Navigating and Facilitating Change
At workplace, change is not only necessary for organizational progress, but also inevitable bearing in mind that the prevailing external and internal environments keep on changing continuously. As such, changes must be implemented in a manner that does not disrupt and affect the smooth running of the organization. In this case, Kotter suggested eight crucial steps that should be considered when making changes.
The steps are embodied in three phases, including the creation of climate for change, engagement of the organization, and the implementation stage (Detrani, 2011). When building the climate for change the agents should first create the urgency of making the identified changes. The stakeholders must be convinces that the organization can hardly run without the proposed changes.
Having created the urgency for change, the change agents should conceive a team that is mandated to see the organization through the processes of change. This team should be inclusive to ensure that all the organizational departments have been involved in the entire process. This reduces the possible resistance towards the changes. The team should conceive the vision of the intended change in order to stipulate the objectives and the intended results.
These three steps manage to create a climate for change in the work setup. The next phase deals with enabling the organization to conduct the various activities of the change process. The phase incorporates the communication for buy-in, triggering action, and the creation of short-term wins in order to encourage the employees to continue with the entire change process.
The final phase should focus on the implementation of the specific change stipulations. It includes the continuous persistence on the change process and making the changes stick in the organizational framework. In other words, the changes are integrated within the cultures and objectives of the organization.
Communicating Bad News
When communicating bad news, it is important to understand that the surest way of getting over misfortunes is addressing them directly rather than using the subordinates. In this regard, the direct confrontation portrays a sense of confidence to the organization. In addition, it is necessary to present bad news alongside some other achievements in the workplace.
As such, the bad news should not be communicated in isolation because they might discourage the workers (Legutko, 2011). When they are presented amongst other news, the good achievements should come before the latter. This will mitigate the possible damage which may arise as a result of focusing on the bad issues first. Importantly, it is advisable to present bad news in a positive way without using disparaging language which might have a negative effect.
Dealing with Complaints
When it comes to the complaints, it is necessary to conceive a conflict management system in the workplace. The critical approach that should be applied in this regard is conjoined to the use of an inclusive approach. This inclusion allows the complainant and the defaulter to hold talks on the basis of arbitration (Soparnot, 2011).
The leaders should make sure that the conflicting parties find a solution among themselves. Indeed, the arbitrator should not give his personal suggestion and solutions as the priority. However, after substantial agreement between the conflicting parties, the leaders should give guidelines concerning the way forward.
Developing Empowered Relationships
Working relations are among the crucial aspects of managing an organization because the individual units must come up work in coordination with each other. The mentioned relationships can be nurtured by adopting an inclusive approach in all organizational undertakings.
The inclusion of employees, managers, and other stakeholders provide an opportunity to interact. The interactions form the basis of sharing ideas and familiarizing with each other. As such, this contributes to the conception of strong and long-lasting relationships.
References
Detrani, J. (2011). Mass communication issues, perspectives and techniques. Oakville, Ont.: Apple Academic Press;.
Legutko, C. (2012). Organizational management. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press.
Soparnot, R. (2011). The concept of organizational change capacity. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(5), 640-661.