Problems of carrying out strategic changes. Basic strategies for organizational change. Metaphorical aspects of change management

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrying out strategic changes creates the conditions in the organization necessary to complete tasks strategic plan. To do this, it is necessary to identify problems that should be solved as part of the changes being carried out.

Evans and Bjorn's law. No matter what trouble happens, there will always be someone who knew that it would happen.

The emergence of problems in the activities of an organization that impede the implementation of the strategic plan and require strategic changes can be due to various external and internal reasons. It is important to note here that some of these problems are obvious to managers. Any qualified manager can, without special analysis, formulate the problems that exist in his field of activity. Such problems lie on the surface.

Other problems are not so obvious (hidden problems), the existence of which is revealed as a result of special analysis. For example, there is a decrease in sales volume, the market share is decreasing, but these are only symptoms, and it is important to identify the reasons for their manifestation. Everything needs to be explored possible reasons emerging symptoms.

If there are several problems (and in practice this is common), then after identifying and describing each problem, they are comparative analysis, determining the priority of their solution.

Helrang Law. Wait - and the bad will disappear by itself. An addition to it proposed by Sheivelson: “...by causing due damage.”

A clear, concise statement of problems is key to successfully developing a strategic change plan.

To identify problems that arose during the development and implementation of the strategic plan, we will consider the method of logical-semantic modeling.

The procedure for identifying problems includes the formation of a catalog of problems and its structuring. The most difficult task is the formation of a catalog of problems (an edited, but unordered list of problems in the area of ​​“cause-effect” relationships). There is even a strong belief that if a problem is correctly formulated, then it can be considered partially solved. Identifying and correctly formulating a problem is a creative process that can hardly be formalized. This process is based on expert method, used to compile a list of problems and their examination. Managers and specialists with sufficient knowledge in the field of the problems being studied are involved in the expert survey.

The initial list of problems obtained as a result of the expert survey is compiled by members of the working group. Completed and coded questionnaires are examined and processed.

An examination of the original list of problems involves excluding from the list identical problems that are similar in content but differ in formulation and replacing them with a problem with a generalized formulation.

As a result, the original list is “compressed” and turns into a catalog of problems.

The connection of problems most often obeys the dialectic of the “cause-effect” relationship. A variety of catalog problems use the binary "causality" relation. The ego attitude characterizes one problem as a cause, another as a consequence, or these problems may be incomparable. (When studying a problem situation in more depth, the precedence relation can also be used.)

Based on the above, we can formulate a sequence of procedures performed when compiling a catalog of problems and structuring it:

• 1. Identification of problems and formation of their complete list (catalog) based on an expert survey. Experts highlight the problems that have arisen in the field of strategic change. The problem must be formulated quite specifically. Generalizing formulations of problems that almost completely cover the content of the corresponding area of ​​strategic change should not be allowed. For example, it is inappropriate to allow statements such as “Corporate culture impedes strategic change.” Such a formulation of the problem, covering the content of all the problems in a given area of ​​change, obviously becomes a basic, cardinal problem. At the same time, it is too general.
• 2. Establishing and measuring causality relationships between catalog problems. This procedure can also be carried out on the basis of an expert survey in interactive mode with a computer. With a limited number of problems (approximately 10-20), this procedure can be carried out “manually” by filling out the table. 10.1, which provides an example of a possible set of problems in implementing strategic change and measuring it in a cause-effect relationship.
• 3. A pairwise comparison of all problems is made according to the “cause-effect” relationship. The problem “cause” is assigned 1 point - “1”, the problem “consequence” - “O”, problems not related to this relationship receive an “O”. These assessments are presented in the form of a tournament table (Table 10.1).
• 4. Basic problems are identified, i.e. problems that have accumulated greatest number points.

Table 10.1

Results of assessing the problems of carrying out strategic changes based on the “cause-effect” relationship

In our example, the problem that must be addressed first is problem 1 (there is no thoughtful approach to determining the content of the changes being carried out), as well as problem 8 (the experience of qualified experts is not sufficiently used when preparing a plan for implementing strategic changes). After solving these problems, the prerequisites are created for the successful solution of other problems-consequences. It should also be noted that problem 9 (due attention is not paid to justifying the need for strategic changes) from the point of view of its basic level is also of high importance.

Based on table 10.1, you can construct a graph in which problems, taking into account their assessment, are separated into levels characterizing the degree of their basic level. Thus, at the first level of the graph, problems that have scored the largest number of “ones” are presented. The following levels consistently form problems with fewer “ones”. At the last level there are problems that, in relation to all those discussed above, are consequences (have only “zeros”). (Details of using the paired comparison method to construct a problem graph are discussed in |2|.)

If it is not possible to simultaneously solve all the basic problems, then it is possible to rank the problems by priority (determining their weight).

Incorrect citation of H. L. Mencken's law by Grossman. Complex problems always have simple, easy-to-understand wrong solutions.

