Friday, May 25, 2018

Organizations are continuously under pressure to adapt to changing circumstances, such as changing client wishes, new policy developments, and the introduction of social media (Josserand et al., 2006). Armstrong (2014), states that Human resource management (HRM) is concerned with all aspects of how people are employed and managed in organizations. It covers the activities of strategic HRM, human capital management, knowledge management, corporate social responsibility, organization development, resourcing (workforce planning, recruitment and selection and talent management), learning and development, performance and reward management, employee relations, employee well-being and the provision of employee services. It also has an international dimension.

Video 1.0 : Human Resource Management
(source :  Monash, 2012)

Change Management


According to Senior (2002,), the change management has been defined as ‘the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers’ (Moran and Brightman, 2001,p111). According to Burnes (2004) change is an ever-present feature of organizational life, both at an operational and strategic level. Therefore, there should be no doubt regarding the importance to any organization of its ability to identify where it needs to be in the future, and how to manage the change.


Lewin's change management model

Video 2.0 : Lewin's Change Management Model: Kurt Lewin's Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze Theory.



(source :  MindToolsVideos, 2014) 


According to Cummings,S., Bridgman,T and Brown,K.G.(2016) Lewin’s model of change are as follows:


1. Unfreezing – altering the present stable equilibrium which supports existing behaviors and attitudes. This process must take account of the inherent threats change and fear presents to people and the need to motivate those affected to attain the natural state of equilibrium by accepting change.


2. Changing – developing new responses based on new information.


3. Refreezing – stabilizing the change by introducing the new responses into the personalities of those concerned. Lewin also proposed a methodology for analyzing change which he called ‘field force analysis.


As stated by by Kotter and Schlesinger (2008) point out that once a manager has understood the restraining forces and the change management problems, there are a number of approaches and options for managing resistance to change, i.e.,
(i). Education and communication.
(ii). Participation and involvement.
(iii). Facilitation and support.
(iv). Negotiation and agreement.
(v). Manipulation and co-optation, and
(vi). Explicit and implicit coercion.



Beer et al Beer et al (1990).


Beer et.al (1990,p158) states in a seminal Harvard Business Review article ‘Why change programs don’t produce change’, that most such programmers are showed by a theory of change that is fundamentally flawed. This theory situation that changes in attitudes lead to changes in behavior. ‘According to this model, change is like a conversion experience. They have confidence in that this theory gets the change process accurately backwards, and commented: In fact, individual behavior is strongly shaped by the organizational roles people play. The most effective way to change behavior, therefore, is to put people into a new organizational context, which imposes new duties, responsibilities and relationships on them. This creates a situation that in a sense ‘forces’ new attitudes and behavior on people. They prescribe six steps to effective change, which concentrate on what they call ‘task alignment’– reorganizing employee’s roles, responsibilities and relationships to explain specific business difficulties in small units where goals, process and tasks can be obviously defined. The aim of following the overlapping steps is to build a self-reinforcing cycle of commitment, coordination and competence.


1. Mobilize commitment to change through the joint analysis of problems.
2. Develop a shared vision of how to organize and manage to achieve goals such as competitiveness.
3. Foster consensus for the new vision, competence to enact it, and cohesion to move it along.
4. Spread revitalization to all departments without pushing it from the top – don’t force the issue, let each department find its own way to the new organization.
5. Institutionalize revitalization through formal policies, systems and structures.

6. Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems in the revitalization process.

Why organization need change management

According to Armstrong (2006), the main reasons for resisting change are as follows: 

● The shock of the new – people are suspicious of anything which they perceive will upset their recognized routines, approaches of working or conditions of employment. They do not want to lose the security of what is familiar. Employees may not believe statements by management that the change is for employee benefit as well organizational development, change and transformation as that of the organization; sometimes with good reason. Employees may feel that management has ulterior motives and, sometimes, the louder the protestations of managements; the less they will be believed.
● Economic fears – cost of money, fears to job safety.● Inconvenience – the change will make life harder.● Uncertainty – change can be worrying because of uncertainty about its likely impact.● Symbolic fears – a small change that may affect some treasured symbol, such as a separate office or a reserved parking space, may symbolize big ones, especially when employees are uncertain about how extensive the programmed of change will be.● Threat to interpersonal relationships – anything that disrupts the customary social relationships and standards of the group will be resisted.● Threat to status or skill – the change is perceived as reducing the status of individuals or as de-skilling them.● Competence fears – concern about the skill to cope with new weights or to acquire new skills.


Organizations are continuously under pressure to adapt to changing circumstances, such as changing client wishes, new policy developments, and the introduction of social media (Josserand et al., 2006). Swift adaptation to changing conditions has always been considered crucial for the survival of private-sector organizations (Tushman and O’Reilly, 2013). However, nowadays a critical public opinion and shrinking budgets pose threats to the survival of public organizations as well, which requires them to change rapidly and profoundly (Kuipers et al., 2014; Van der Voet et al, 2013).


Even if employees are generally willing to change, the change process can be a stressful burden.(Vakola and Nikolaou, 2005). Employees have to change their daily routines, acquire new knowledge and face peaks in workload. Such a situation can lead to resistance to further changes, burnout, and staff turn-over (Rush et al., 1995). To cope successfully with organizational change, positive psychology scholars argue that job proactivity and vitality are of particular importance (Ghitulescu, 2013; Shirom, 2011). Proactive employees anticipate possible future events and take initiative (Grant and Ashford, 2008). High levels of proactivity are beneficial when working in new, uncertain, circumstances such as when confronted with organizational change (Hornung and Rousseau, 2007). Vitality is defined as one’s conscious experience of possessing energy and liveliness (Kark and Carmeli, 2009). Vital employee can potentially better deal with change because they possess more energy (Carmeli and Spreitzer, 2009).


