INTRODUCTION
The change process encompasses all activities aimed at helping the organization to successfully adopt new attitudes, new technologies and new ways of doing business. Effective change management enables the transformation of strategy, processes, technology and people to reorient the organization to achieving its objectives, maximize its performance and ensure continuous improvement in an ever-changing business environment.
A process of change occurs very efficiently if everyone is committed to it. Meanwhile, for people to commit themselves, they cannot be "run over" by the process, as if they were something far from it, because they are not. In truth, change occurs through people. And, for people to be considered as part of the process of change, it is necessary to know their values, beliefs, and behaviors.
The organizations and the people who are included in it change continuously. In organizations, some changes occur because of the opportunities that arise, while others are projected. The term development is applied when the change is intentional and projected.
CHANGE PROCESS
Process through which an organization becomes different from what it was in a previous moment. All organizations change, but the challenge for managers and, in general, for everyone in the organization is that organizational change occurs in the direction that interests the organization's objectives. That is why there is talk of change management, change agents, intervention for change, resistance to change, etc.
When you want to carry out a process of change, you must keep in mind that people want the new situation to provide them with the same security as the previous one. While the process progresses without major difficulties, the change continues, but as soon as inconveniences occur, people tend to quickly return to the previous situation and that is why a large proportion of the change processes fail shortly after being implemented.
For a change process to be successfully implemented and sustained over time, it is essential to take into account the human factor. People must trust, be motivated and trained, since change is a very hard process, both personally and organizationally.
The person leading the change must ensure that people can do a better job, with less effort and greater satisfaction.
Trust is an essential requirement for achieving a pleasant and frankly cooperative work environment. In this globalized and hypercompetitive world in which nothing seems safe, it is not surprising that trust has almost disappeared from the work environment.
Distrustful employees are less committed and less effective than those they trust. Managers who are suspicious of their employees waste their time controlling them, and neither focus on their specific tasks and responsibilities.
The motivation of human resources is achieved when both the goals of the organization and those of its members are taken into account, creating a true energy that facilitates the process of change.
The adaptation of the company to the reality of the change has to happen through a process that is happening really and effectively. Change should not be authoritarian as this is very difficult to achieve, it must be flexible, with the participation of all staff through small but consistent groups, to allow the process to move forward.
To achieve change, groups must lose fear. With the first achievements of each group, the members experience the satisfaction of the results obtained that they themselves proposed, and from that moment the inertia to change is broken.
To carry out a successful change process, the self-conviction of the organization's managers and the awareness of the staff regarding the need for change is a fundamental premise.
THE STAGES OF THE CHANGE PROCESS.
There are three main phases that every transformation process must go through, and all are inexorably met
The First is a period of Questioning, Challenging Status, Setting Goals, and Designing. In one way or another, we decided that the current way of doing them
The second stage is a period of Change, of Clarifying, of Reinforcing. This is where we do the real heavy lifting of the Shift. We create structures, develop new systems, and begin to foster new attitudes and ways of working.
The third stage is a period of Consolidation, Institutionalization and Evaluation. This is the stage where we make change permanent. We make sure that our people do not think that it is another “Program of the Month”, but something that will last in the Organization.
We will all go through these three stages, but not necessarily in that order.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
»Life is darkness when there is no impulse and all impulse is blind when there is no knowledge and all knowledge is useless when there is no work and all work is routine if there is no change»
The word change has become familiar in the most diverse organizations and has become a protagonist in business. Today, the paradigm seems to be "whoever does not adapt to change will die along the way."
There is a consensus that change is a reality, which strongly affects, in fact the only solid thing to cling to, is the certainty that whatever happens today will have changed the next day.
The general environment that surrounds organizations is in continuous movement and is dynamic, requires a high capacity for survival adaptation. They must face an unstable, constantly changing environment. So, to survive and compete, you have to adapt to change quickly and effectively. The change that is made will affect to some degree power relations, role stability and individual satisfaction within the organization.
This process can develop consciously, although it is very difficult to anticipate the effects of the changes; it is possible to clearly choose the direction that will facilitate it.
A well-conducted process of change implies achieving a personal transformation, which makes man more alert, more flexible and that is why many times he has to initiate an analysis of internal review and self-knowledge. In this change, as a lifelong learning process, the senior management of our response capacity must be involved.
An important aspect to consider is people's natural tendency to resist change. It is necessary to create and develop an attitude and open-mindedness to change, a culture that allows you to welcome good initiatives, as well as reject bad ones.
Organizational changes should not be left to chance, nor to the inertia of custom, except improvisation, they should be properly planned.
THE CHANGE PROCESS
The change process basically consists of three stages.
