The article analyzes the positions of various authors, in relation to organizational change and resistance to change. Initially, the most outstanding aspects of the change process are conceptualized, including the relationship with climate and organizational development. When asked why organizational change? , the incidence of causes is explained: environmental, social, technological, internal and administrative. Next, we analyze how to manage resistance to change, focusing on the organization as a "living" system. Subsequently, the analysis is oriented towards the application of the change project, considering the underlying logic and finally the profile required by a Manager is inferred, to undertake the process with high probability of success. In other words, a comprehensive manager.
Introduction
We are immersed in a world subject to permanent changes, where skills, abilities and in general past successes do not guarantee the survival of the company in the medium and long term. A globalized market, increasingly demanding and selective, supported by accelerated technological development. This implies that organizations in general, and specifically business organizations, must change in order to respond appropriately to the context. How to guide and apply the required organizational changes? Experiences and figures tell us that they are not enough: resources, motivations, desires, abilities and skills. Multiple frustrating experiences, record it.The extensive theory developed in recent times in the managerial field, proposes various methods to apply "successfully" the administrative sciences in the processes of change. However, the leaders of change over and over again are surprised, trying to resolve the conflicts derived from the process, without having achieved the proposed objectives. Possibly the problem is that these methods provide us with a mechanistic view of the process, which leads to our not being able to manage resistance to change. Hence the relevance of this hermeneutical analysis, associated with organizational change. The hermeneutic refers to the fact of interpreting the theory of change, in order to adequately apply the administrative sciences, orienting them towards a "living" system.
The conceptualization of organizational change
Taking Tripier, B (2002) as a reference, organizational change can be defined as the transition process, from a current situation to a future one, desired to be seen as an improvement. So there will be a stage of imbalance, while the change that allows the balance again takes place. The areas involved in an organizational change process are: institutional related to: values, mission, vision; structural that imply alterations in the division of the jobs and readjustments of roles; technological, involving aspects such as information technology and machines in general; strategies that are associated with repositioning the market and finally the cultural one. Undoubtedly the latter is the most complex, since changes only occur through the people who make up the organization, who must then assume a new vision, values, rituals and ways of doing things. In that senseOrganizational culture is understood as the set of: beliefs, expectations and values adopted by the members of an organization, acting as a group. This culture constitutes a paradigm or pattern of behavior that is evident as the main source of resistance to change.
Why an organizational change?
The justifying causes of the change must be carefully and permanently analyzed to reduce resistance to the process, anticipating the actions required in order to minimize radical application. This involves a situation of balance
dynamic. Those causes can be grouped into factors: environmental, social, technological, internal organizational and administrative. The first three are exogenous in nature, not controllable by the organization itself. On the other hand, business organizations behave like complex organisms, hence the impossibility of anticipating with certainty the necessary changes, especially when we must consider their relationship with the environment, in highly dynamic scenarios. Not facing the process of organizational change, maintaining the "paradigmatic paralysis" leads to dysfunctional situations for companies, in a competitive context.However, a process of organizational change oriented towards a present situation implies waste. Actions for change must have a strategic focus in correspondence with what Drucker (1994) calls post-capitalist society, where in his opinion the basic resource is knowledge, so that in this capitalist society, the economic challenge is productivity and empower the knowledge worker. Regarding the social challenge, Drucker (1994) argues that this will consist of achieving the social dignity of service workers. Facing these challenges undoubtedly implies changes that obviate a mechanistic approach to the organization and are appropriate to its complexity. As for the environmental factor, as a generator of change, it has become highly important.The holoecological concept associates man and nature to achieve sustainable development. On this, Capra (1981), in his work: The Crucial Point, focuses on the world crisis, the stage for organizational changes and proposes in the prologue: “… to reach this state of dynamic equilibrium, a radically different economic and social structure will be needed. A cultural revolution in the true sense of the word. The survival of our entire civilization could depend on our ability to effect this change ”(p. 20). He analyzes the changes related to the world view, going from a Cartesian and Newtonian mechanistic vision to a holistic and ecological one. By not adapting complex and unpredictable business organizations by their nature to a complex environment,What Sérieyx (1993) dramatically expresses in his work could be produced: The Big Bang of Organizations. He argues that organizations have been designed to develop in a world where stability would be the rule and change the exception. The dynamics of recent years have determined the opposite, with change being the rule and stability an exceptional condition. Faced with this new reality. Many organizations literally "explode", some disappearing and others with greater capacity for change, redesigning themselves.change being the rule and stability an exceptional condition. Faced with this new reality. Many organizations literally "explode", some disappearing and others with greater capacity for change, redesigning themselves.change being the rule and stability an exceptional condition. Faced with this new reality. Many organizations literally “explode”, some disappearing and others with greater capacity for change, redesigning themselves.
