{"id":389,"date":"2018-02-17T00:08:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-17T08:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/?p=389"},"modified":"2018-02-19T22:06:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T06:06:31","slug":"lrnt525-u2-a1-managing-change-for-learning-in-digital-environments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/lrnt525-u2-a1-managing-change-for-learning-in-digital-environments\/","title":{"rendered":"LRNT525 U2 a1 – Managing Change for Learning in Digital Environments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Change, the one and only constant<\/span><\/p>\n

Change occurs in all aspects of life and at every possible scale for an individual, a company, the community, a country, or the world.\u00a0 Now more than ever change has become a constant concern for organisations.\u00a0 Moreover, change can be related to any topic ranging from environment regulations to fiscal reforms, and from organisational structure to learning management systems.\u00a0 Authors Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015) present an extense list of 17 methods besides the change outcomes and alignments post-change to comprehensibly manage change which can be as diverse as the existing kinds of organisations and the ones still to come.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1. The change from a traditional hierarchical and rigid structure to a flexible and dynamic setting in which team members are assigned based on skills and projects’ needs represents a challenging transformation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The scale or size of the change as well as the duration of the change effort play important roles in selecting the approach.\u00a0 For instance, when planning a large scope change Stock (as cited by Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015) considered necessary to adjust the change efforts to match closely the culture of units and departments.\u00a0 The diagrams in figure 1 show the contrast between two ways of organising people that are dramatically distinct, and would require individuals to be prepared in advance.\u00a0 Hence probably one of the most difficults factors to take into account is human behaviour as stated by Harrison (as cited by\u00a0Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015) specially when the change process takes a long period of time, strong leadership is a must to provide for a sustained effort.\u00a0 Furthermore, involving people’s participation in the change process helps endure the required duration according to what Rachele stated (as cited by\u00a0Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015).\u00a0 I personally have experienced how important it is to have people actively participating in the change process since by doing so they would develop ownership of the new settings, thus making it less hard to let go of the previous frameworks which, to many of them, would represent their comfort zone.<\/p>\n

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Figure 2. Change does not happen just because top management announces it. There are many factors involved in the success of a change process, and clear and open communication is one of them.\u00a0 All factors within a system are interrelated (Senge as cited by Biech, 2007).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When dealing with change in any form it is useful to approach the change process bearing the systems’ theory in mind since, according to Peter Senge (as cited by Biech, 2007), all the parts involved would be interrelated.\u00a0 Additionally, combining theories is another way to increase the likelihood of a successful change process because any given organisation, in order to perform efficiently and effectively, must take care of organisation capabilities and economic values.\u00a0 Theories O and E focus on these aspects respectively, Beer and Nohria (as cited by Biech, 2007) described these theories to work approaching the company from both ends.\u00a0 Theory E with important involvement of external consultants aiming at cutting costs, streamlining the structure, and optimizing assets; while theory O fosters high levels of employees’ participation thus facilitating the assimilation of the new structures and processes.<\/p>\n

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Figure 3. Participation brings people onboard, mainly when the leaders demonstrate willingness and commitment with the change process, and are available to answer questions and consider reasonable proposals from the audience.\u00a0 Commited people bring about the change more easily (Bandura as cited by Weiner, 2009).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The post-merger integration process I experienced with an international cement corporation\u00a0 allowed me to know the difficulties people faced when they were not prepared and coached to enter a change process.\u00a0 They had many doubts and were not convinced that that was the way to go.\u00a0 At the same time I witnessed a contrasting positive disposition of people that were involved in a constructive manner, and the difference resided in the attitude of the leader of each area when they communicated and managed the change process.<\/p>\n

Change management starts taking place well in advance to the actual\u00a0 change itself being implemented.\u00a0 Paralleling what Bandura stated about individuals being committed to goals (cited by Weiner, 2009), Weiner asserted that the commitment of people in an organisation prior to starting the change process denotes ability and will to carry it on (2009).<\/p>\n

