How to Manage the Change Process…a Three-Step Process for Conquering with Success

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How to Manage the Change Process…A Three-Step Process for Conquering with Success Within every organization, lies a never-ending world of change. Change is inevitable something managers strive to handle effectively while maintaining the integrity of an organization's behavior. Kurt Lewin, social psychologist, designed a three-step model for change: Unfreeze, Change, and Refreeze. For instance, managing diversity in the workplace is both a challenge for employees and managers (Elmuti, 19). Management can start the process of collecting and analyzing information with “focus groups, interviews and surveys” (Cross, 2). According to Carr-Ruffino, “the best approach to managing diversity is one that includes all persons and excludes none” (Carr-Ruffino, 631). There are many types of change. One generic study of organizational change suggests that there are three types of change: Adaptive (least threatening), Innovative (medium threating), and Radically Innovative (most threatening) (http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites). An organization begins the “change process with new programs or practices” would be considered Adaptive. Although the change is on the lower end of the complexity scale, preparing a company with a change through a “multicultural approach” requires proper planning and management (Carr-Ruffino, 635). Using Lewin's change model, the first step is to Unfreeze the established patterns and structures. The Unfreeze stage is when managers must create the “motivation to change” (http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites). When managing diverse employee, change agents must “create an inclusive culture" in the workplace to “build a productive, innovative, synergistic workforce.” (Carr-Ruffino, 631 and 635). Here, self-efficacy plays a role in how people handle change. Inner doubts and concerns in an employee can create barriers to change, which

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