Part - I

"There can be no major change in a complex organization unless there are both sufficient resources and substantial readiness."

- Robert Miles

Change happens. And while we can't control much of the world changing around us, we can control how we respond. We can choose to anticipate and embrace changes or resist them. Resisting change is like trying to push water upstream. Generally we're quick to point to others who resist change. It's much harder to recognize or admit to our own change resistance.

Some people call change "progress" and celebrate the improvements that it brings. Others curse those same changes and wish for the good old days. Same changes, different responses. The choice is ours: We can be leaders, or we can be followers.

Change Management Definition

Change Management is an organized, systematic application of the knowledge, tools, and resources of change that provides organizations with a key process to achieve their business strategy.

Change management is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people side of business change to achieve the required business outcome, and to realize that business change effectively within the social infrastructure of the workplace.

Operational Definition of Change Management

"Effectively transforming organizations to pursue new directions, goals, or structures." Other words that speak to effective change are 'evolve, innovate, vision, power'.

What Provokes "Organizational Change"?

Change should not be done for the sake of change - it's a strategy to accomplish some overall goal. Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force, e.g., substantial cuts in funding, address major new markets/clients, need for dramatic increases in productivity/services, etc. Typically, organizations must undertake organization-wide change to evolve to a different level in their life cycle, e.g., going from a highly reactive, entrepreneurial organization to more stable and planned development. Transition to a new chief executive can provoke organization-wide change when his or her new and unique personality pervades the entire organization.

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* Contributed by -
S. Parthasarathy,
Management Student,
BIM Trichy.