The identification of problems carried out in this way and the determination of their mutual influence make it possible to create the necessary prerequisites for the development and analysis of ways (methods, means) for solving these problems.

TO merits this method should include:

• 1) the relative simplicity and speed of its implementation;
• 2) highlighting basic, cardinal problems makes it possible to concentrate efforts and resources on solving the truly most important problems;
• 3) structuring and ordering of problems make it possible to analyze the causes of problems, assess their relevance and urgency, and determine the relationship of this problem with other problems.

Among the main shortcomings this method, and in in general terms all methods based on expert assessments, include the following:

• 1) it is difficult to assess the degree of completeness and reliability of the information provided by experts. There is no complete confidence that the experts have actually identified all the main problems and correctly identified the relationships between them. Analysis of identified problems sometimes suggests the absence of any problems. On the one hand, we can invite experts to add them additionally to the catalog of problems. On the other hand, our main task is to identify the most important, basic problems. The absence of some necessary problem in the initial catalog does not mean that the experts made a mistake. It is possible that for this object of study this problem is not of fundamental importance;
• 2) the absence of an explicit analytical substantiation of the identified problems, although qualified experts, when formulating and analyzing problems, can use such analytical information;
• 3) individual experts may not be willing to identify all problems. With a clear formulation of the problem, it is possible that the “culprits” for its occurrence, mistakes and insufficient competence of the person who made the corresponding decision will be revealed.

Taking into account the identified basic problems of carrying out strategic changes, the content of the strategic plan is clarified and a plan for carrying out changes is developed. The composition of the measures, the timing of the changes, as well as the resources necessary for their implementation are determined.

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

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

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

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

Establish the status quo of a new state.

The bearers of resistance, as well as the bearers of change, are people. In principle, people are not afraid of change, they are afraid of being changed. People are afraid that changes in the organization will affect their work, their position in the organization, i.e. the existing status quo. Therefore, they strive to prevent changes in order not to find themselves in a new situation that is not entirely clear to them, in which they will have to do things differently than they are already used to doing, and do something different from what they did before.

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

Fig 5 3 Matrix “change - resistance”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Establish the status quo of a new state.

The bearers of resistance, as well as the bearers of change, are people. In principle, people are not afraid of change, they are afraid of being changed. People are afraid that changes in the organization will affect their work, their position in the organization, i.e. the existing status quo. Therefore, they strive to prevent changes in order not to find themselves in a new situation that is not entirely clear to them, in which they will have to do things differently than they are already used to doing, and do something different from what they did before.

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

Fig 5 3 Matrix “change - resistance”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strategy implementation is associated with overcoming resistance to relevant changes. The following are reasons for resistance to strategic change.

1) Selfish interest. Employees put their own interests above the interests of the organization. The development of such behavior can lead to the emergence of informal groups whose policies will be aimed at hindering the implementation of change.

2) Misunderstanding of strategy usually arises from insufficient awareness of the goals, ways of implementing the strategy, and the ability to assess the consequences of the strategy.

3) Different assessments of the consequences of implementing the strategy associated with an ambiguous perception of strategic goals.

4) Low tolerance for change inherent due to fear that employees will not be able to learn new skills or new job. Such resistance is most typical for cases of introduction of new technologies, sales methods, new reporting forms, etc.

Employees' attitude towards change can be considered as a combination of states of two factors: acceptance or non-acceptance of the change and open or hidden demonstration of attitude towards the change (Table 14.1).

Table 14.1

Employee attitude towards change

WITHresistance can manifest itself at various levels. On organizational level legacy systems are unable to cope with strategic change. Changes are possible over a long period of time and require resources. Reducing resistance is possible when using systematic approach to change. When designing strategy implementation for group level It must be borne in mind that the corporation as a system consists of formal and informal groups. Wide illumination strategic plan will reduce resistance before implementing a strategy. Groups influence position individual when carrying out strategic changes.

In business practice there are various approaches to managing the process of implementing strategic changes. ADL researchers identify five main approaches (Table 14.2).

1. Taking into account the reasons for individual behavior in the organization: take into account the needs, inclinations and hopes of those affected by the changes and demonstrate the receipt of individual benefits.

3. Providing information to the group.

4. Achieving common understanding.

5. Sense of belonging to the group: a sense of involvement in changes and a sufficient degree of participation.

7. Support for change by the group leader: involving the leader in a specific work environment (on the job).

8. Group awareness: opening communication channels, information exchange, knowledge of the achieved results of the change.

Table 14.2

Approaches to managing the process of implementing strategic changes

J. Kotter and L. Schlesinger offer the following methods of overcoming resistance: information and communication, participation and involvement, help and support, negotiations and agreements, manipulation and co-optation, explicit and implicit coercion. The main measures to overcome resistance are presented in table. 14.3.

Table 14.3

Measures to overcome resistance to change