this is an article that I had written on Change Management and bridging relationship for our Company Newsletter.

Let me know how did you find this article.

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We belong to a country which has a diverse culture; hence, each individual in the orgnisation has come with a diverse cultural background. Every individual comes in an organisation with an individual value learnt over a period of time from Family, School and Previous Organisations that they have worked in. Management’s value comes from its past experiences. Culture of an Organisation is always cosmopolitan, as there are employees from diverse cultural background working together to achieve the same goal, as that of the organisation. Every individual over a period of time develop their own working system and style. With all of them coming from diverse backgrounds, it reflects in their day to day work. An Orgnisations work style is more towards system based professionalism, as it helps to achieve professional goal. An individual’s surrounding always plays an important role in their upbringing and elevating himself in the organisation.
Whenever an organization imposes new things on people there will be difficulties / differences and resistance. People participation in Management & involvement of each one creates sense of belonginess in each one of us.
We have to be wary of expressions like 'mindset change', and 'changing people's mindsets' or 'changing attitudes', because this language often indicates a tendency towards imposed or enforced change and it implies strongly that the organization believes its people currently have the 'deviated' mindset, which is never, ever, the case. If people are not approaching their tasks or the organisation effectively, the organisation has to think where the things are going wrong & why. Change such as new structures, policies, targets, acquisitions, disposals, re-locations, etc., are driven on new systems and environments, which need to be explained to people as early as possible, so that people's involvement in validating and refining the changes themselves can be attended on ‘just in time’ basis.
The employee’s responsibility to manage change is limited. Employee's responsibility is no other than to do their best, which is different for every person and depends on a wide variety of factors eg. Circumstances, guidance, maturity, experience, personality, motivation etc. Responsibility for ‘managing change’ is with management and executives of the organisation. It is expected from all of us to manage the change in a way that employees can cope with it ensuring their career growth & prosperity. The manager has a responsibility to facilitate and enable change. It is important to understand the situation from an objective standpoint and then to help people understand reasons, aims, and ways of responding positively. Increasingly the manager's role is to interpret, communicate and enable to carry organizations vision, mission & goals of organisation in such an effective manner which takes cares of individual & organizational growth together.
Workshops are very useful processes to develop collective understanding, approaches, policies, methods, systems, ideas, etc. ‘Employee Satisfaction Survey’ is a helpful way to repair damage and mistrust among all of us, provided we all allow to each one of us to complete the projects / tasks anonymously.
Management training, dynamic leadership and just in time delivery are areas to be put on priorities. Each one of us is responsible and accountable for change process taking care of ultimate aims of high level of satisfaction and profitability.
Neither Management nor employees can impose change. Values, culture, style etc... should be bridged in such a manner that we should enjoy the outcome of change. Management style and Leadership style, organisation & individual behaviour is more important than playing mischief in and around us. The leader must agree and should work with common ideas; otherwise change will be painful, which will result into migration of people as if they are walking out from a paid training institute.
So can the managers who try to manage the change do it alone? NO. So let us defuse the odd situation and create a ‘BRIDGE’ of convenience of all taking care of feelings, respect to values and respect for the culture of all which will be good to all of us otherwise each one of us will start looking at change in a detached manner.
Strong resistance to change is often rooted in deeply conditioned or historically reinforced feelings. Patience and tolerance is required to help people in these situations to see things positively in all walk of their life.
We need to grow & architect the organisation of ‘Human Capital’ which takes care of all the tangible asset of all of us. Last but not least let us remember a phrase enlightened by Gail Sheehy of America that,
“IF WE DON’T CHANGE, WE DON’T GROW. IF WE DON’T GROW, WE ARE NOT LIVING”.

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Nayak