According to Chen (2010), Toyota Management Change

Concept of “JIT” (just in time) the oldest and first way by TOYOTA and still uses it now. The purpose of JIT is to reduce the cost, and promoted the benefit of product. It could divide to 7 points: the extravagance on overproduction, time of wait, handling (work place collocate absurdly), artifact (use the bad technology), backlog, action (the action had no productivity), and bad production (Liker & Jeffrey, 2003). According to the basic principle - “Benefit = (Price - Cost) × Account”, TOYOTA’s plan do the low cost. On next way, TOYOTA advanced benefit and account of product. After foundation on JIT way, TOYOTA add automation concept into the management that cause it to be success. Soon, other enterprises wanted to learn TOYOTA’s way, and TOYOTA way is also the most important change in TOYOTA’s management. The “TPS” became a philosophy of production management. Jeffrey analyzed “TPS” for 20 years, and arranges 14 management principles from TPS (Jeffrey K. Liker, 2004):
Principle 1.          
Base your management decisions on a long - term philosophy, even at the expense of short -term financial goals.
Principle 2.          
Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface.
Principle 3.          
Use “Pull” systems to avoid overproduction.
Principle 4.          
Level out the workload (heijunka,).
Principle 5.          
Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time.
Principle 6.          
Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee               Empowerment.
Principle 8.          
Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes.
Principle 9.          
Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to  others.
Principle 10.        
Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy. 
Principle 11.
Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and  helping them improve.
Principle 12.        
Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (genchigenbutsu,). 
Principle 13.        
Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly (nemawashi ).
Principle 14.        
Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen).

Change Management in Sri lanka

The organization which I worked (producing adhesives to the local and export markets) had to undergo a change program to the overall production line by introducing new machinery and technology. This technology could produce multiple adhesive products for changing market preferences. The resistance from employees was the lack of knowledge on how to operate the new machinery, fear of meeting hourly targets, loss of current incentives, loss of jobs due to some areas being automated, and loss of power due superior skills acquired on previous machinery. Hence, based on Lewin’s model the first step of unfreezing the management decided on communications to address these issues and agreeing on ample training, assuring incentives will remain as it is or even increase due to productivity improvements, and while the change program was continuing management celebrated on quick wins through formal meetings recognizing performances, both informal and formal meeting were conducted for regular feedback, and providing support and solutions to reduce the learning curve of employees.

Conclusion

Finally in conclusion all organizations have to undergo change due to ever changing market conditions, this in turn will result in a resistance to change from employees, and hence it is the management’s duty to successfully manage the transition by building confidence and gaining support among the employees.Most of the failed projects which are under change did not take into account the human factor. To avoid this failure the assistance of change experts or change agents (in most cases professional consultants) should be sought. Not only that most employees have no or little experience in the field of change management. In most cases people are used to their environment and emotionally unwilling to change.

References

  • Armstrong, M. (2014). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management  Practice, 14th ed., Kogan Page.
  • Armstrong, M. (2006). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management  Practice, 10th ed., Kogan Page.
  • Beer, M, Eisenstat, R and Spector, B (1990) Why change programs don’t produce change, Harvard Business Review, November–December, pp 158–166
  • Burnes, B. (2004) Managing Change: A Strategic Approach to Organisational Dynamics, 4th ed., Harlow Prentice Hall.
  • Carmeli, A. and Spreitzer, G.M. (2009), “Trust, connectivity, and thriving: Implications for innovative behaviors at work”, The Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 169-191.
  • Chen, A. (2010), “Toyota Organization Change Management Principles”, The Journal of Global Business Management, Vol. NA, No. NA, pp. 3-5.
  • Cummings,S., Bridgman,T and Brown,K.G.(2016) Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management, human relations,Vol. 69, No. 1, pp. 34-35.  
  • Ghitulescu, B.E. (2013), “Making change happen: The impact of work context on adaptive and proactive behaviors”, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 206-245
  • Grant, A.M. and Ashford, S.J. (2008), “The dynamics of proactivity at work”, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 28, No. NA, pp. 3-34.
  • Hornung, S. and Rousseau, D.M. (2007), “Active on the job—Proactive in change: How autonomy at work contributes to employee support for organizational change”, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 401-426.
  • Jeffrey K. Liker (2004). The Toyota Way. U.S.: McGraw-Hill.
  • Josserand, E., Teo, S. and Clegg, S. (2006), “From bureaucratic to post-bureaucratic: The difficulties of transition”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 54-64.
  • Kark, R. and Carmeli, A. (2009), “Alive and creating: the mediating role of vitality and aliveness in the relationship between psychological safety and creative work involvement”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 785-804.
  • Kotter, J. P. and Schlesinger, L. A. (2008), ‘Choosing strategies for change’, Harvard Business Review . Available: http://hbr.org/2008/07/ choosing-strategies-for-change/ [accessed 31 May 2015].
  • Kuipers, B.S., Higgs, M.J., Kickert, W.J.M., Tummers, L.G., Grandia, J., and Van der Voet, J. (2014), “The management of change in public organizations: A literature review”, Public Administration, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 1-20.
  • Lewin, K (1951) Field Theory in Social Science, Harper & Row, New York.
  • Liker, Jeffrey (2003). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer, First edition, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-139231-9.
  • Moran, J. W. and Brightman, B. K. (2001) ‘Leading organizational change’, Career Development International, 6(2), pp. 111–118.
  • Rush, M.C., Schoel, W.A. and Barnard, S.M. (1995), “Psychological resiliency in the public sector: ‘Hardiness’ and pressure for change”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 17-39.
  • Senior, B. (2002) Organisational Change, 2nd ed., London Prentice Hall.
  • Shirom, A. (2011), “Vigor as a positive affect at work: Conceptualizing vigor, its relations with related constructs and its antecedents and consequences”, Review of General Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 50-64.
  • Tushman, M.L. and O’Reilly, C.A. (2013), Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA.
  • Vakola, M. and Nikolaou, I. (2005), “Attitudes towards organizational change: What is the role of employees’ stress and commitment?”, Employee Relations, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 160-174.
  • Van der Voet, J., Groeneveld, S.M. and Kuipers, B.S. (2013), “Talking the talk or walking the walk? The leadership of planned and emergent change in a public organization, Journal of Change Management, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 171-191.