Resistance to change. How to anticipate it?
Resistance to change is the opposing force that is generated when starting a process of change. It is highly influenced by the perception of people, in relation to the way in which that change will affect them. But resistance is not in itself a negative fact, if it is assumed as a binding condition based on the continuous evaluation of the assumptions underlying the change. Resistance can be expressed openly or be disguised. Basically, the causes of resistance to change can be classified as: economic factor, anxiety, uncertainty, changes in relationships, rejection of greater intervention by formal authority and inertia associated with the current situation. When considering change, the economic factor is generally the first to be analyzed.What economic impact will the process of change have personally?Anxiety is generated by the need to adapt personal competencies to the required profile based on the anticipated changes. Regarding uncertainty, this is derived from the complexity of the factors involved in the changes, making it impossible to predict with certainty, the result. The social interrelation between the members of the organization is based not only on the formal definition, associated with the organizational structure, but is largely determined by the social environment and its informal relationships. The threat of change in this interrelation, strongly rooted in many cases, generates rejection of change. On the other hand, the knowledge and skills acquired by the experience in the execution of the current tasks, generate a relative autonomy,This could be reduced by the greater supervisory control required as a result of the change.
As for inertia, this constitutes a natural cause of resistance to change, because it guides the execution of activities and tasks in the way they are being done, even when the change represents an obvious optimization. Minimizing resistance to change in reasonable terms implies creating an adequate organizational climate; understood by organizational climate: "a set of values or attitudes that influence the way people relate to each other, such as" accessibility ", patterns of authority, social relations, etc." (Bennis, 1973, p. 91). The negative organizational climate to change is present when there are: lack of credibility and leadership on the part of the promoters of change; significant increase in conflicts; loss of control over the environment; feeling of incompetence,which generates anxiety; excessive individuality and zeal, which limits adequate teamwork. Regarding strategies to “overcome” resistance to change, Michael (1983) considers that it is more appropriate to weaken the opposition forces and achieve their cooperation, than simply to rely on the forces prone to change.The role of senior management is crucial to minimize resistance to change, since their full involvement gives legitimacy to the process.This in no way implies that resistance disappears by the application of authority. In fact, senior management must achieve a shared vision that generates true commitment to the success of the process. In short, organizational change must be assumed as a project, whose application will generate resistance that must be anticipated to achieve the proposed results. Tripier (2002), Fulmer (1983) and Nargulies (1985) provide guidance on previous actions, which involve: identifying potential change leaders at all levels of the organization and involving them in achieving what Beer (1990) has called “commitment towards change ”, and take advantage of the multiplier effect of these leaders, who in all cases are not the ones who occupy supervisory positions;Their potential opponents must also be identified and their arguments analyzed to make the necessary adjustments. In this sense, open communication and total receptivity to the opposite approaches is essential. Empathy must be established with the staff. Critical failures and their causes must also be analyzed. This prior diagnosis with the participation of the entire value chain, which includes: customers, company and suppliers, will allow us to assertively define the change required, associated with: application of total quality, market development, reengineering, strategic alliances, skills development, strategic cost management, total productive maintenance, benchmarking, information technology and others.In this sense, open communication and total receptivity to the opposite approaches is essential. Empathy must be established with the staff. Critical failures and their causes must also be analyzed. This prior diagnosis with the participation of the entire value chain, which includes: customers, company and suppliers, will allow us to assertively define the change required, associated with: application of total quality, market development, reengineering, strategic alliances, skills development, strategic cost management, total productive maintenance, benchmarking, information technology and others.In this sense, open communication and total receptivity to the opposite approaches is essential. Empathy must be established with the staff. Critical failures and their causes must also be analyzed. This prior diagnosis with the participation of the entire value chain, which includes: customers, company and suppliers, will allow us to assertively define the change required, associated with: application of total quality, market development, reengineering, strategic alliances, skills development, strategic cost management, total productive maintenance, benchmarking, information technology and others.This prior diagnosis with the participation of the entire value chain, which includes: customers, company and suppliers, will allow us to assertively define the change required, associated with: application of total quality, market development, reengineering, strategic alliances, skills development, strategic cost management, total productive maintenance, benchmarking, information technology and others.This prior diagnosis with the participation of the entire value chain, which includes: customers, company and suppliers, will allow us to assertively define the change required, associated with: application of total quality, market development, reengineering, strategic alliances, skills development, strategic cost management, total productive maintenance, benchmarking, information technology and others.
