It is said that change is the only constant. But there is another truth to it that, humans by nature resist change. People have the habit of doing same things again and again and they resist because they have to come out of their comfort zone to accept change. Also they underestimate their skills and feel that they will not able to adapt to the new things. They have the fear of going through a long learning process.
In an organization changes are always for the betterment. Changes are of various types, like change in technology, new procedures being developed, new systems getting implemented, new policies being framed or the team is being changed. The entrepreneur should understand that change is an ongoing process therefore he should be open to change with the changing environment.
If the organization does not adopt the required changes, the system becomes obsolete and in the later stage it does not remain workable. To keep ourselves ahead in the competitive scenario we must strongly implement changes in our system. But when we try to implement changes we come across two types of people in the organization. First are those who welcome and accept the change and second are those who are rigid and oppose any kind of change in the environment. Those who accept change are the people who are creative, open minded, innovative and skilled. They can adjust themselves in any kind of environment. With this kind of approach they keep their doors open for every kind of opportunities. These people don’t take time to learn and quickly adapt to the new environment. On the other hand, people resisting change are conservative, stagnant and conventional in their thinking. These people generally keep losing the bigger opportunities. They don’t have courage to take more responsibilities and initiative. They take longer time to learn and adapt to the changes.
The management always passes on the responsibilities and opportunities to those who accept change as part of life. These people grow with the organization. The management faces problem with those people who are rigid and not open towards change. Change is a process. When the wheels of change turn, the people who change with the process are taken higher by the wheel and people who resist it are crushed under the same wheel. Therefore those who accept the change remain in the system and grow and those who resist are thrown out of the system by the process itself.
It also brings to fore a very important and common issue faced in change management. Sometimes we have some valuable employees who are resistant to change. We want the change and don’t want to lose these people either. It is important to find the reason for their resistance and fear to change. Once identified it should be addressed at level that the person feel comfortable and secure. He should also feel that his interests are taken care of in the new system. Even if the person assumes that new system would not be congenial for him, then the last thing that the management can do is to create such circumstances that the person feels uncomfortable in the existing system. Hence, that he opts for the new system.
Another way of handling these people is that we can involve them right from the planning process. This way they would be able to understand that the change is unavoidable and also the benefits of implementing the change. In addition to this we can share with them the responsibility of change, thus they would become our ambassadors of change and would be advocating it rather than resisting it. If growth is possible during this change, give them the opportunity to grow, it would motivate them.
Training department plays a vital role in change management because they are the people who would be informing and training people for the whole process. Training department should focus on people who are slow in learning and they should have longer learning curve. It is important to implement change gradually.
Also when change is implemented we need to see that the people adapt to it within time frame. However, the quality should not be compromised during the process. A balance between timely implementation of change and desired quality should be maintained.