- Data collection: determination of the nature and availability of the necessary data and of the usable methods for its collection within the organization. It includes techniques and methods to describe the organizational system, the relationships between its elements and the ways to identify the most important problems and issues. Organizational diagnosis: from the analysis of the data collected, it is passed to its interpretation and diagnosis. It is about identifying concerns, problems, their consequences, setting priorities and objectives. Intervention action: you select the most appropriate intervention to solve a particular organizational problem. This is not the final phase of the change process, since it is continuous and a stage capable of facilitating the process on a continuity basis.
THE STARTING POINT FOR CHANGE
Today organizational change is the cornerstone of continuous improvement of organizations. Change is the phenomenon by means of which the future invades our lives and it is convenient to observe it carefully from the advantageous point of view of the individuals who live, breathe and experience.
People spend their lives waiting for things to change, for the people around them to change and for everything to fit their way of being and thinking. But employees can take on the role of leaders in a process of change and create a shared vision that mobilizes the organization and its human resources in the process of change. The mission of generating the capacity for change, part of permanent self-education, to learn and unlearn and to help others to learn. Learning is change and its starting point is education.
Knowledge is the key to being competitive. Today more than ever, organizations must develop learning capacities that allow them to capitalize on knowledge.
It is necessary for the worker to assume greater responsibility for their own development, to become an actor in their learning process and to strive to define their own needs based on the requirements of the job itself.
A good way to increase effectiveness is to do things differently from the traditional way, thus incorporating change as a constant in organizational functioning.
Working for work is today a sign of unproductivity. What is required to be more competitive is dynamism, that is, energy oriented towards the achievement of objectives.
The environment changes and companies are adjusting to new rules such as the integration of efforts, shared benefit, teamwork, permanent willingness to learn and change, process organizations, the flattening of organizational structures, the reduction of hierarchical levels and control points, the breaking of barriers, the need for communication, self-management and self-development as pillars of change.
Self-development allows people to be able to build new learning schemes.
Self-management means that each employee is able to plan, do and evaluate his own work without having to wait for his superior to tell him the things that he knows should be done for the good of the Company.
Self-management involves:
- • Work in teams that require little or no supervision • Get employees to contribute good ideas and suggestions • Turn the company into an organization that learns continuously • Make employees feel like what they do • Get them to management maintains greater control of the business • That each employee acts as a creative and self-motivated entrepreneur • That the company is a pleasant workplace and that in turn offers customers excellent products and services that ensure their permanence in the market.
You must start by wanting the work that is done in the Company, erase from the mind all the grudges, professional jealousy and envy that are handled in the organizations. We must think that work is part of our mission in life and that this is the best opportunity to serve others.
CULTURE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
The trends that guide the development of the contemporary world determine changes, that is, new attitudes in companies, such as the globalization of the economy, environmental awareness, the acceleration of privatizations, strategic alliances and technological advance, they make up an inescapable set of conditions that affect organizations. The strategy that best interprets the responses to the demands of this complex and changing environment is summarized in competitiveness.
NATURE OF CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
It is the nature of organizations that they change over time, and therefore managers by definition have to be trying to manage change with a proactive vision.
Accordingly, the very survival of an organization may depend on how culture adapts to a rapidly changing environment. Based on this premise, organizations that want to be competitive remain in search of excellence, through the acquisition of new knowledge that allows them to be on par with the environment and, in turn, assume the commitment to know the degree integration and diversification of skills, so that they can use the tools that allow them to structure an adequate portfolio of products and / or services.
Within the framework described above, these are strategies that all management should adopt to achieve success in achieving the established objectives, according to the guidelines established by the vision of the organization.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHANGE OF CULTURE
The change of culture implies a modification of a state, a condition or situation. It is a characteristic transformation, an alteration of more or less significant dimensions or aspects. The current panorama of organizations is presented full of radical changes and with a rhythm unprecedented in the history of humanity.
As changes become a permanent and accelerated factor, the adaptability of the organizational individual to such changes is increasingly determining in the survival of any company.
Considering the above as a constant, reality allows us to conclude the following: organizations face challenges and have shown that the present is one of those who adapt more aggressively to the new realities, that modern management sciences make sense when properly applied, that the challenges of the future are surmountable when you become aware of the role of innovation in a changing environment.
As organizations challenge change, it will be critical for management to develop new technologies to enhance the skills and abilities of individuals.
The essence of senior management is to accurately visualize where an organization's efforts should be directed, and to move it at the lowest cost. However, doing this is not easy, since there are unforeseen events, and so many possibilities of unique limitations, that it is complex to face them with rigid schemes - but executing change with new approaches, suggests that change in some way is a phenomenon that presents an unprecedented challenge.
