Managing Change
How can organization neutralize the effect of change cynicism?
As per biblical mythology, Adam and Eve was the creator of human beings on this earth, but from the same time a constant factor started, which was change. Change is the only factor which had its continuous effect because it was not possible to continue as it was at the time of Adam and Eve. There were different needs of each individual and according to the need change happens. In the context of organization, it has to be competitive due to the factor of globalization but it could not happen by the constant use of traditional ways. It should change as per the competition grows. Changes happen as per the requirements of market and in furnishing the goals and objectives so that they could be the part of the competition.
Getting rid of old and formal traditional ways of working is known as change. Change in itself is a very wide area and to describe it in a group of words is very difficult. But if we talk of organizational level, change is adopted to upgrade the level of performance and to get better output or we can say that better use of the organizational resources to get maximum profits. The literature review varies on more than one dimension covering the leadership aspects and political process through business dynamics of market and technology advances (Dawson & Andriopoulos, 2009; Dawson, 1994).
Different authors had talked about different steps and stages which took places in change or which are helpful in accomplishing and implementation of change. Lewin 1951 cited in Clegg et al, 2008, has talked about the three steps of change that is most popularly known as freezing, unfreezing and refreezing theory. If we take the steps given by Lewin, it is really helpful and effective in today’s competitive situation because if we want to bring change it is necessary to unfreeze the old and the traditional form of working and then refreeze the new innovative implementation, and after implementing again that has to be refrezed to run the new situation, so that the ultimate motive of this process is to be achieved, which is change.
Change Cynicism
Change is all about that which makes us comfortable to achieve our targets, but at the same time it has its negative impact too.Cynicism about organizational change often combines pessimism about the likelihood of successful change with blame of those responsible for change as incompetent, lazy, or both (Reichers et al, 1997). Basically there are different factor which helps in such cynicism and they are like, proper execution of the change in the organization, lack of appropriate information and predisposition of change and due to such kind of factors there is a negative impact in respect of commitment, satisfaction and motivation of employees.
If we do a research or if we take examples of different organization, employees in those organizations have experienced ups and down situations like frustration, success, failure with the changing way of business. Today each and every organization is trying to bring innovation in their businesses so that they can attract customer and make themselves stable in the market. They do innovation like improving product quality, enhancing and giving importance to customer services, an structural form of team work, offering introductory fanfare, this all is difficult but it is a platform they are building up in the hope to gain a real profit through this small change. But on the other had when we talk of cynicism, it is just the loss of belief in those people who are trying to implementation this innovation and still they are in the process of that.
The Development of Cynicism about Organization Change
In 1989 Kanter and Mirvis published The Cynical Americans: Living and Workingin an Age of Discontent and Disillusion, , (Kanter & Mirvis, 1989) which showed that 43 percent of Americans are cynical about the intentions and honesty of other people in general, leading to their decreased participation in such citizenship behaviours as voting in elections. Cynicism about professions (Brooks & Vance, 1991) and specific jobs (Niederhoffer, 1967) has also been noted.
One source of general cynicism in American society may be corporate restructuring that produces massive layoffs while pushing stock prices higher. In an issue of Newsweek (Newsweek, 1996) described a group of top executives, who have been responsible for over 350,000 layoffs, and who themselves receive huge salaries and impressive bonuses, as “corporate killers.” The questions that were used to measure such cynicism appear in Appendix 1.
Managing and Minimizing Cynicism about change
Change is good for organization but it is good at that time when it does not have an negative impact on the organization or on the employees. It is not that if it has a negative impact it should not be implemented, but the negative impact can be reduced by taking some important things into consideration. Those are:
Keep people involved in making decision that Affect them – Involvement of every individual is necessary in an organization, as it gives an individual a sense of being there and the part of the organization. It actually means different thing to different individual, but in respect of employees they should feel that their opinions have been heard and given careful and respectful consideration. If organization keeps on involving their employees in decision making it will result in higher commitment. More involvement means more information, and when there is more involvement there is less chance of Cynicism.
Keep people Informed of ongoing changes: When, Why, How – Being informed is the best part in an organization. Employees need to be fully informed and educated about the change, progress and problems associated with the ongoing process in the organization. It is experienced that people who are informed in advance are more capable to face the situation in a better manner. If there are many known changes in the organization which produce good results, and if rare are acknowledged as failure, there would be less chances to blame is lessened and cynicism about change is minimized.
Enhance the effectiveness of Timing – People need information most whenever they are likely to be surprised by events (Louis, 1980). Unaware among employees would catch most when there is a sudden announcement of a new programme and question raise among them, that: Why they are doing that? What is the basic purpose for implementing this? Can’t we go for other options? What happen to those issues which were take in consideration earlier? If these doubts are not cleared at the time of implementing or putting in front of the employees or before the announcement of that issue, people begin to fill their own answers either independently or through the discussion with co-workers. If such issues are solved there would be less effect of change cynicism.
