Part - I

Change and Resistance

People resist all types of change for what, on the surface, appears to be a variety of different reasons. All these motivations prompting resistance are linked to one central concept: fear. This can be fear of loss of discretion and prestige, fear of new standards and control measures, economic fears concerning the loss of job security, pay increments and bonuses, and the fear of learning something new - to name but a few. In order to overcome resistance, "the basic conscience of the organization must change". This requires action from managers at all levels in an organization, especially from the top.

As we know, change is resisted and in order to get it smoothly accepted, the first and the foremost thing is to discredit the existing structure. It points to the fact that we need to highlight the flaws of existing structure before it becomes a reason for non-existence of the organization.

The most important thing is that people do not realize that the existing structure is not helpful and the new structure will be more beneficial to them. It is mainly because of the perceived risk, or again, the fear.

Unfreezing

Going back to theory, Kurt Lewin has proposed a three-stage model of change management - "unfreezing", "change" and "refreezing".

Unfreezing here refers to creating disequilibria in the present situation. Once this is done, we need to know the goals to be achieved and the means to work towards it. After the expected change is achieved, we need to refreeze the new behaviours into a new equilibrium to prevent relapse.

This paper is focusing on unfreezing. This is the beginning of any change process and one of the most difficult one. It encounters highest resistance and handling this properly is the key to manage the whole process successfully. As it is aptly said, "well begun is half done".

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* Contributed by -
Sachin Agrawal,
Batch 2003-2005,
Goa Institute of Management, Goa.