You have been employed at a state agency for 15 years. You started in a customer service call center, moved your way up to project coordinator, then project manager, and today you are a division manager. You feel that because you moved up from the front lines that you have a very realistic and practical approach as a manager. You truly enjoy working as a public servant and serving the community, you are proud of your organization’s mission. Further, while many people might struggle with the strict working conditions of a public agency, you work well within an organization that has clearly defined rules, procedures, and boundaries. Your team and your colleagues have come to trust you to help solve problems and make effective decisions, at least up until recently.

After years of being the “youngest” person on the team, recently you have been experiencing some personal challenges. There has been a tremendous amount of changes that have occurred at all levels of the organization recently. Policies and procedures have changed, several top- level executives whom you knew well have retired, and the new top leaders are trying to shift the organization’s culture. You are no longer the “young person”, there has been a mass hiring of younger staff, there have been shifts in job responsibilities, and aggressive performance measures. The staff is also a great deal more diverse in demographic and cultural background, you feel like you don’t have a lot in common with the newer hires. Public organizations are not normally known for rapid change, it feels like there is no purpose to the changes, and it’s just change for the sake of change.

After confiding in a friend outside the organization, they encouraged you to propose your own new ideas for the division. You’re really trying to heed that advice and have tried to propose what you thought were some fresh new ideas that you think would help stabilize your department. However, every time that you’ve tried to propose new ideas at the management meetings, your ideas have been shot down. In one instance, a young manager implied that your idea was outdated and that technological advances did not warrant your idea. Which you are not even sure about what “technology” that could be, but you were too embarrassed to admit it. Your morale is really starting to suffer, you’re starting to feel attacked.

You’ve worked so hard to get to this position and now that you’ve finally reached your dream job, you are miserable. Finally, just when you thought that it couldn’t get any worse, you get an email announcing that the company is going to adopt new software as their main operating system and will be phasing out the legacy system that you have worked on for your entire career. You had suspected that this was coming, but have been dreading it because new technology is your biggest weakness.

Assignment:

1. Discuss what are some reasons that individuals resist change in the workplace?
2. Based on the case scenario, what are some biases that are inferred by the main character?
3. At which of the three phases of Bridge’s Transitions Model, do you think the character is in at this point?
4. Advise how can this person progress from the current phase that they are in to get through to accepting the change by applying Bridge’s Transition Model. What would you do if this was you?
5. Do you think that you can turn this around and get yourself to embrace the change? If so, how? If not, why?
6. How do you think that your personal values, believes, and spirituality shape your perceptions of change?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Introduction Change management is excellent for any organization but change management process that is poorly introduced and woefully managed can harm both employees and the entire organization Techno... View the full answer