64 comments:

  1. The information on this blog is proven correct by researchers, with the changing world any company would need change management to keep up with technology or competitors. Change management is the discipline that controls how the employees and leadership of an organization prepares for “Change”. Change management will drive the company to successfully adopt change to drive organizational success, growth and outcomes. While all changes are unique and all individuals are unique, decades of research show there are actions we can take to influence people in their individual transitions (Hiatt and Creasey, 2003). Change management provides a structured approach for supporting the individuals in your organization to move from their own current states to their own future states.

    Thornhill (2000) mentions on five key points of change. Cultural change, Recruitment, Performance Management, Resource development, Employee relations. Many companies that used change management in their establishments have used this.

    There have being Global companies that have failed and succeeded with Change Management. Some failures, Toys “R” Us is a more recent story about the economic struggle, one of the world’s largest toy store chains. With the benefit of hindsight, Toys "R" Us may have led to its own undoing when it signed a 10-year contract to be the exclusive vendor of toys on Amazon in 2000.

    To mention a success, when Asa Griggs Candler founded The Coca-Cola Company in the late 1800s, there was no way he knew his company would one day be valued at upwards of $180 billion. That’s a lot of money for a business that sells soft drinks. Coca-Cola didn’t become the powerful force it is today by sheer chance. An illustration: In the 1980s, Coke’s biggest rival, Pepsi, was aggressively targeting it. This caused Coca-Cola to reevaluate its offerings. Eventually, the company decided to concoct a new, sweeter soda. They called it simply New Coke. Unfortunately, the public didn’t take too kindly to the new beverage. Quickly, management decided to pull New Coke and replace it with the older, established formula. Lo and behold, Coca-Cola Classic was born, and Coke maintained its market dominance. Coke doesn’t only sell sweetened carbonated beverages. In fact, the beverage king sells more than 500 brands to customers in over 200 countries.

    To make an effective contribution, HR has to be good at leadership, management as well as developing both themselves and their employees. They also need to be aware of the management and business considerations that affect their work (Armstrong,2016).

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Agreed many points on your views.Organisations change and adapt continuously to remain competitive (Balogun and Hope Hailey, 2008), and yet effective organisational change seems to be rare (By, 2005; Meaney and Pung, 2008). Recent statistics reveal that only one-third of organisational attributed to resistance to change on the part of employees (Ford et al., 2008). However,
      a more nuanced view on resistance to change and its determinants might be more appropriate (Piderit, 2000) change efforts were considered successful by their leaders (Meaney and Pung, 2008; Beer and Nohria, 2000). Apparently, implementing successful change programs in organisations is quite problematic. The low success rates of change programs are often.

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  2. Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and
    organizations from a current state to a desired future state, to fulfill or implement a vision and
    strategy. It is an organizational process aimed at empowering employees to accept and
    embrace changes in their current environment. There are several different streams of thought
    that have shaped the practice of change management. Change management is the formal process for organizational change, including a systematic approach and application of knowledge. Change management means defining and adopting corporate strategies, structures, procedures, and technologies to deal with change stemming from internal and external conditions.
    (Society for Human Resources Management, 2007 Change Management Survey Report) Change management is a critical part of any project that leads, manages, and enables
    people to accept new processes, technologies, systems, structures, and values. It is the
    set of activities that helps people transition from their present way of working to the
    desired way of working and doing so more responsively and effectively than competitors. (Kudray and Brian, 1997).

    ReplyDelete
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    1. According to your view their are many structural approaches change management is an approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at helping change stakeholders to accept and embrace changes in their business environment or individuals in their personal lives.

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  3. According to the advocates of the emergent approach to change it is the uncertainty of both the external and internal environment that makes this approach more pertinent than the planned approach (Bamford and Forrester, 2003). To cope with the complexity and uncertainty of the environment it is suggested that organizations need to become open learning systems where strategy development and change emerges from the way a company as a whole acquires, interprets and processes information about the environment (Dunphy and Stace, 1993). The approach stresses a promotion of ‘extensive and in-depth understanding of strategy, structure, systems, people, style and culture, and how these can function either as sources of inertia that can block change, or alternatively, as levers to encourage an effective change process(Burnes, 1996: 14). Furthermore, Burnes (1996: 13) argues, ‘successful change is less dependent on detailed plans and projections than on reaching an understanding of the complexity of the issues concerned and identifying the range of available options.