THREE BASIC IDEAS ABOUT THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE.
- First: it consists of the capacity that senior management must have to manage changes, since these involve costs, risks, temporary inefficiencies and a certain amount of trauma and turbulence in the organization. Additionally, they can compel senior management to invest time and effort and avoid other key issues for the company. Second: once the change begins, it acquires a dynamic of its own and independent of whoever promotes or directs it, that is, it may happen that in some of the most successful cases of change, the results obtained are consistent with what was originally planned. Although in some cases, what was planned and what was obtained did not completely coincide. This phenomenon is motivated, among other things, by the fact that once the process of change is triggered, a series of events, actions, reactions, consequences and effects occur that can hardly be anticipated and completely controlled by those who manage the change. Third: change in a company is a slow, expensive, confusing and conflicting process, which normally occurs through certain more or less common stages.
Therefore, it is not only important to design and plan the desired future state, but to deeply analyze the transition state necessary for the organization to move towards the desired objective.
It is important to highlight that the change requires a high level of commitment, investment and dedication to achieving the new situation; that without the active participation and support of those who have the decision-making power in the company, it is very likely that the change will not be successful or be inconclusive, which can be detrimental to the organization.
Therefore, the changes are a product of the growth of the organizations, in terms of the plans they develop, due to the diversification of their actions, specialization of their activities, the leadership of their divisions and the characteristics of the market where they operate and compete.
PLANNED CHANGE PROCESS
Organizations with a proactive vision have the ability to perceive and understand the changes and the effect they have on the behavior of those involved.
PROCESSES THAT MUST OCCUR IN EACH OF THE PHASES TO ACHIEVE CHANGE IN A HUMAN SYSTEM.
- Defrosting (Invalidation): during this stage the forces for change are generated and consolidated. This is the stage where dissatisfaction with the existing situation reaches a sufficient level for it to be decided to change it. Anxiety, worry, and motivation must be high enough to justify the costs of a change. This stage also offers the greatest number of opportunities to reduce resistance to change, through the dissemination of information that allows us to understand the insufficiencies of the existing situation, the prevailing need to change it and the features of the future situation that we want to achieve.. Participation is usually the best antidote to organizational resistance. Change Through Cognitive Restructuring- Planned modifications are introduced, starting with the easiest for the organization to accept, then gradually moving on to changes of greater complexity and scope. During this period, which is usually the longest and most costly, appear the problems and dangers that more dedication and talent demand from senior management. New Freeze (Consolidation Of Change): this phase helps management to incorporate their new point of view, that is, the necessary conditions and guarantees are created to ensure that the changes achieved do not disappear. The push from senior management continues to be of vital importance at this stage and the lack of such support can lead to a setback in the process of change and could even lead to the ultimate failure of the process.
Establishing lasting changes means starting by opening the locks or unfreezing the current social system, which could mean, perhaps, a kind of confrontation, or a process of re-education. Furthermore, behavioral advancement becomes a kind of desired change, as in a reorganization. Finally, they have to be alert and take appropriate measures to ensure that the new state of behavior is relatively permanent.
Any change involves, at least for a time, the additional effort of having to learn to cope adequately in the new situation, which is an additional source of work and concern.
REACTION OF THE ORGANIZATION TO THE INCORPORATION OF CHANGE
The effects of the change are not automatic, nor necessarily equivalent to what was expected. It operates through change in people; they are the ones who control your results. The feelings and evaluations of those involved, regarding the change, largely decide their reaction.
Consequently, organizational man is conceived as a being who seeks his integral development from the encounter of his three dimensions: intellectual, affective and social; organizations are spoken of as the vital space that should enable man to develop; and for this development to take place, it must be an organization in need of change.
Organizations must become spaces for communication and reflection, a product of the joint construction of the people who make it up. Furthermore, consider the change of culture as a continuous learning process, framing man as the center of the development of an organization.
The educational process can be conceived as the process of sharing a culture and / or knowledge, with which the maintenance of the organization's existing culture is achieved.
No change can be successful without prior planning; Furthermore, determine whether these should be initiated by those who really feel the need for change. Leadership influence may have its limits, particularly in large companies, where senior management is far removed from management functions at the operational level.
Whatever the case, when the company is in the process of change, cultural norms must be reoriented by changing the management system, that is, the multiple management processes, the organizational structure and the management style that drives the company.
This situation has created new challenges for senior management; but in turn, it has allowed the release of sufficient energy and initiatives that will lead organizations to become competent in the business world.
