by Leigh Goessl

Created on: July 22, 2009

Change by its very nature is tough for individuals. People tend to resist change and prefer the comfort of what's familiar. When a business decides there is a need to enact a large organizational change, this can come with some hefty challenges for both management and employees.

Organizational change can come in many forms. The change may evolve as a new departmental structure, switching to a new kind of information systems, or doing a mass overhaul of task processes to name a few.

Why change at all?

Businesses often initiate organizational change because something isn't working. Change should not be made for the sake of change; for change to be considered there needs to be a valid reason to make the change. The reason could be to increase profitability, confine to new laws, or as a response to budget cuts. As a result upper management develops new business strategies to meet a goal.

Even though the grounds for initiating change may vary, ultimately the same challenges are met with figuring out how to deal with change, and this is in laying the foundation for organizational change.

Whatever the reason or need for change, it's important to establish the basis and prepare everyone for the imminent changes. Once the groundwork has been done, and everyone is prepared, the transition to the new modifications will go much more smoothly.

There are a couple of different schools of thought about how to enact change. Some management groups prefer to simply focus on the strategies, make the plan and inform employees after the fact. Other leaders prefer to take an inclusion approach where employees are notified as soon as possible and prepared.

The latter approach has merit, and the reason is because there is a good chance employees are not going to welcome change and any modifications in the organization will likely be met with initial resistance. By taking an inclusionary approach to lay the framework, employees are not taken off-guard and they have time to accept upcoming changes.

Including staff from the get-go helps explain the need for change and also offers everyone the opportunity to learn how they can play a role in the transformation. By taking this kind of approach to organizational change people feel a part of the decision making process, and as a result, there is likely going to be a higher degrees of comfort and acceptance to change.

To lay the foundation for the change, a good approach is to provide open communication and ongoing discussion; allow

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