    Therefore, be suggested that the emergent approach to change is more concerned with change readiness and facilitating for change than to provide specific pre-planned steps for each change project and initiative.

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    1. According to emergent approach can agreed on your views.Emergent Change can bring about meaningful change and powerful cultural shifts to an entire organization including new understanding and cooperation, strengthening an organization as a unified team.

      Delete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Modern organizations are continuously under change with a view to improve their internal operations and become more competitive in the market. According to Moran and Brightman (2001), change management is ‘the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers’. In my personal experience, we are also undergoing a huge change process in my organization (Hatton National Bank) these days. Considerable new change initiatives are being implemented by the firm to achieve its strategic vision by year 2020. In this connection, the organization has established nine cross functional teams to address key aspects of its 2020 strategic plan.

    Hiatt and Creasey (2003) state that it is a common mistake to emphasis only on business during change process, and the attention should be on both the business and employees. My organization has introduced a new role called Chief Employee Experience Officer (CEEO) to address the key issues of the employees and also to strengthen the relationship between the team HR and employees during this change process. Change is always facing risks, and hence it has to be efficiently managed in order to be successful.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. According Strategic change, through which firms can survive and succeed by adjusting strategic directions, necessary resources and capabilities in a fast-paced environment, has long been considered as an important field of strategic management (MacKay and Chia, 2013;Rajagopalan and of strategic change (Gersick, 1994; Kelly and Amburgey, 1991; Li et al., 2011; Murray and Richardson, 2003) and the magnitude of strategic change (Boeker, 1997; Cho and Hambrick, 2006; Golden and Zajac, 2001; Zajac et al., 2000) are two important characteristics that play a crucial role in an organization.

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  6. The One Thing That Never Changes is... Change! so organization should adopt the new changes according to the market and their need to improve as it in failure of the change will impact in their future business , among us there was plenty of example was there and who failed to change and there not in business anymore so change management and improvement should be a key point in any modern industry

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    1. Agreed on your views.The change management literature from the past few
      decades and discuss few theories that provide necessary information on the issue. Finally, the paper will provide recommendations and suggestions that can be helpful for management of change in the present business world.

      Delete
  7. Change is a process that every organization must go through in order to survive in the business world & as a result there are plenty of theories around how to manage change in different ways. One of the popular models is Kurt Lewin's Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze Theory, Even with this model, as Mr.Chandana explained in the class, refreezing will definitely cause problems due to peoples resistance to stick to such changes & to change again. It is always better to remain unfreezed & keep doing changes since there will never be an end to the changes that are being done. Freezing means it is the end of a change cycle & introducing a new change means going through the cycle again & again. Major part of managing change falls under People management & one of the main reasons people resist to change is because they do not understand what the change is, it is said that people fear what they do not understand & it is common to a change that is happening within an organization as well. It is always better to keep people informed well in advance of any changes that are to come so it will not become a sudden surprize. this way performing a change will be much easier & smooth.

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    1. Agreed on your views but there are so many editions in Kurt Lewin's method. In this blog I explain Cummings,S., Bridgman,T and Brown,K.G.(2016) Lewin’s model.

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  8. In the case using professional consultants as change agents, the way in which people interpret a change project is reflected in the language they use, hence, in their arguement. When different professional groups that cooperate in a change program give different meanings to the change situation, these differences can result in resistance to change of those involved.
    Change processes are motivated by several strategic considerations, such as need for unique ways of working and expansion of business performances. These considerations are typically results in structured change programs based on assumption that it consists on set of interventions, such as objective, measurable and linearly manageable program. Resistant to change must be researched beyond the traditional top down approach. The research must be focus on dynamics of change processes and thereby understand the resistance.
    Pieterse, Caniëls, Homan (2012)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed on your views Change management has been defined as ‘the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers’ (Moran and Brightman, 2001: 111).According to Burnes (2004) change is an ever-present feature of organisational life, both at an operational and strategic level.

      Delete
  9. If a change needs to be done to a Multi-National Company the changing process and its model needs to be simple and not complicated, one such model is the Nadler and Tushman model introduced in 1980 which is known as the congruence model. This model suggests that in order to fully understand the performance of an organization, some of the basic elements needs to be identified (Delta, 2004). Change management does not consist only one model rather several models were developed by different scholars for example, contingency approach introduced by Dunphy and Stace (1988) which is a model that combines two dimensions namely, type of change and mode of change, moreover Burnes (2009) came up with an alternative model based on environment turbulence moreover approaches like the economic strategy, organizal development strategy and a combination of both was introduced by Beer(2001) a leading consultant and a professor which has been mentioned in the blog above.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. There are many models in change management. Basically have clear vision and a clear strategy. Once you have these figured out, you can continue on your mission. Along the way, the most important focus, as many other change management experts claim, should be on the individual and the way that he or she cope with the change process.

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  10. Both private sector and public sector organisations are faced with fast changing situations including changing statistics, budget cuts and altered client demands (Macleod, 2009). Organisations are requiring their employees to be ready for organisational change, in order to manage with those changing situations. The effects of high performance work practices on active employee-outcomes in order to improve readiness for structural change, thus connecting HRM with change management. And also high performance work practices are directly linked to performance (Tummers, Kruyen, Vijverberg and Voesenek, 2015).

