{"id":549,"date":"2019-02-16T05:43:23","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T13:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/?p=549"},"modified":"2019-02-16T05:43:23","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T13:43:23","slug":"you-cant-handle-the-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/you-cant-handle-the-change\/","title":{"rendered":"You can’t handle the change!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am reminded of a scene from a beloved crime room drama, “A few good men”.\u00a0 In the movie, there is a scene where Lt. Caffey, played by Tom Cruise is questioning Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson.<\/span><\/p>\n

“You want answers!” Col. Jessup yells at Caffey.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I want the truth!” Lt. Caffey yells back<\/span><\/p>\n

Col. Jessup yells back, “You can’t handle the truth!”<\/span><\/p>\n

How often do organizations embark to implement some change to its systems when in fact the organization itself can’t handle the change?<\/p>\n

Before implementing any kind of change to the system there are a few steps that need to be addressed.\u00a0 One of the first issues addressed possibly is what theory or model of change management is being considered?\u00a0\u00a0With so many theories and models available for change management, the question remains, is there a silver bullet to change? \u00a0Is there a one-stop shopping in regards to change management? Is there a single model that when applied to any context will provide smooth sailing throughout the change that may be necessary to improve your system or organization? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If one reads through Haddad and Kotnour\u2019s (2015) article, \u00a0\u201cIntegrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change\u201d you could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed. \u00a0The history of change management is vast, and the well of models to draw from is deep. It made me think, Do different contexts demand different models? \u00a0Do different industries lend themselves more to a particular style of a model than others? Perhaps the target is always moving; therefore those who are implementing the change management need to be implementing regular course correction and evolving their methods and models to fit the context at that specific time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Al-Haddad and Kotnour state, \u201cchange methods need to be continuously evolving to align with the environmental factors\u201d (p.235). \u00a0So what is a change leader to do? It is on the leaders to bring their employees and organizations through the changes that may be necessary to keep the company relevant and useful. \u00a0Al-Haddad and Kotnour go on to speculate that leaders need to make the right decisions at the right time to motivate those who are under their charge to implement the changes to align with the system or organization (p. 239). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Easy right?<\/span><\/p>\n

If the mark is always moving how will a leader know when to course correct and when to hold the line? \u00a0\u00a0Weller and Anderson (2013) discuss a model used when evaluating technological changes in higher-ed. While their context is regarding the use of new technologies in scholarship, the model still provides value to any shift being considered. \u00a0Martin and Anderson reference Walker et al. (2004) in the four aspects of resilience:<\/span><\/p>\n

Latitude:<\/b> \u00a0You must be aware of the amount that a system or organization can be stretched before it loses its ability to recover from the change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Resistance: <\/b>\u00a0How easy will it be to change the system or organization? \u00a0\u00a0Will there be a lot of resistance to the proposed change?<\/span><\/p>\n

Precariousness:<\/b> How brittle is the system. \u00a0Will the proposed change cause it to crumble?<\/span><\/p>\n

Panarchy:<\/b> \u00a0How much do outside forces affect the organization or system?<\/span><\/p>\n

When any change is brought upon a system or organization, the change leader must consider whether or not the organization is up to the changes being considered. \u00a0\u00a0Before all those questions can be answered it must first be asked; is the system or organization resilient enough to be able to handle the proposed changes? Sure, other considerations may also be taken into account; such as the type of leadership in place to spearhead the change, the scope of the change, the culture of the system or organization that the change will be affecting, and what model of change management will be used.\u00a0 But before any of that should be considered it must be asked, Can we handle the change?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As I consider the resilience of a company, I wonder what happens when your organization or system doesn\u2019t have the latitude, has too much resistance, is too brittle, or has too many outside forces acting against the change?<\/span><\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. <\/span>Journal of Organizational Change Management<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>28<\/span><\/i>(2), 234-262.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weller, M., & Anderson, T., (2013).\u00a0Digital Resilience in Higher Education.\u00a0European Journal of Open Distance and E-Learning<\/i>,\u00a016<\/i>(1), 53-66.<\/p>\n

* Cover image by KoiQuestion used under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 license<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reminded of a scene from a beloved crime room drama, “A few good men”.\u00a0 In the movie, there is a scene where Lt. Caffey, played by Tom Cruise is questioning Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson. “You want… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0054\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}