A Checklist for Change

A Checklist for Change: Questions
1.Remember that individuals are motivated toward change only when they perceive benefits as outweighing the costs. How can you, as a change leader, help employees see the benefits as outweighing the costs?
2.If individuals believe the benefits outweigh the costs, do they also believe the probability of success is great enough to warrant the risk taking, including the investment of time and energy that the change will require?
3.What change alternatives are people predisposed to? What are the costs, benefits, and risks that make them attractive? How should these alternatives be addresses by the change leader?
A chapter checklist paper with response to Chapter 4: A Checklist for Change: Creating the Readiness for Change and also include response to the 3 questions and Tool Kit 5-3.
Organizational Change – Cawsey, Desza, Ingols. Information can be used from study,sagepub.com/cawsey3e

Use the TOOLKIT EXERCISE 5.3  provided below

Toolkit Exercise 5.3

Gaining Approval for the Change Project

Consider a change project in an organization with which you are familiar.

1. What is the approval process for more minor change initiatives?

For more major change initiatives?

Can you describe the processes involved?

1. If a project requires capital approval, are there existing capital budgeting processes?
2. If the project needs dedicated staff allocated to it or if it will lead to additions to staff, what are the processes for adding people permanently and selecting and developing staff?
3. Does the project alter the way work is organized and performed?

What are the systems and processes used for defining jobs and assessing performance?

2. Can the project be approved by an individual? Who is that person? What approval power do they have?
3. Are there ways that the perceived risks of the change could have been reduced by the way the change leader staged the project and managed the approval process?

Questions

1. Remember that individuals are motivated toward change only when they perceive benefits as outweighing the costs. How can you, as a change leader, help employees see the benefits as outweighing the costs?
2. If individuals believe the benefits outweigh the costs, do they also believe the probability of success is great enough to warrant the risk taking, including the investment of time and energy that the change will require?
3. What change alternatives are people predisposed to? What are the costs, benefits, and risks that make them attractive?  How should these alternatives be addresses by the change leader?

Question 1: Remember that individuals are motivated toward change only when they perceive benefits as outweighing the costs.  How can you, as a change leader, help employees see the benefits as outweighing the costs?

The main motivation for any organization is to ‘change the world’ by building something lasting not necessarily to make a lot of money. However, for employees, they only work for money above all things that is; they are motivated towards change only when they perceive benefits as outweighing the costs of change project within an organization. This has made employees to perceive financial incentives (benefits) as the main motivator for any effective and long-term project change. In this light, it is the sole responsibility of a change leader to help employees see the benefits as outweighing the cost by:

Energizing the employees: as a change leader, I would strive to bring on board positive energy and passion to the work environment every day as opposed to taking away energy from my employees. This will enable the employees to pull the company through any current economic condition thus maximizing its benefits. During project change, energizing employees will enable the employees to see the benefits of change project within an organization as outweighing the cost of the project. This will enhance their (employees’) morale thus success of the project. Secondly, as a change leader in an organization, I would encourage for stronger and supportive social relationships with colleagues and family by emphasizing that there’s more to life than work. This will result in the benefit of improved social ties by giving employees free time to interact through regular exercises and health lifestyle (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002). If a change project incorporates such activities, then the employees will no doubt see such benefits as outweighing the costs.

The other way by which a change leader can help employees see the benefits as outweighing the costs is through ensuring that the change project will reward self-improvement. Although many leaders are of the habit of complaining that their leaders are stagnant with respect to self-improvement, the current project does not support employees’ self-improvement although management could be having the idea that promotion and financial support are important in achieving self-improvement of employees. As a change leader, I would ensure that project change has budgetary allocation and time for management and personnel development training. Besides, I would help employees set their individual plans for growth as well as rewarding them as they improve in their profession. In so doing, the employees will be in a better position of perceiving these benefits thereof as outweighing the costs of project change thus facilitating the overall effectiveness and success of the change project. In turn, the employees will be happy as well as apply the newly learned skill in their daily duties and responsibilities in the organization. This will enable the organization to reap maximum benefits from the employee thus acquiring higher competitive advantage over its competitors (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008). Thus the organization is able to maximize profits and survive favorably in any economic condition.

Question 2: If individuals believe the benefits outweigh the costs, do they also believe the probability of success is great enough to warrant the risk taking, including the investment of time and energy that the change will require?

