Organizational Change

by Héctor R. Torres
ABD, MBA, CPP, CFE

Change as a phenomenon has been the subject of man's study for thousands of years,  and as an example I can give you the thoughts on change of two famous Greek philosophers. Thales of Miletus (624 BC – 547 BC) when referring to the change said that the world was in a state of fluidity; for his part, Heraclitus (544 BC – 484 BC) claimed that the foundation of everything in the world lay in incessant change. Everything is transformed into a process of continuous birth and destruction to which nothing escapes.

Following the line of thought of these philosophers, change can be seen as a need or opportunity or as a challenge if we refer to changes within an organization or organizational change.

Effectively dealing with organizational change will become one of the greatest challenges for organizations and their management in the twenty-first century. The importance of organizational change is that it allows an organization to adapt to its business environment.

There are many reasons why organizations have to change; some include technological advances, economic trends and the effects of globalizing markets, which require organizations to have greater speed and agility in doing their business. However, an organization has to change to maintain its competitiveness and avoid being obsolete in its business environment.

Organizations do not change from one day to the next or change for the sake of change, because changes produce turbulence within them. If not properly managed, organizational change can cause more problems than good.

In the context of business, organizational change is the process of realigning an organization to meet the demands of its environment, improving the products/services it offers and capitalizing on new business opportunities. For organizational change to be successful in an organization, it must be based on four essential elements; leadership, shared vision, change strategies and the participation of all members in the change process. Now let's examine each of these elements.

• Leadership: We had defined leadership as: the art of influencing others to carry out the mission by providing purpose, direction and motivation. What this definition teaches is that the leader must lead based on a process of influence and at the same time provide purpose, direction and motivation to his followers. These same elements are what make the distinction between what it is to be a leader and what it is to be a manager. The importance of leadership is that it lays the foundation for organizational change through the process of influence. You can't change an organization unless you change its way of thinking and establish a shared vision.
   
• Shared vision: You cannot influence a group of people to work towards a common goal unless there is and is a shared futuristic vision of what the group can achieve.  In this sense, leadership plays an important role in the development of a shared vision. Over time, multiple theories of leadership have been developed including transformational leadership theory. Transformational leadership is based on the fact that leaders must provide a futuristic vision in order to transform an organization. The theory rests on the principle that nothing can be changed in an organization until the collective way of thinking of the organization is changed. This is achieved when the leader provides a vision about the future of the organization. 

• Change strategies: You can not undertake an operation as complex as organizational change unless there are strategies developed to implement it. Some of these strategies include:

•    Vision Development.
•    Communication at all levels of the organization throughout the process.
•    Participatory management.
•    Direction throughout the process.
•    Continuous evaluation of change processes.

• Participation of all members of the organization: Finally, changes in an organization cannot be made on time and with quality unless you have the commitment of all members. The participation of all members, at all levels, is crucial for successful organizational change, with less resistance and less turbulence.   

In our next article, we will discuss how to implement organizational change in the managerial function of corporate security. I invite you to continue to share your ideas and concerns of the world and security management.

* If you wish you can write to the author at the email [email protected] .