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Change management is huge area it can be private sector or public sector.However, organizational change is highly complex process, which can have a negative or a positive outcome of the organization. The outcome is based on the manner in which the members within the organization are willing to accept change. There are different types of
      changes that an organization goes through, such as operational, cultural, strategic and political change.

      Delete
  11. Lately, numerous change management masters have concentrated on delicate issues, for example, culture, leadership, and inspiration. Such components are vital for progress, however dealing with these angles alone isn't adequate to execute change ventures. Delicate components don't specifically impact the results of numerous change programs. For example, visionary leadership is regularly fundamental for change ventures, yet not generally. The same can be said in regards to correspondence with representatives. Also, it is difficult to change demeanor or connections; they're profoundly imbued in associations and individuals. Also, despite the fact that changes in, say, culture or inspiration levels can be in a roundabout way checked through overviews and meetings, it's difficult to get solid information on delicate elements(Harold L. at. al., 2005)

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    1. Since the need for change often is unpredictable, it tends to be reactive,discontinuous, ad hoc and often triggered by a situation of organisational crisis. Although the successful management of change is accepted as a necessity in order to survive and succeed in today’s highly competitive and continuously evolving environment(Luecke, 2003; Okumus and Hemmington, 1998), Balogun and Hope Hailey(2004) report a failure rate of around 70 per cent of all change programmes initiated.

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  12. According to Todnem (2005), the change is a chronic element that affects all organisations. There is a clear agreement that the change has never been greater than in the current continuously evolving business environment. Therefore, the successful management of change is a highly required skill (Todnem, 2005). However, the management of organisational change currently tends to be reactive, discontinuous and ad hoc with a reported failure rate of around 70 per cent of all change programmes initiated (Balogun and Hope Hailey, 2004). This may indicate a basic lack of a valid framework of how to successfully implement and manage organisational change since what is currently available is a wide range of contradictory and confusing theories and approaches, which are mostly lacking empirical evidence and often based on unchallenged hypotheses regarding the nature of contemporary organisational change management.

    Todnem, R, 2005, Organisational change management: A critical review, Journal of Change Management, 5:4, pp 369-380,

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    1. Change management is a complex process and requires serious attention as well as involvement from the management and people from all levels, in order to achieve a meaningful or a progressive transformation across various levels. For being ahead in the competitive race and gaining a winning edge, organizations have been focusing on expansion of business worldwide, achieving excellence in processes and operations, implementing innovations in technology and identifying/developing the right talent. The fast changes which have taken place and the way in which this has affected the strategies, people, policies and processes in an organization, it has become all the more imperative that organizations clearly establish a well-defined change management framework for realizing the strategic objectives. Change is inevitable and it can only be managed, failing which the organizations may cease to exist.

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  13. It can be argued that the successful management of change is crucial to any organisation in order to survive and succeed in the present highly competitive and continuously evolving business environment. However, theories and approaches to change management currently available to academics and practitioners are often contradictory, mostly lacking empirical evidence and supported by unchallenged hypotheses concerning the nature of contemporary organisational change management. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to provide a critical review of some of the main theories and approaches to organisational change management as an important first step towards constructing a new framework for managing change. The article concludes with recommendations for further research.

    Organizational Change Management: Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233604011_Organizational_Change_Management_A_Critical_Review [accessed Jun 11 2018].

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Agreed on your points.Research suggests that people can be inspired
      to change, even in trying circumstances, when leadership can meet their psychological needs of autonomy, growth, and meaning. The problem
      is that charts and slides rarely address these needs. Here’s a breakdown of how organizations can better satisfy these needs during change efforts.

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  14. Recent changes have revolutionised the way work is performed. Half a century ago,employees entered a vocation, and practiced that work for a lifetime. Today, with change
    impacting every job and the way everyone works, employees can no longer learn a trade and rely on those skills to last for a lifetime of employment. Organisations are now looking to employees to keep pace with change, anticipate changes and even create some of the change (Buhler, 2000).

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    1. Agreed on your views. Change management research and models remain relevant in the 21st century. The problem is not anymore about their worth or relevancy. The challenges and problems facing organizational development researchers and experts, organizational leaders and HR managers relate to the
      complexity and speed of change needed today. Most companies face similar types of large scale changes in their lifetime.

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  15. Change is a very important component in today's context.Being sensitive to the changes in the market as well as to the employees and adopting to the situations is very crucial.In the past where employees would master one element of a process and perform it for a life long time is no longer suitable where as multi tasking has come into play and continuous changes in processes has brought more productivity levels and satisfaction.

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    1. Agreed on your points Even though it is difficult to identify any consensus regarding a framework for organisational change management, there seems to be an agreement on two important issues. Firstly, it is agreed that the pace of change has never been greater then in the current business environment.

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  16. According to Radović and Marković (2007) Organizational change is the implementation of new procedures or technologies intended to realign an organization with the changing demands of its business environment, or to capitalize on business opportunities. According to Luecke (2003) there are seven steps to executing change in an organization , such as Mobilize energy and commitment through joint identification of business problems and their solutions, Develop a shared vision of how to organize and manage for competitiveness, Identify the leadership, Institutionalize success through formal policies/ systems/structures, Focus on results, not on activities, Start change at the periphery, then let it spread to other units without pushing it from the top, Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems in the change process.

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    1. Change management has been defined as ‘the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers’ (Moran and Brightman, 2001).According to Burnes (2004) change is an ever present feature of organisational life, both at an operational and strategic level. Therefore, there should be no doubt regarding the importance to any organisation of its ability to identify where it needs to be in the future.

