Change Management, Managing Growth, and Organizational Theory
Change in the work environment isn’t easy. We all fear change. As Carly Fiorina explains the dynamics of change and fear, managers and leaders experience fear like the rest of us. As they grow startups or smaller companies, the understanding of organizational theory and its five stages of growth isn’t a key management requirement. When I worked in these types of companies, the middle managers or executives didn’t appear to have change management skills. Being smaller, these entrepreneurial companies were built for speed, based on the founders or executive team’s quick read on what need to be done. It was their strength, but one that would hinder their ability to adapt as the company grew. But how do managers and leaders plan for change, as they face their own fears or manager their employees fears?
Change Management is a Requirement for Managing Growth
As a company grows, the need to change management increases. Change comes in different forms such as strategic, structural, process-oriented, and people-centered. As entrepreneurial leaders start maturing the company, they may not anticipate change. They may think things will work out naturally. By underestimating or not realizing change is occurring, the company starts facing different challenges never faced before. When leaders don’t under change management concepts or its effects, it’s as if someone is speaking French to them, but they don’t know French.
Organizational Theory & the Five Stages of Growth
Assuming leaders can speak French, organizational development theory could teach them that change is often centered on the five stages of growth that companies go through. These stages fall in general stages such as creativity, direction, delegation, control, and collaboration. The challenge is to grow the company from stage 3 to 4 (from delegation to control stage).
When I was a product manager in an entrepreneurial company, my leaders brought in a consultant to identify a new process that couldn’t be defined and executed by my director. At the time, I found it problematic that my current leaders didn’t know “French,” or organizational theory, combined with change management skills; frankly, they weren’t interested in learning French. How could they understand the dimensions of change? They didn’t know to how to manage the change process, when they had to grow the company from stage 2 to 3. Fear was in the air. changes were on the horizon. Were our leaders capable of the following:
- Can change be planned?
- Should it be incremental or is it a quantum leap?
- How much learning is involved to implement change?
- Who’s the target of change? The employees, directors, or executives?
- Will the change mean your becoming bureaucratic?
Planning for Change
After the consultant came in to identify a process, our company experienced three types of change simultaneously: structural, process-oriented, and people-centric. The consultant presented a new process with recommendations to the company’s leadership, taking action as a result of these recommendations. My director was moved to Marcom, being removed as Director of Product Management. The consultant was hired to implement the new process, a move that stabilized the product management function again. To my surprise, the higher ups weren’t capable of pulling off the change management themselves; however, they were smart enough to know when to bring in an outsider, who also acted as the change agent, to help with the following steps for change:
- Developing goals of the change (at least not formally)
- Selecting a change agent
- Diagnosing the current climate
- Selecting an implementation method
- Developing a plan
- Implementing the plan
- Following the plan and evaluate
Looking back, I remain impressed by how this entrepreneurial company moved from stage 2 to 3, by making tough decisions, as they executed the seven steps above. They knew they didn’t have the skills to take the company to the next level, so they brought in a change agent, one who could be the bad guy, as they changed structure, process, and headcount. Of course, this didn’t mean that the higher ups eventually learned “French”…Je ne pense pas. But they did take on fear by trying something new, to evolve the company to its next level.
Recommended Books on Change Management
- Essential Managers: Managing Change by Robert Heller
- Principles of Management
by CliffsQuickReview
- Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change by William Bridges
- From Chaos to Confidence: Your Survival Strategies for the New Workplace
by Susan M. Campbell
Similar Posts:
- Flatten Your Learning Curve: Read the Classic Business Books in Core Areas
- Smart Lemming Career Management Brief: How the Mighty Fall, Volunteering, Success at Work
- Smart Lemming Rundown Podcast: January 25, 2010 (Episode 1)
- The Smart Lemming’s Daily Twitter Digest: November 18, 2009
- Smart Lemming Action Items: Becoming a Happier Person, Improving Your Skills, and Branding Icon Michael Jackson
