Managing Change

Essay by rlcballenUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, February 2005

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Managing Change

Companies must be innovative and innovation means they have to change. Change must happen within an organization to achieve success. There are many seminars, books and consulting firms that proclaim to help organizations mange the changes needed in today's world. These tools tend to fall short in what they are intended to do. They do not effectively train the leader that they in fact need to be trained first before they can be expected to lead others to the change (Bridges & Mitchell, 2000).

Transition happens every time change is put into place. Change puts people into a transition mode and it must occur for the change to be successful. Unfortunately transition is not always automatic. An effective leader can identify this barrier and help his team members overcome this obstacle. Transition is takes longer to develop because there are three processes that people must go through to overcome, Saying goodbye, shifting into neutral and moving forward are the three phases of transition (Bridges & Mitchell, 2000).

Saying goodbye simply means to let go of one's old ways to make room for the new ways. Shifting into neutral occurs with one is left in limbo between the old ways and the new ways. This is the most difficult obstacle to overcome. Moving forward simply means to begin using the new procedures of the change at hand. Failure can occur at any point of the three phases.

Once the transition of change has begun there are things that a leader or manager can to help in overcoming these obstacles. Creating a sense of

Change 3

urgency can help workers let go of the first stage in transition. The realization that things have to change quickly in order to move on gives workers less time to let go of their...