Theory and Practice of Change Management

Question: Discuss about the Theory and Practice of Change Management. Answer: Introduction: Communication plays an important role in establishing a successful communication between the employer and the employees of an organization, and while any kind of organizational change is being introduced, the transparent flow of information between the two ends is absolutely needed. In the year of 2006, when the CEO of Sun Microsystems, was changed, not many employees were prepared to accept an existent employee in a new role, and hence Jonathon Schwartz, the new CEO had to adopt a suitable communication strategy. As per the KAA model, awareness and acceptance are the two change phases that fit best the communication strategy adopted by Schwartz. As it can be seen, Schwartz instead of imposing change on the employees, and establishing his authority, Schwartz chose to engage his subordinates, in the process of designing an implementation strategy. He listened to the people, informed them about his decision and plans, created awareness among them about the new responsibilities, and the new plans he has formulated. Further, Schwartz also employed blogging as an effective means for communicating with the employees of Sun Microsystems that helped the employees accept him. While interacting with the employees, Schwartz succeeded in establishing a close bond with his subordinates, as a result of which he could not only introduce the changes to the employees, but could easily help the employees handle the transition (Hayes 2014). Instead of mandating change, Schwartz was discreet enough to change the employee mindset and attitude, by holding interactive sessions and regular meetings with the employees. This two way method of communication helps in gaining the confidence of the subordinates, thereby helping them to accept the leadership style of Schwartz (Cornelissen 2014). It has been understood that although Schwartz had adopted an effective communication strategy for communicating the change to the employees, a few more suggestions could be beneficial here. The moment a change is happening in an organization, the employees usually have one question in mind, and that is why the change is happening at all. Although, Schwartz has devoted sufficient time for communicating with the employees, he has focused much on the cause of introducing a sudden change in the organization. Unless the employees are aware of the purpose of the change, as well as their own benefits out of the proposed change, they will never embrace the change, and work towards the same ( Dozier et al. 2013). Further, it is also highly important to keep on re-iterating the motive, as well as the ultimate benefits of the change before the employees, so that they can easily accept the change, and work towards it. Apart from the regular interactive sessions, and meetings, it is also important to communicate the need of change, via general meetings, on-on-one conversation, presentations, brainstorming workshops, screen saver messages, and many more. It should be also remembered, that it is not just sufficient to communicate the need and purpose of change to the employees, it is equally important to know if the encoded message is successfully decoded by the employees or not. It may happen that few of the employees could not interpret the value of the proposed change in a proper way, or some of them are dissuaded by a few non-cooperative employees. Hence it is imperative to employ assessment tools, that will help in understanding whether the message communicated is properly interpreted and decoded by the employee or not (Hrebiniak et al. 2013). Reference List: Cornelissen, J., 2014.Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage. Dozier, D.M., Grunig, L.A. and Grunig, J.E., 2013.Manager's guide to excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge. Hayes, J., 2014.The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan. Hrebiniak, L.G., 2013.Making strategy work: Leading effective execution and change. FT Press.