Organizational change. How to apply it?
Beer, Eisenstat and Spector (1990) give preliminary guidance on the application of the change process. According to these authors, an effective corporate change begins from the base, through informal actions aimed at solving business problems. They assure that in order to be successful in the change the way of changing must be modified, and they provide the results of the study of various organizations subject to change that indicate the need to apply the following actions: generation of commitments; developing a shared vision; obtain consensus on the vision, mission, objective and other aspects of the administration; achieve the necessary group cohesion and competence; not to impose the changes, rather to generate them at the departmental level, with the support of senior management; formalize change through the design and implementation of policies,systems and structure; monitor the progress and trends of the change process, to correct deviations. Applying them implies for them that the following factors are evident: coordination; high degree of commitment and the necessary skills, such as negotiation skills, interpersonal relationships, etc. However, it should be borne in mind that organizations are complex and interact with a dynamic environment of increasing complexity. It is not possible to pretend in this context, with processes focused under the mechanistic paradigm, to originate the required changes, hence the application of the aforementioned methodologies requires their adaptation to the characteristics of the organization, with a holistic view of the process, considering As already stated, the value chain that integrates: customers,company and suppliers. Going deeper into the application of change, it is pertinent, what was expressed by Fenzel (1993, cp De Souza, nd), in the sense that real changes are always based on an intention and have an underlying logic, which corresponds to some of the following types:
• Formal: part of the premise that the organization and its resources are totally ordered, with the purpose of profitability and efficiency. Under this logic, change will always be generated from the strategic level.
• Transcendental: the group consciously assumes its reality and supports change to suit the environment.
• Unconscious: change is generated as an expression of cultural elements, values and collective symbols.
• Dialectic: considers change as a natural process, regardless of intent. It stimulates the expression of conflicts and contradictions, to manage them and apply the pertinent solutions. This logic is considered to be related to organizational development.
Highlighting the social character of the organizations, in order to generate changes, the autopoiesis inherent in the own capacity of the human being to forge their existence appears. It is the individuals that make up the organizations that will process the decisions regarding changes in it. In this sense, the advisory function only facilitates the process. The consequence of the social character is that organizations act recursively tending to conserve, rather than modify their form. On the other hand, the organization acting as a social system, to maintain its identity, tends to close its limits with the environment and open them only to update its differences with it, causing changes. This is due to the tendency to expand its operations to reduce the so-called irritations of the environment,which reduces the complexity of this, increasing the corresponding to the organization. The events that affect an organizational system are called disturbance as they are typified by the system, so the response constitutes a routine and irritation that, unlike the disturbance, arises as an atypical event and therefore the organizational system rules it out. as trivial or generates the change response. Another aspect to consider is that the changes are executed, not coupling directly to the environment, but applying autopoiesis with another organizational system. Example bank mergers, in relation to the market. Implementing the changes also implies negotiation, for which the dialectic or art of reasoning is of fundamental importance.But the effectiveness of the dialectic is subject to the fact that each area of management in its conversation poses, not an interpersonal dialogue, but rules of exclusion and inclusion. Such a situation generates irritations and disturbances, which implies objectively trying to find points of agreement that allow negotiation in terms of "win - win". Regarding global change, previous analyzes allow visualizing the high degree of difficulty of gradual changes. Although Shein (1961, cp Fulmer, 1983) proposed the following steps: thawing, change and re-freezing, the evidence indicates that the sum of small organizational changes does not guarantee a global change, inasmuch as organizations respond as living organisms against the disturbance, adjusting your response until you reach indifference.To achieve the application of the holistic approach in the changes, Galassi (1999) proposes the following options:
• Radically modify its operation, which constitutes a reengineering with the consequent re-foundation of the organization.
• Structural coupling to another system.
Particular attention in the process of change, require typical actions so that "nothing changes", such as:
• Restructuring: unless they simplify decision-making levels; modify evaluation mechanisms orienting them towards results or systematically focus the departmental interrelation.
• Policies on socio-economic benefits: since although the negative impact of deficiencies in these policies has been demonstrated. Its positive incidence to achieve a notable improvement in productivity and adaptation to changes is not evident.