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Figure 4. The contrast between levels of technology can give origin to the willingness to change which might be supported by the sense of belonging, as stated by the theory of human motivation regarding fulfillment of basic needs (Maslow, 1943).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three different roads take people to a change process as explained by Herscovitch and Meyer (cited by Weiner, 2009): people want to change, which represents the highest level of commitment; people have to change because there is little choice for them to do otherwise; or people feel obligued to change, which is similar to having to change.\u00a0 Bandura also mentioned a notion of collective efficacy which instills confidence in people that they are able to attain change as long as they act as a collective entity, providing mutual support amongst individuals.<\/p>\n

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Figure 5. Applying resilience to open education develops engagement, education, empowerment and encouragement, which also helps students, staff and wider communities to further build upon these attributes (Hall and Winn as cited by Weller & Anderson, 2013).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Technology has the ability of erasing distances and time zone limitations, thus making itself an indispensable ingredient for achieving resilience in higher education, according to Hall and Winn (as cited by Weller & Anderson, 2013).<\/p>\n

Furthermore,\u00a0Walker et al (as cited by Weller & Anderson, 2013) considered resilience to be conformed by four aspects:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Latitude: similar to stretching a rubber band represents the limit to which a system can be modified without losing its ability to recover.<\/li>\n
  2. Resistance: the degree of ease or difficulty for performing those modifications to the system; how \u2018resistant\u2019 it is to being changed.<\/li>\n
  3. Precariousness: can be understood as the fragility of a system with regard to how close it is to a limit or \u2018threshold\u2019.<\/li>\n
  4. Panarchy: refers to the susceptibility of the system to external forces at scales above and below its boundaries.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"\"
    Figure 6. The question is key to define the route of change in education.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    My conclusion is that given the speed at which events occur today most of the methods and approaches to manage change have to be able to adjust to faster response times.\u00a0 This might reflect some type of syndrome of instant gratification –so common nowadays amongst youngsters– which could be considered an indicator of immaturity, impacting the dynamics of organisations and communities.\u00a0 By stating that I mean leaders facing the challenge to be faster than ever deciding how to approach preparations and change itself.<\/p>\n

    I consider the participatory action research and the integrative method to be the methods that best match my leadership style, since I feel more comfortable managing things in a team than on my own.\u00a0 Besides, the pace at which technology evolves shows no sign of slowing down, thus change as a constant is here to stay which requires the ability of searching for answers and options quicker, and that is better achieved with multiple minds at work.<\/p>\n

    The last bullet on the right in figure 6 closes today’s blog.<\/p>\n

    References<\/p>\n

    All graphic material obtained from Creative Commons.<\/p>\n

    Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015).\u00a0Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change.\u00a0Journal of Organizational Change Management<\/i>,\u00a028<\/i>(2), 234-262.<\/p>\n

    Biech, E. (2007). Models for Change. In\u00a0Thriving Through Change: A Leader\u2019s Practical Guide to Change Mastery.<\/em> Alexandria, VA: ASTD [Books24x7 database]\n

    Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50<\/em>(4), 370-396. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1037\/h0054346<\/p>\n

    Ray, J. J., & Jackob M. Najman, J. M. (1986) The generalizability of deferment of gratification. The Journal of Social Psychology 126<\/em>(1).<\/span><\/p>\n

    Weiner, B. J. (2009).\u00a0A theory of organizational readiness for change.\u00a0Implementation Science<\/i>,\u00a04<\/i>(67).<\/p>\n

    Weller, M., & Anderson, T. (2013).\u00a0Digital resilience in higher education.\u00a0European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning<\/i>.<\/p>\n

    \n
    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Change, the one and only constant Change occurs in all aspects of life and at every possible scale for an individual, a company, the community, a country, or the world.\u00a0 Now more than ever change has become a constant concern for organisations.\u00a0 Moreover, change can be related to any topic ranging from environment regulations to … Continue reading “LRNT525 U2 a1 – Managing Change for Learning in Digital Environments”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}