Yes. Individuals not only believe that benefits outweigh the costs but also the probability of success for a change project is great enough to warrant the risk taking such as time investment as well as energy the change will require. This is due to the fact that whenever an organization intends to undertake a change project, there is always commitment both financial and personnel to ensure the success of the entire exercise. For instance, prior to change project, an organization will conduct a visibility study to ascertain the success level of the change project. This takes into account the available technical staff, management support, financial stability amongst other elements in order to ensure that nothing goes amiss during the entire process of project change (Guy et al., 2005). Based on this knowledge, individuals are always convinced that the probability of success of change project is great enough to account for any risk such as time and energy investment associated with the change project.

Question 3: What change alternatives are people predisposed to?  What are the costs, benefits, and risks that make them attractive?  How should these alternatives be addresses by the change leader?

The main change alternatives people normally predisposed to include: application changes, hardware changes, software changes, network changes, environmental changes, documentation changes among others. The main costs making these changes attractive are the cost savings that will be realized from project change. For instance, replacing old and obsolete hardware/software with newer and state-of-the-art hard/software will result in improved functionality of organizational processes thus saving an organization from losses. Besides cost benefits of these change alternatives, there is improved efficiency and working environment thus enhancing employees’ morale as well as organizational reputation as the company products/services will be accepted in the market thus gaining a higher competitive advantage than other competitors in the market environment (Conner & Patterson, 2001). The main risk making change alternatives attractive include the risk of investing time and energy towards the project. However, the general believe amongst organizational employees and management that these risks are less compared to the success of the change project makes these change alternatives most attractive both to employees and management. To effectively address these change alternatives, a change leader in any organization should ensure proper and effective communication of change procedures to all stakeholders of the change project.

Toolkit Exercise 5.3

Gaining Approval for the Change Project

Consider a change project in an organization with which you are familiar.

1. What is the approval process for more minor change initiatives?

The approval process for more minor change initiatives involves planning for change, testing and validating change and creating change proposals.

For more major change initiatives, the approval process involves change initiator, change management and change implementation.

Can you describe the processes involved?

The process involved detailed documentation of all procedures for preparation, installation, verification and back-out followed by creation of request for change (RFC) based on the size of the organization as well as the overall impact of change project. RFC will contain the following among others: items to be changed, reason for change, date and time when the change will commence, risk assessment and risk management, impact assessment and evaluation in terms of benefits, costs, resources and capacity. The RFC goes through a technical review to check for correctness, completeness and feasibility of the change project as well as the possible side effects and impact of the change project on other infrastructure and services within an organization. After technical review, the change process obtains authorization from a change authority.

1. If a project requires capital approval, are there existing capital budgeting processes?

Yes, the existing capital budgeting processes in the organization generation of good quality project ideas, analyzing of proposals, creating corporate capital budget that priorities profitable change projects based on available company resources as well as the strategic plan of the company. Finally, the existing capital budgeting process in the organization involves monitoring and post-audit.

1. If the project needs dedicated staff allocated to it or if it will lead to additions to staff, what are the processes for adding people permanently and selecting and developing staff?

The change project will definitely need allocation of dedicated staff who will be selected from among the employees and developed as per the demand s of the change project. The process of realizing this will involve selecting self-motivated and hard-working employees and training them through seminars and conferences. This can be facilitated by experts in the change project who will ensure that these employees have comprehensively mastered the change project.

1. Does the project alter the way work is organized and performed?

Yes, the change project will no doubt alter the way work is organized and performed within an organization. This is because the change project will identify and eliminate redundant processes adding value to an organization. This will in one way or the other affect the way work is performed.

1. Can the project be approved by an individual? Who is that person? What approval power do they have?

It is not always that a project can be approved by an individual. Based on the volume of changes and the size of an organization, the authorizer of a project can be a person (known as change manager) or group of persons. The approval power of the project authorizer is to either reject of accept the change project for implementation and post-implementation.

1. Are there ways that the perceived risks of the change could have been reduced by the way the change leader staged the project and managed the approval process?

Yes, these way include: preparing for change by defining your change management strategy, preparing your change management team; making change by developing change management plans and taking actions to implement these plans; and reinforcing change through collecting and analyzing feedback and implementing corrective actions.

References

Conner D.R. and Patterson R.,  (2001). “Building commitment to organizational change.” Atlanta: OD Resources.

Guy, G. R., Beaman, K. V., Weinstein, C., and Conference Board. (2005). “Effecting change in business enterprises : Current trends in change management.” New York, NY: Conference Board.

Herscovitch, L and Meyer, J. (2002). “Commitment to Organizational Change: Extension of a Three-Component Model.” The Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 87 Issue 3, pp. 474-87.

Kotter, J. and Schlesinger, L. (2008). “Choosing Strategies for Change.” Harvard Business Review,Vol. 86 Issue 7/8, pp. 130-139.