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  17. Lewin’s Change Management Model was created in the 1950s by psychologist Kurt Lewin. Lewin model is built under the idea that people tend operate within the zones of safety. His model utilizes three stages: The Unfreeze Stage which recognizes people’s natural reaction to resist change. In order for an organization to overcome this natural emotion, people have to be motivated to change. Lewin called thisperiod a period of thawing out or unfreezing. The Transition stage takes place when the change process is initiated. The transition period can last for an extended period of time. It is vital that adequate


    leadership and reassurance are available for the stage to be successful.The third and final stage is the Refreeze stage. This stage is implemented once the change has been accepted and the company becomes stable again, and employees refreezes as they learn to comply with the new guidelines. Lewin’s model is widely used in business today because it is easy to use with few negative attributes. However one major issue with this model is a lengthy implementation period.McKinsey 7-S Model offers a complete organizational approach. This McKinsey 7-S Model was created byRobert Waterman, Tom Peters, Richard Pascale, and Anthony Athos in 1978, the model has 7 factors that collective act as agents of change. The seven s are: Shared values, Strategy, Structure, Systems, Style, Staff, and Skills. Primary benefits of the McKinsey model are: It offers an effective method to diagnose and understand an organization, 2. it provides guidance during change initiatives, it combines both emotional and rational components and all parts are built in must be addressed in a unified manner. The disadvantages of the McKinsey 7-S Model are primarily associated with the interdependency of all modelfactors, when one factor has to change all factors have to change, the Model is known to be extremely complex and for that reason is known to fail more often than other models. Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model was created by John Kotter a Harvard University professor. The model views change as a campaign. Leaders convince employees that there is an urgent need for change. AfterEmployee’s buy into the change then change to occur. There are 8 steps involved in this model: increase the urgency for change, build a team dedicated to change, create the vision for change, communicate the need for change, empower staff with the ability to change, create short term goals, stay persistent and make the change permanent. The significant benefits to the model are an easy step by step process, the primary focus is on preparing the organization for change making the transition period easier.

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    1. Agreed many points on your views. change management has many upgrade models in 21st century.Although there is a general recognition of the need to manage change successfully in modern organisations, questions regarding the substance of change and how the processes can be managed still remain largely unanswered (Dawson 1994). Traditionally, theorists on change
      management have argued that the primary purpose of change was to create stability in the organisation through the least amount of change initiatives. According to Rickards (1999), this approach is guided by methods of scientific enquirer and rational theory development grounded in modernism.

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  18. Continuously changing is most important to organization for survival. According to Lars Tummers, Job proactivity and vitality are important in changing environments. For instance, vital employees can better deal with change because they possess more energy. However, it is still unclear how organizations can stimulate proactivity and vitality.
    Because heavily impact People knowledge and attitude on Changing, so selection and recruitment is most important part on this process, organization culture should be influencing for continuous changing.

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    1. In recent years, many change management gurus have focused on soft issues, such as culture, leadership, and motivation. Such elements are important for success, but managing these aspects alone isn’t sufficient to implement transformation projects. Soft factors don’t directly influence the outcomes of many change programs. For instance, visionary leadership is often vital for transformation projects, but not always. The same can be said about communication with employees. Moreover, it isn’t easy to change attitudes or relationships; they’re deeply ingrained in organizations and people. And although changes in, say, culture or motivation levels can be indirectly gauged through surveys and interviews, it’s tough to get reliable data on soft factors.

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  19. It is evident from this article that change is an ever-present element that affects all organisations. There is a clear consensus that the pace of change has never been greater than in the current continuously evolving business environment. Therefore, the successful management of change is a highly required skill. However, the management of organisational change currently tends to be reactive, discontinuous and ad hoc with a reported failure rate of around 70 per cent of all change programmes initiated

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    1. Agreed many points on your views,To successfully manage change, organizational leaders must strategically design, execute, and communicate their change strategy with the same focus and intent that they spend conceiving of the change. If they don’t invest in this effort and carefully coordinate change implementation, they run the risk that the planned change will fail.

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  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  21. Several companies are failing in implementation of plan doe change management, whereas others fail in conveying the change among organization and employees. HR managers responsible for making strategic changes need to keep challenges they would face from outside and within the organization. One of the most common challenges faced by the HR managers to manage change is to understand the behavior and culture of employees. Asking people to change something that they have got habitual about is not an easy task. Another aspect that needs to be taken care of while discussing strategic change is compatible between organization and change. The most common mistake made is using past knowledge of change management and applying it to a current problem. Finally, changing perceptions and attitude of people towards an effective change is the priority for busines.There is a correlation between the success/failure of outcomes of HR change programs and hard factors that have an influence on change. The four hard factors are the duration of the project, time between change reviews; integrity of performance or the capabilities of employees affected by change agents; commitment of employees and senior executives who will get affected by the change; and the extra effort needed for employees to make the change (Sirkin, Keenan & Jackson, 2006).

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    1. Agreed on your points.The role of senior managers becomes crucial in driving through change and ensuring that firms are well placed with respect to their competitors. However, it is the case that in many organizations, senior managers actively resist change and in fact thwart change initiatives due to a variety of reasons which would be explored in subsequent sections. This essay examines the barriers to change by senior managers and discusses approaches to mitigate such resistance.

