668 Blog for Week of May 24th

Who is impacted by change? What are their characteristics and how do we use our understanding of them to best implement change?

I would argue that everyone is impacted by change in one way or another. From an organizational perspective, change can be a minor change in a form, and thus would lead the actors into filling out the form in a different manner. From a leadership change perspective, one can change an organizational structure and that change would permeate down to the lower level managment team. Chang in organizational culture can affect employees. If the company decides to cut peoples pay, enforce forced furlough or cut 401K contributions, this affects everyone monetarily and emotionally.

As pointed out in the previous paragraph, I believe that change can cause emotional strain as well as monetary strain. Perhaps change can also be a positive agent. I can't just keep thinking of the negative right? As an agent for change (or against change) we must understand and empathize with those being affected. We must understand the ramifications of this change towards the employee, or person, because at the end of the day...they are indeed people/humans. Once we are aware of the outcomes of the change, we should build in support mechanisms for those affected by the change. It's really bad to enforce negative change with out a positive outlook. Organizations that are better at the communication of this type of change are better prepared in my opinion. I guess a good example would be of my own organization. We were forced to 'cut' heads or 'right shore' and so instead of just cutting heads, they came up with an alternative plan for the employees. SO if they had to cut 15 jobs, per se, they would flat out and say we have a 'difficult' decision to make, but we are doing what's right for the organization and will instead of cutting 15 jobs, we'll enforce mandatory furlough days and cut 401K matching. Great news is, we save 15 jobs. (Could have been me) but bad news is, we lose money. All in all, it's a win win from a lose lose situation. Being prepared is the key for change. Also being creative in the communication is important too.