• Recruitment and selection policies: the organization as a whole is not very permeable towards the effect of change in the aforementioned policies. Thus, they imply a limited invitation or disturbance towards the organizational system.
An organizational system, behaving like a living organism decides with complete freedom, which will alter it. As Wheatley (1998) refers, in the face of disturbing information, the organization through its communication networks disseminates this information and responds generating a temporary imbalance, while the system prepares for readjustments, opens to change and transforms to achieve its goal. preservation. Wheatley (1998) also exposes the importance of applying the principles of natural alienation in the process of organizational change, which are explained in the following way:
• People must be involved in change. Participating is not considered an option, as people support only what they have created.
• Life permanently reacts against orders. We must motivate, involve, dialogue and negotiate.
• Reality or truth is relative. It depends on personal perception. Organizational intelligence is applied here, redefined as the ability of the members to reach an agreement on the importance of a situation, which allows speeding up decisions.
• Better feedback allows optimizing the organizational system.
These principles indicate the magnitude of the managerial challenge to effectively apply the organizational change project.
The proposed arguments are located within the framework of theory O, which together with theory E, are the two predominant approaches to apply them to the processes of change. Theory E is fundamentally centralized in maximizing economic value, it is oriented towards the knowledge of the members of the organization and affects the structure and systems, unlike theory O that concentrates on processes. Also according to theory E, change is led and promoted by the strategic level. In theory O, the process of change involves full participation.
Management for organizational change
Once the complexity of the organizations, their environment and the performance scenarios have been established, the need arises to define the appropriate managerial profile to manage the required changes, bearing in mind the resistance that said process generates and the condition of balance in the organization of the 21st century must be dynamic, not static. On the other hand, it is proven that the mechanistic paradigm is not a suitable model for its application to the processes of organizational change. As stated by Sérieyx (1994): “… to gather courage, creativity, adaptation and progress in a changing and hostile environment, nothing can replace a team of free and convinced men and women, united by certain strong rules of the game and shared ”(p. 103). On the other hand, Pointu (1986, ep Sérieyx, 1994) expresses:“The fundamental revolution is not of the new social technologies whose foundations are quite classic; she is in the representation that those responsible are made of the company and of the role that people must play ”(p. 103)”. It is then necessary to resort to the initiative, innovation and competences of the people. Furthermore, it is necessary to simplify the structures and procedures. In short, all members of the organization must become protagonists of change. The challenge is to achieve a community in the company as suggested by Ulrich (1999) and Pinchot (1999) in the work of the Drucker Foundation: The community of the future. Given the previous analysis, the model proposed by Sallenave (1994) regarding an Integral Manager that:
• Develops contextual skills.
• It promotes creativity, learning and innovation.
• Evidence of skills for remote administration.
• It uses information technology as a tool for change.
• Manage complexity and reduce complication.
• It is proactive.
• Develops leadership and shared vision.
• Evidence of high perception regarding environmental signals.
• Manages "human capital".
To achieve this profile, the Integral Manager must have:
• Knowledge of administrative sciences.
• Systemic vision of management.
• Negotiating ability.
• Wide communication capacity.
conclusion
The analysis of the theory associated to the organizational change, under a hermeneutic approach, allows to visualize the organizations as human systems, with a highly complex character, in an environment and in front of also complex and also highly dynamic scenarios. Such condition is fundamental in the application of administrative sciences to: anticipate resistance; implement the organizational change project; obtain the expected results and minimize the trauma inherent in said process.
Bibliography
Books and printed documents:
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Newspaper publication:
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• Tripier, B. (2002, August 18). Resistance to change a manageable danger. The National. P. E / 5.
Digital documentation
• Beer, M. Eisenstat, R. and Spector, B. (1990). Why change programs don't produce change. An Abstrac. Harvard Business Review. NOV / DEC 1990. Retrieved on June 27, 2002, from the World Wide Web:.
• Beer, M. and Noria, N. (sf). Breaking the code of change. Harvard Business School Press. Retrieved on August 23, 2002 from the World Wide Web:
• De Souza, A. (sf). Organizational change. In human resources articles. Retrieved on August 19, 2002 from the World Wide Web:
• Herder. Dictionary of Philosophy (on CD - ROM). Spain: Herder Publishing Company.
• Wheatley, M. (1998). How to carry out organizational change. Retrieved on August 19, 2002 from the World Wide Web:.