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  22. Change management can be defined as ‘the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure and capabilities to assist the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers’ (Moran and Brightman, 2001). As per Burnes (2004), change is a feature which is always present in the life of the organization. It exists both at operational and strategic level. The organization is aware of where the change is required and is fully capable of planning and implementing these changes in its structure.According to Burnes (2004); Rieley and Clarkson (2001), the organization's strategy and organizational strategies are something which goes hand in hand and cannot be separated. In the words of Graetz (2000), ‘Against a backdrop of increasing globalization, deregulation, the rapid pace of technological innovation, a growing knowledge of workforce, and shifting social and demographic trends, few would dispute that the primary task of management today is the leadership of organizational change.’

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    1. Agreed on your views.In the era of globalization, organizations function across the cultural boundaries with large investments in human capital as well as physical resources, give utmost importance to technological change and innovative practices for a leadership advantage. Business alliances like mergers, acquisitions, diversifications, takeovers and various other collaborative ventures have become the most preferred strategic best practices for the organizations to survive the fierce forces of competition, through transfer of people, technology, processes and leadership. For successfully handling this transition and converting the threats of change into opportunities, organizations must be flexible and open for Change Management.

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  23. Helping individuals to grasp and authorize change by expanding disappointment with business as usual, expanding the vision about the desired result, and utilizing arranged advances and commending achievement of key points of reference amid the procedure are vital. however the desired change won't be as impactful, valuable, or durable if individuals are at last restricted to the change itself. Hence, consideration regarding key issues that square or bring down change is necessary.1 With learning of why individuals normally oppose change, these elements can be maintained a strategic distance from, or if nothing else limited, amid any change activity. In that capacity, understanding the explanations for individuals' protection from change is the initial step to limiting or keeping away from it. The capacity to do this enables HR experts to give required and esteemed change management skill (Peacock 2017).

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    1. Before we launch into the specifics of how the HR can facilitate change, it needs to be remembered that change management is first and foremost about people and their capacity to adapt to change. Since, the HR department is all about recruiting, training and monitoring employee performance; it has a key role to play in any change management program. There are different aspects in which HR can play a significant role and we shall consider some of them.

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  24. Change management is a collective term for all approaches to prepare and support individuals, teams, and organizations in making organizational change. The most common change drivers include: technological evolution, process reviews, crisis, and consumer habit changes; pressure from new business entrants, acquisitions, mergers, and organizational restructuring . It includes methods that redirect or redefine the use of resources, business process, budget allocations, or other modes of operation that significantly change a company or organization. Organizational change management (OCM) considers the full organization and what needs to change, while change management may be used solely to refer to how people and teams are affected by such organizational transition. It deals with many different disciplines, from behavioral and social sciences to information technology and business solutions.

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    1. Agreed on your some view points. Innovations in technology and research advancements, have created opportunities for working virtually across any part of the globe; changes in the organizational structure and hierarchy; changes in the human resource policies and regulations, has resulted in organizational re-engineering and change in the style of working of employees

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  25. As per an Article in Prosic’s following are some reasons for change,
    1. Acquiring a company of near equal size
    2. Getting suppliers to use a new web-based form and process
    3. Relocating office spaces within an existing building
    4. Implementing an ERP solution
    5. Changes in senior leadership
    An Organization can follow the following steps to create change Management strategies,
    1. Identifying change characteristics
    2. Assessing the organization
    3. Creating a change management strategy

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    1. Agreed on your views.which compounds the turmoil that usually accompanies change. In recent years, many change management gurus have focused on soft issues, such as culture, leadership, and motivation. Such elements are important for success, but managing these aspects alone isn’t sufficient to implement transformation projects. Soft factors don’t directly influence the outcomes of many change programs. For instance, visionary leadership is often vital for transformation projects, but not always. The same can be said about communication with employees.

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  26. In here, this blog has introduced the concept of change and helped to define the ways we can explain the change. We have noted that organizations of all types are pressured and forced towards change for all sorts of cultural, environmental, and internal reasons and that the ways in which stakeholders enact their environments through social interaction are highly influential in enabling change to be considered and implemented. Further, change efforts – especially large-scale changes – often are constructed by influential stakeholders as having failed. Changes come in many sizes and types. We can describe change in terms of being planned and unplanned; of different types; and of different sizes and scope. We also have much evidence to suggest that change in complex organizations is often more dynamic and potentially more problematic because of the interdependent relationships among stakeholders, the political context of change, and the nature of organizational structures. Communication plays tremendously important roles throughout change processes in serving as the means by which people construct what is happening, influence the constructions of others, and develop responses to what is being introduced to them as change. The next chapter will focus more on some of the specific ways that stakeholders communicate and the communicative roles they play during organizational change. (Lewis 2011)

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    1. Agreed on your views. Managers at the middle level can be made to see the value inherent in change and hence they can be brought on board. The front line managers’ views and inputs can be sought and thereby their cooperation and participation in the change obtained. These are the broad outlines and the following detailed sets of approaches can be pursued as well.

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  27. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  28. Combs et al., (2006) has identified Proactivity and Vitality as important factors for organizational change. Basically, Change agent tasks are about leading and helping in formulating the organizations overall business strategy and to line up human resource activities and plans with the organizations overall business strategy (Belcourt and McBey, 2010).
    Implementation of a successful change program is full of challenges and the change management process remains highly problematic. These challenges are common among several organizations as people are unwilling to make changes and are hell bent on following the old methods (Pieterse, Caniëls & Homan, 2012).

