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0:00
Hello, this is David Lewin.
My talk today
is on Change Management.
0:08
An appropriate starting point
for this topic is to ask
why change management
is so pervasive.
In other words,
why so many organizations,
large and small,
public and private,
located in North America,
Europe, Asia, Central America
are so heavily involved
in trying to cope with change
and the management of change.
And I think the basic answer
to this question has to do
with three factors
that have evolved
over the last 30 years,
which have impacted
virtually all organizations
around the world.
Those three factors are
global economic competition,
de-regulation,
and rapid technological change.
And these factors
together combined
have spurred in all nations
and regions of the world
greater market capitalism,
which in turn reduces
concentrated market power
such as in the form
of monopoly or oligopoly
and it reduces
organizational stability.
It therefore increases
decision making uncertainty
and this is fundamentally
why change management
is such a pervasive issue
and topic
on the contemporary scene.
1:35
If the management
of organizational change
is as pervasive a phenomenon
as I have previously described
so too is a related one,
which is resistance to change.
The basics about
resistance go as follows.
Organizations come into being
to produce goods
and/or services on a large scale
and more efficiently
than could be done otherwise.
And in the process,
these organizations
provide order,
control, coordination,
routines, and norms,
which support these
stabilizing characteristics.
An organization
is all about stability,
being able to repeat processes
and practices over time
to generate goods and services.
And everything about
these organizations
emphasizes this particular set
of stabilizing characteristics.
Therefore, when an organization
is threatened by changes
in the external environment,
by such things as increasing
global competition
and/or de-regulation
and/or
rapid technological change,
these forces will be disruptive
to the existing order,
the existing control,
the existing coordination,
the existing routines,
and the existing norms
of that organization.
This is why the common situation
is for people in organizations
to resist change.
They fear the unknown
and don't like to see
or have to cope
with the disruption
that is caused by moving away
from the stable
or known situation.
A very good analysis
of resistance to change
was provided long ago,
specifically in 1948
by Lester Coch
and John R.P. French
in an article titled
Overcoming Resistance to Change
that appeared in volume I
of the British Journal
Human Relations.
It's well-worth a read
on resistance to change.
