityand new reality. It can be a time of confusion, with? swings between hopefulness and despair. It is like an incubation period that holds creative potential and the test of new ideas.

Lastly the Beginnings phase brings acceptance and incorporation of a new sense of reality. It involves new visions taking root after the old visions have been put to rest. The Beginnings phase builds on the new orientation that emerges in the Neutral Zone.

Everyone goes through these three phases of transition but they can go through them in minutes, in days, or even years depending on the change, their perspective of the change, and the way it is managed. Leadership must understand that unless transition occurs, people will not commit to change.

The role of leadership is to understand the phases of transition and identify how people are feeling.

It is important to recognize that it is normal to b experiencing a variety of emotions and to help people move quickly through the disbelief and anger and into the solution phase.

William Bridges three Stage Process? of Managing Transition

It isn’t the change that do you in, it’s transitions(Anonymous)? There are several models available to guide thinking on how people cope with the emotive cycle of change. William Bridges, Ph.D was formerly, a professor of English, a consultant and Lecturer, he made the shift to transition management in the mid 1970s. Bridges holds that transition has three phases; an ending/losing/letting go of the current position, disorienting neutral zone and a new beginning.? If people do not deal with each of these phases, the change will be just a rearrangement of the current status quo and then we wonder why it didn’t work.

In managing transitions, Bridges offers advice in assisting employees to make?? transitions from one state to another and how to deal with the resistance. Bridges describes the following key points which any leader of change should heed as we should not underestimate the power of not dealing with the emotive side of change.

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How to Get People to Let Go

Identify who’s losing what; and discuss it openly. Accept the reality and importance of subjective losses; acknowledge the pain people will go through, openly and sympathetically . Don’t be surprise about overreaction take it in your step. Expect and accept the signs of grieving. Compensate for the losses by showing staff the benefits of the future. Give people information and do it again and again and again and again. Define what’s over and what isn’t Mark the endings; make sure there are actions or activities that dramatize the processes ,systems, cultures and that reflected the old ways. Treat the past with respect Let people take a piece of the old way with them; endings occur more easily if the people can take a bit of the old way? with them. If a ceremony can be created about moving on but holding a piece of the? past, this will help people move on. Show how endings consist of what really matters. What must end ;must end

Bridges holds that the single biggest reason organisational changes fail is that no one has thought about endings or planned to manage their impacts on people. Leaders and managers of change forget that while the first task of change management is to understand the desired outcome, what it will look like and how to get there, the first task of transition management is to convince people to leave home(Bridges,2003). ?Williams Bridges refers to the second phase of transition as? the?? neutral zone as it is a nowhere between two somewhere and possibly the hardest part of managing transition.

?Bridges describes the dangers of neutral zone as a time when; People’s anxiety rises and their motivation falls. Sick leave increases Old weaknesses which may have been patched over or compensated for re-emerge.

People feel over loaded,? they frequently get mixed messages as? systems are in flux and therefore increasingly unreliable. People easily become polarised; somewhat to rush forward, others want to hold onto the old ways; and People respond to competition slowly and hence the? organisation becomes more vulnerable to competitive attack. As well as a potentially a dangerous time, Bridges describes the neutral zone as a potentially creative time. The key is for the manager of the process to; Normalise the neutral zone by explaining that it is an uncomfortable time. Ensure a positive metaphor is linked to the time spent in neutral zone. Create temporary systems and structures for people during this time when they feel lost and confused. For example review values or business processes that govern the old ways. Strengthen intra-group connections by rebuilding a sense of identity and ensuring frequent succinct communication.

Use transition monitoring team, its purpose is to facilitate upward communication and ensure that stakeholders understand the stage the change and transition is at. Use the neutral zone to do things differently and creatively(provide opportunities and training, encourage experimentation, embrace losses and setbacks, look for opportunity to brainstorm answers to old problems etc.) Above all, support through the neutral zone; spend time in staff 1 to 1 meetings, communicate to your team regularly, be perceptive and be available. The third phase in the transition according to Bridges(2003) is known as launching a new beginning. Bridges provides the following insights with respect to launching a new beginning; Clarify and communicate the purpose/vision.

? Provide a picture of the outcome so that people can imagine it. Then create the accompanying plan and publish it broadly. Ensure all staff are involved in the plan to implement the purpose. Finally reinforce the new beginning by Being consistent .Ensuring quick wins Symbolising the new identity Celebrating the success.

? Risk of? not Managing Change

?Without effective change management, the likelihood of successfully implementing change decreases. At the outset of change, many organizations experience a loss in productivity. Effectively managing change reduces the productivity loss, speeds the realization of the benefits and lowers the total costs.

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??????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????References

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