Competitiveness is a strategy that results from combining entrepreneurship with the ability to continually learn. In a general sense it can be said that it is an attitude and an aptitude. It is an attitude oriented towards the visualization of opportunities and the control of threats. It is also a skill that allows customers to maintain and increase their preference for the goods or services offered.
In another order of ideas, an interdependence between management and change is perceived: once again it can be argued that managing is synonymous with change. Conventional organizations proposed change projects to achieve a condition of stability and balance. Currently, change does not seek calm and tranquility; on the contrary, it is changed to have a greater capacity for change. Now change is interpreted as the natural way through which organizations develop.
The changes have been as instruments of adaptation. Almost all driven by a crisis of mission and strategy of the organizations and, by the need to adapt, more than by any intention to change the internal organization itself. This perspective reflects that change in organizations is sometimes described as a process of converting a leader or leadership that is then transmitted throughout the company.
The previous premises allow the proposition of the thesis that entrepreneurship and knowledge are the two most important factors that determine the success of organizations.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE FOR GREATER COMPETITIVENESS
The new scenario to which organizations are subject are hasty changes that demand high flexibility and adaptability to the demands of their environment. In this sense, changes must be understood as permanent challenges capable of ensuring the failure or success of an organization.
Consequently, it is of great importance for companies to know the degree of maturity and willingness to face the changes. A positive experience is given when reflecting the acceptance by employees of new policies, a positive attitude towards innovation and the success achieved in previous processes.
A key element for the acceptance of the culture change is communication. The transmission of values, beliefs through effective communication processes.
The clarity of expectations is related to communicational openness in relation to the topic, at all levels of the organization, and pertinent and timely information on the change process to be implemented.
For many organizations, organizational change management also means moving from a traditional culture in which bureaucratic, motivational styles and values of power and affiliation prevail, and a climate of conformity; to a performance culture, where it is possible to contribute new ideas; People can take calculated risks and are encouraged to set challenging goals, through recognition of merit and excellent results.
If the human side of the change process is analyzed to adapt to a more competitive environment, it can be thought that the organizational disposition, the human team and the process of implementing the change, will require personal characteristics fundamentally oriented to do an increasingly better job, with standards of excellence that allow increasing productivity and organizational effectiveness.
In other words, it is essential that people possess a series of competencies directly associated with excellence in their respective areas of responsibilities, in order to guarantee greater competitiveness.
ADVANCE OF COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY AS A PROCESS OF CHANGE
“Change is the phenomenon through which the future invades our lives, and it should be observed carefully from the advantageous point of view of the individuals who live, breathe and experience.
GLOBALIZATION WITHIN THE CHANGE PROCESSES
Globalization is considered as a process of change to lower costs and develop products, generating greater competitiveness in foreign and domestic markets. Globalization requires a dramatic change in the national approach to employment, development and the principle of management.
Globalization is characterized by strategic unions between industrial conglomerates and consists of managers being alert when recruiting, selecting prepared people, which is the force that drives the organization to achieve its objectives, in addition, that brings the initiative, determination and commitment that produce success to the organization.
Today more than ever, organizations must be generators of learning in order to train and develop capacities that allow them to capitalize on knowledge. This premise has recently become a competitive advantage coupled with the survival of the organization in a highly changing environment.
The globalization of markets, increased competitiveness, rapid and growing technological development, and demographic trends and demands of the workforce, force organizations to rethink and reconsider, under new perspectives, human development.
In order to undergo the processes of change in human beings from the individual to the institutional levels, leadership is necessary that takes into account the cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects that lead the organization to a true transformation.
Finally, the image and thought of the leader are essential to give direction to the change process, to achieve coherence in the human team and consistency in decisions, which will make an organization more competitive in a market economy, where everyone should have the same opportunities and the same risks.
HOW TO MANAGE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
The term change management constitutes one of the most relevant aspects of the globalization process of business management, since both the manager and the organization begin to face complex change situations in their environment that must not be addressed in a dispersed manner. They require a minimal platform that successfully ensures change in the organization.
However, undertaking a change management process is not as easy as one might think at first due to the large number of elements involved, in addition to which we must be completely sure that the organization can absorb the changes and, very particularly, that its human resources understand its importance and commit themselves in fact to its performance, bearing in mind that it is a continuous process that must be treated as such and not as transitory.
On the other hand, it is necessary to carry out a previous diagnosis of the organization to appreciate its true situation and define both its real mission and the strategic guidelines that should guide it, at the same time that it facilitates the identification of those environmental variables that may have a negative impact. or positively, on its main areas of management, with which potential obstacles, weaknesses and threats could be anticipated, in addition to the potentialities themselves.
