Introduction
According to Dyllick and Hockerts (2002, pg. 131), organizational sustainability refers to a process where an organization strives to meet the needs and expectations of the firm’s current stakeholders (clients, employees, communities, pressure groups and many more), exclusive of compromising its capacity to meet the wants for future stakeholders. Organizational sustainability should be structured in a manner that will help the Church to deal with the boundaries and responsibilities of the firm’s staff. However, sustainable change should not be confused with successful change since, successful change involves an elaborate change in an organization focusing on achieving all of its objectives while, sustainable change endures, maintains and supports the momentum and expansion of the development targets (Francis et al, 2005). To practice a sustainable change at the United Methodist Church (UMC) in Malaysia, the overseas missionaries for migrant workers should implement the following change initiatives to avoid resistance to the projected changes in the Church by the people.
Discussions
For the church to change there is a need for urgency in the implementation of all the strategic plans. This process involves telling the people about the naked reality and truth of the church’s current position economically, socially and spiritually. This step is designed to make all the employees and the stakeholders see and appreciate the negativities that can and should be changed for the smooth running of the church. As a missionary of the church in Malaysia, you should make your subjects realize the pain and effects associated with the identified negativities. The main task of leadership simply involves selling the ideas of change to their subjects (Covington, 2007). Another factor close to this is the capability of the church leaders to make a strong guiding alliance between them and their subjects. This is very vital since all changes are largely dependent on personal relationships especially, between the leaders and their subjects to avoid any resistance to the projected changes. However, as a leader, it is important to adjust the measurement technique for this guiding coalition.
Another strategy for pursuing sustainable change in the Malaysian UMC involves the development of clear visions by the church leaders (Koenig & Srikantaiah, 2004). The vision should be properly articulated in a few but memorable words to avoid confusions that may arise concerning the purpose of the outlined changes and their possible outcomes. After developing a vision, the leaders should include their subjects in the action plan. This will enable the church leaders to identify the people required to implement the changes and to strongly align the leadership group with the development and communication of the mentioned vision.
Since major change initiatives take time to fully implement, the church leaders should design short-term wins aimed at enterprising the planned resources. This is due to the failure of many managers and leaders to fathom the pending improvements when they occur too slowly. Plans can be designed to yield visible improvements almost immediately; in fact, an early realization of the targeted changes is very vital in boosting the people’s morale and motivation.
The final strategy involves the cultivation of change in the culture of their subjects (Goldsmith, Morgan & Ogg, 2004). New ideas and behaviors are very difficult to adopt especially, by communities or societies that previously had their customs, believes and traditions. In this case, the people should be taught the new skills or concepts and be allowed to apply them at their workstations in the church. The whole process of change can be wasted when the church leaders ignore the process of embedding the changes made in the culture of the people in Malaysia.
Conclusion
The whole processes of achieving sustainable changes in an organization involve survival, competence and thriving to achieve the stipulated goals. Moreover, learning and changing entail becoming quicker, superior, more inventive and approachable as a spiritual leader.
References
Covington, J. (2007). Leading Successful, Sustainable Change. Web.
Dyllick, T., & Hockerts, K. (2002). Beyond the Business Case for Corporate Sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment. 11: 130-141.
Francis, M., Sarmiento, R., Beale, J., & Found, P. (2005). An Exploratory Study of The Keys to Successful and Sustainable Change Management. Cardiff: CUIMRC Working Papers.
Goldsmith, M., Morgan, H., & Ogg, A. (2004). Leading Organizational Learning: Harnessing The Power Of Knowledge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Koenig, M., & Srikantaiah, T. (2004). Knowledge Management Lessons Learned; What Works And What Doesn’t. Medford, NJ: Information Today.