Change management in practice: why does change fail?

Introduction

The article is discussing how resistance to change can be useful if management regarded the reasons behind it as managers have to be trained on how to implement change and prepare the organization for change before implementing it by removing obstacles to change and making employees aware of such change. According to Anderson and Anderson, (2010), reasons for change have to be clear, leaders have to be prepared for applying change and there should be steps for implementing it gradually. Reiss, (2012) The current paper is critically analyzing the article with reference to relevant change management theories such as Lewin's model and ADKAR to show the strengths and weaknesses in the author's views in addition to presenting my personal view on how change can be implemented based on the evaluation. (Cameron and Green, 2015)

Analysis

According to Voehl and Harrington, (2016) there are models of change management that can be applicable to the article's such as Lewin's model of change management as according to Liu, Akram and  Bouguettaya, (2011) it depends on three main stages to implement change in order to avoid failure in change application as they are unfreezing, change and refreezing; this is identical with the author's opinion as he stresses the need to prepare the organization for change and the need to train managers on this, the second phase which is change is reflecting the author's opinions about making change a part of the organization's culture and making leaders very close to change, the third is unfreezing refers to the author's opinions of making sure that change is accepted and properly implemented in the organization. Another theory that can support the ideas of the author is the ADKAR model that was explained by Bogner, (2008) who stated that there are five stages change should pass which are awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement as this can be applicable to the author's views as awareness of the change nature and reasons should exist in managers and employees before implementing change, desire according to Procsi, (2016) can refer to the managers and employees' desire in making such success based on change, knowledge and ability according to Day and Leggat, (2015) can be maintained according to the author by training managers and employees on change management and reinforcement can be enhanced by applying change by understanding how it is going.

The author's opinions have weaknesses and strengths as the author is correct in seeing that change should be prepared for before implementation as according to Creasey, (2007), change needs an alteration system that should cover the whole organization and not a part of it only which is identical with the author's views but the author exaggerated in describing resistance to change as a pearl and can be very useful to the organization as when change is resisted it can lead to many damages, losses and problems as it can't be compared to a "pearl" as the author referred as according to Boonstra, (2008) who confirmed that resistance to change can work against any development that can be applied within the business organization and that the organization that has resistance to change is not advantaged but failing in achieving organizational goals which may lead to great loss. The article's change capabilities are clear in the author's opinions about the steps that the organization should follow to apply change such as preparing for change, understanding the reasons behind change, preparing leaders, following a change methodology, making change a part of the organizational culture and overall business and having a strategic direction for change as these capabilities according to Grady, (2012) can enable the business organization to achieve its goals that lie behind change implementation.

After studying views of authors as Leonard and McGuire, (2007), I can see that change management needs much interest from the business organization to be implemented as there are many different models the organization can choose from or the organization can even initiate a change model based on deep research and analysis for the organization and employees' needs in order to choose the most convenient method for change implementation. According to Auguste, (2013), Kotter's eight step model can be used in such case as the model can have the eight steps of creating urgency, forming a powerful coalition, creating a vision for change, communicating the vision, removing obstacles, creating short term wins, building on the change and anchoring the change in corporate culture; these steps are identical to the author's views as according to Mourfield, (2014), the Kotter's model seems to be very suitable to change management application as they are including all needed details for effective change. This was also confirmed by Rothwell et al, (2009) who asserted that the Kotter's model is suitable for maintaining sustainable change as it is based on deep analysis of the organization and employees' needs.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to refer to the need for applying change after preparing the organization for it, training employees and leaders on how to implement it and involving the change as a main component of the corporate culture in order to ensure its success. There are different models for change implementation such as Lewin's model, ADKAR model and Lotter's eight step model and the organization should make analysis for each model and then choose the most suitable model and apply it.