This diagnosis must be based on the formulation of some key questions about the organization's management, which would allow us to reflect on the aspects that affect its operation: are we doing things well, can we do it better? Is our response capacity better than the competition? Are we really prepared to face and take on the changes in the environment?
THE ROLE OF THE MANAGER AS A LEADER IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE PROCESS
Faced with a process of organizational change or reconversion of attitudes, the role of the manager must be to lead the change itself, becoming a visionary, a strategist and an excellent communicator and inspirer of all those aspects that involve the organization, every time This process, due to its magnitude, can only be achieved with the commitment of the management team and of the entire organization as a whole, and it is increasingly important to think about reconverting the manager first, since if the manager has a willing team to change and do not feel committed to it, such change will not take place as a result of a passive resistance (the one in which word changes are supported, but do not participate in them.
For all this, the new realities of the environment are leaving aside the idea of traditional, rigid organizations, requiring today a more participatory, flatter management and with fewer hierarchical levels, where there is a greater approach of all those who They comprise it, with a much more active participation of the entire management team in decision-making and with a very particular emphasis on decision-making teams based on functional structures by business area.
On the other hand, the development of new technologies and the increasing boom of the so-called "information revolution" has led to accelerated changes in organizational structures, while conditioning a new global profile for the manager, where his The main personal characteristics must include a greater ability to adapt to new circumstances, an international mindset and excellent conditions for learning and communication, in addition to having elementary principles such as ethics, honesty and justice, the valuation of which is universal.
THE MANAGER AND COMMUNICATION IN THE PROCESS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Every manager of an organization that undertakes change management processes or reconversion of attitudes, must bear in mind that bottom-up communication is much more difficult and less efficient for achieving objectives than top-down communication, so it is necessary improve the internal channels of the organization, remembering that there can be no true one-way communication.
Although the ability to understand and direct all the processes of the organization is vital to develop effective leadership, the modern manager must not only dominate the technical, logistical, strategic and financial aspects as a whole, but must give it a very special importance to the company's human resources. The lead manager must communicate effectively with his employees, while projecting the image of the company and objectively evaluating what his staff needs to make it even easier for them to absorb their own corporate identity.
The modern manager must be aware that his performance as a leader is closely observed by everyone in the organization and outside it, and it is precisely through his behavior, attitudes and personality that it begins to permeate the corporate image of the company.
On the other hand, the manager must always keep in mind that not only must he know the organization through the information previously filtered by his team of managers (the so-called “staff” of the organization), but he must become more involved and interested in all of them. the internal aspects, behaviors and levels of the organization, without necessarily implying that you should not delegate responsibilities to said team to analyze problems and situations, manage resources and support the needs of the personnel in your charge.
CONCLUSION
Current conditions have determined that beyond a simple causal relationship between organizational culture, change, and the impact of technology on human resource management, there is a reciprocal link between all the elements, which generate implicit permanent challenges. in the challenges that every organization must face.
The previous premise allows us to highlight that business management makes sense to the extent that the challenges are satisfactorily overcome, for which a large dose of creativity is required for the management and control of the changing environment.
Investment in the training and updating of personnel is another aspect of special significance, in order to make it the axis and motor of the transformation processes.
The complexity of the current environment, on the other hand, saturated with competition, social problems, demanding customers, rigid environmental laws, and immersed in a growing process of globalization, makes working insufficient today. It is necessary more than ever to think and rethink organizations, give them a sense of direction, redesign or optimize the core processes, develop suitable organizational structures so that these processes work in a timely manner, aggressively use the latest technology to help materialize the vision outlined for the organization. Working for work is today a sign of unproductiveness. What is required to be more competitive is dynamism, that is, energy oriented towards the achievement of objectives.
The failure of change efforts in many organizations has been due to not taking into account, beyond rhetoric, the personnel as the center of the transformation and not achieving an adequate balance between their adaptation and changes in processes.
It is imperative that senior management fully understand the necessary cultural values in their organization so that they can promote and reinforce them through an action plan. Once this distinction has been made, it is necessary to define what needs to be changed, to determine the favorable or unfavorable aspects of the organizational culture.
The human resources manager must be able to support change, considering it as a strategic tool for achieving organizational success. This means being strongly business-oriented, being a facilitator of processes, being customer-oriented, and being able to anticipate and act proactively. That is, maintain a vision of the future to anticipate the changes and the skills to plan, manage and evaluate the consequences of them.
Organizations must maintain managers with a vision of efficiency and effectiveness, based on an assertive philosophy of change, which allows them the possibility of creating new paradigms based on personal development to achieve continuous improvement.
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