Engineering Organizational Change

The discipline of Change Management can be viewed from two perspectives:

1. from the change manager’s point of view and

2. from the point of view of the workers who are undergoing organizational change.

Both perspectives are important and demand active attention if an organization and its workers are to experience successful organizational change.

Change Manager’s Perspective

For the change manager who is responsible for executing an organizational change, the purpose of the discipline of Change Management is to ensure that organizational change occurs on target, on time, and on budget

Change Management provides the change manager with actions and approaches that will allow him/her to successfully guide organizational change.

Key issues addressed by this perspective of Change Management include clarifying the directions and reasons for change. Change Management includes actions that might be taken:

• to develop the vision of the future organization,

• to develop the rationale or case for change, and

• to plan the alterations in processes, plant/equipment/rewards that will need to be made in the organization in order for the future vision to be realized.

Worker’s Perspective

For the workers experiencing an organizational change, the purpose of the discipline of Change Management is to ensure that workers complete the change process

• Prepared

• Motivated, and

• Competent

… to work in the changed organization. In short this second side of Change Management ensures that workers are Ready, Willing and Able to operate the changed organization.

Key issues addressed by this second perspective of Change Management include “healthy” and “unhealthy” responses to change. On the healthy side, Change Management includes actions that might be taken

• to explain the reasons for organizational change,

• to involve workers in planning and accommodating the change, and

• to train and assist workers in acquiring needed skills, knowledge, and attitudes for transition to the new (changed) organization.

For unhealthy responses to change, Change Management includes actions that might be taken to assist workers who have severe and negative reactions to changes in the workplace.

The Integrated Perspective: “Engineering Organizational Change

With these two different perspectives in mind, we included the critical actions that need to be performed from both perspectives into our integrated approach to Change Management – Engineering Organizational Change (EOC). We know that using the EOC sequence will ensure that

• the actions taken to cause the organization to change (on target, on time and on budget) and

• the actions needed so that workers will have healthy response to change (prepared, motivated and competent) …

will be taken. EOC is truly an approach that will lead to “killing two birds with one stone.”

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