Keep surprising changes to a minimum – Surprises either excite people positively or negatively. Routine notices, about what is happening, why is happening, what is the reason prevents everybody being caught off guard. And if it is no possible to bring down the thorough groundwork before announcing a change, extreme care should be taken at the time of implementation. This would help the organization in minimizing or neutralizing the effect of change cynicism.
Enhance Credibility – Persuading people to change their beliefs involves providing new information that contradicts or attacks present beliefs (Hovland et al, 1953). Credibility of information is determined by the extent, that how well it presented and it too depends that who is presenting that information. Effect of change cynicism or any cynicism cannot be changed by just providing information in time, unless that information changes to a common belief. A message or information is more likely to be believed if it goes through a proper structure. In the distribution of information it is very much necessary that information is delivered by:
- – A person who has good reputation, and to whom employee have faith.
- – It should give a positive reflection, so that it seems logical to employees.
- – Repeat it at times, so it strikes in mind of employees again and again.
Deal with the past. Acknowledge mistakes, apologize, and make amends –
Some times it happens that there is a great negative or we can say that bad impact of change in employees, and because of this bad impact it is not accepted for modification, whether it is presented in a very well manner. It happens because of the past experience, which had made a bad impact on the mind of the employees. For this manager has to accept the responsibility and admit mistakes so that they can get the credibility for what they are doing at present, and those and not able to do this they are understood as unsuccessful and sometimes are taken as incompetent, and specially by those who always thinks negative in each and every aspect.
Admitting mistakes does not means that the person is again going to repeat the same mistake, it means that the person will not do it again in the future and will take care about it. At this stage people forgive all those things and accept the apology. According to Kouzes and Posner, this approach can work well even in the face of repeated mistakes or failures and can reduces the effect of cynicism.
Publicize successful changes – People always believe and refer history for future decisions, that what happened earlier. They can be more optimistic and less cynical about the future attempts of changes when they are aware of the past successes. So by publicizing the past successful experiences among employees, an organization can take a control over change cynicism.
See changes from employees’ perspective – Every individual wants something for self, as he/she looks in every matter that, what is in it for me? Especially in an organization it is very necessary to take care before taking decisions, because it matters that how those decisions are going to affect employees. If managers are unaware that a change created a hardship for employees, or are insensitive to that hardship, they may fail to understand that employees view the change as a partial success at best. A manager who is unaware that an action created a hardship can hardly be expected to accept responsibility or apologize for it (Reichers et al, 1997)
Provide opportunities to Air feelings – In inclusion of different strategies in managing cynicism, giving people opportunities to air their feelings publicly should be included as an major concern because everybody wants a kind of consideration or they should receive sincere reassurance that steps will be taken- or have already been taken- to alleviate their concerns. But for the successful accomplishment of such kind of strategy it is necessary that there should be two way communications otherwise whether it is face to face interaction or it is via memos. Nothing can happen successfully till there is open and honest dialogue. Not only this but also there is a need of reassurance to the employees that their jobs are not in danger and they will receive proper support, training and guidance to adjust and cope up with change. Broken promises can only confirm and intensify cynicism (Rousseau, 1995 & Wanous, 1992).
Conclusion
On a part of conclusion we can say that to have a control and minimize the effects of change cynicism it is necessary that information which is provided should be credible, appropriate and delivered on time and with that if mistakes happen it should be rectified by admitting mistakes, apologizing and quickly taking appropriate corrective action. Through two way communication it is better to understand that what perception employees are having and what they expect from the organization and in appropriate to that to what extent organization can make it out.
Thus, cynicism is developed when employees comes to believe that there organization is untrustworthy, required integrity and the organization cannot keep its word and they should not count on it. It is observed that cynicism may happen to be comprehensive multiple personnel which may include managerial executive, supervisors, co-workers, consumers, as well as to business. At the end of the day, cynicism is anticipatory and to facilitate it characterize an established prospect concerning likely management action, in addition to it is these assumption so as to direct reaction to consequent behaviour. Thus, it can be concluded that for the reason of the high degrees of the problem, cynicism has turned out to have a significant reflection while investigating employer-employee relationships.
Cynicism is sufficiently detrimental to the change process, and to other forms of organizational attachment and behaviour (commitment, satisfaction, absence, grievance filing) that it warrants considerable attention. It is in management’s best interests to take steps to minimize cynicism, because a manager’s own reputation and credibility are often at stake.