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    1. By definition, senior managers are highly capable, motivated and ambitious. By making them the stars of the change process, their innate abilities can be harnessed to the benefit of the organization. It is often better to have a close association with the senior managers to achieve the desired results.

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  29. Organizations frequently adapt to changing environments such as modifying client requirements, new policies (Josserand et al., 2006). These adaptations are crucial for the survival of the organizations (Tushman and O’Reilly, 2013). However nowadays even public organizations need to be changed rapidly in order for the survival (Kuipers et al., 2014; Van der Voet et al, 2013). These change process is a stressfull one (Vakola and Nikolaou, 2005). In this case employees have to aquire new knowledge, change daily procedures. As a consequence refusal of added changes and employee turn over may occur. (Rush et al., 1995).

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    1. Agree some points.The term "change" refers to an important and fundamental development. Change is a strategic dimension, because it
      is "the movement of a company of the current situation to a desired future situation of the competitiveness. Adapting to change is the key to survival. Organizations can survive in a dynamic environment as their speed of learning and change meets to the dynamics of the environment. Therefore, organizations should prepare for the creation of complexity to cope up with the complexity of environment.

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  30. Kotter(1995)argues that unless those who recognize the need for change can put together a strong enough guiding coalition to direct the process, the change initiative is unlikely to get off the ground.
    clegg (2000) observes that it is often assumed that the lead should be a technical expert rather than the manager who will be responsible for making the change with post-implementation.

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  31. Activities that change when HRM goes international are

    1. Three wide human resource activities such as procurement, allocation and
    utilization. These three activities are easy to expand into the six HR activities
    mentioned above.
    2. There are three national or country categories involved in international HRM
    activities. The host country where a subsidiary is located, the home country
    where the organization’s headquarters are and “other” countries where the
    organization´s labor or finance might be located.
    3. There are three types of employees in an international organization, hostcountry
    nationals (HCNs), parent-country nationals (PCNs) and third-country
    nationals (TCNs). (Dowling & Welch 2004).

    Parent-country nationals are the citizens of the country where the multinational
    organization´s headquarters are located. Host-country nationals are the managers
    hired by the PCN and located in a certain country. Third-country nationals
    are managers who are citizens of the country, which is other than the parentcountry
    or managers are hired for a certain location. (Hodgetts & Luthans 1994).

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    1. Change management is large area in real world. By selling change and the value of such change to the organizations and themselves the senior managers can be persuaded to accept change. The point to note is that senior managers must be told what their role in the post change scenario would be and by making them see themselves in the future vision, they can be made to play a key part in the change management. As has been mentioned earlier, if the benefits of the change are explained and by persuading that the change does not involve downsizing or other reduction in roles and responsibilities, the senior managers can be expected to be partners rather than resisters in the change management process.

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  32. change management means the planning, implementing, controlling and reviewing the movement of an organization from its current state to a new one.
    change management is a process that requires a firm to be able to cope with the dramatic one-off as well as the evolutionary changes.
    Evolutionary or incremental change occurs quite slowly overtime for example the swing towards fuel efficient cars has been happening for several years.while dramatic or revolutionary change if unanticipated can cause many problems. In extreme cases it can lead the totally rethinking the operations of an organizations. This is called "business process re engineering".
    change is hard to implement as workers do not like change as the are used to old system.implementing change to an organization in a favorable manner is a role of HRM. Fer of unknown, Fear of failure, Losing something of vaue etc.. tend to be reason why employees don't like change.

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    1. By definition, senior managers are highly capable, motivated and ambitious. By making them the stars of the change process, their innate abilities can be harnessed to the benefit of the organization. It is often better to have a close association with the senior managers to achieve the desired results.

      Delete
  33. In here, this blog has introduced the concept of change and helped to define the ways we can explain the change. We have noted that organizations of all types are pressured and forced towards change for all sorts of cultural, environmental, and internal reasons and that the ways in which stakeholders enact their environments through social interaction are highly influential in enabling change to be considered and implemented. Further, change efforts – especially large-scale changes – often are constructed by influential stakeholders as having failed. Changes come in many sizes and types. We can describe change in terms of being planned and unplanned; of different types; and of different sizes and scope. We also have much evidence to suggest that change in complex organizations is often more dynamic and potentially more problematic because of the interdependent relationships among stakeholders, the political context of change, and the nature of organizational structures. Communication plays tremendously important roles throughout change processes in serving as the means by which people construct what is happening, influence the constructions of others, and develop responses to what is being introduced to them as change(Lewis 2011).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed on your views this is (Lewis 2011) upgrade process. Although there is a general recognition of the need to manage change successfully in modern organisations, questions regarding the substance of change and how the processes can be managed still remain largely unanswered. Traditionally, theorists on change management have argued that the primary purpose of change was to create stability in the organisation through the least amount of change initiatives.

      Delete
  34. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  35. There is no right or single answer to this question because we are dealing with humans and that’s the most difficult thing. In an article by John Jones, De Anne Aruiree and Mathew Caldrone, “10 Principles of Change Management”: Tools and techniques to help companies transform quickly, April 15, 2004, Harvard Business School, Executive Education [8].

    They summaries the way to mitigate the resistance: These include:

    1. Address the human side
    2. Start at the top
    3. Involve every layer
    4. Make the formal case
    5. Create ownership
    6. Communicate the message
    7. Assess the cultural landscape
    8. Address culture explicitly
    9. Prepare for the unexpected
    10. Speak to the individual

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