“Whenever you start—give it your best. The opportunities are there to be anything you want to be. But wanting to be someone isn’t enough; dreaming about it isn’t enough; thinking about it isn’t enough. You’ve got to study for it, work for it, fight for it with all your heart and soul, because nobody is going to hand it to you.” –General Colin Powell
I find the quote above to be of great inspiration. I found that quote in the Jim Tressel book called The Winners Manual. This book for those of you who don’t know is a complete manual on how to live your life the right way. This book has changed my life by listening to Coach Tressel discuss how to be successful and do things the right way, and with great sense of pride. That is a lot for me to say considering that I grew up a Michigan fan. However, as a high school football and wrestling coach I use this book as a type of mentorship program. It has helped me to get kids to achieve more than they thought was even possible. The big ten fundamentals force you to analyze your current situation and to plan for the future. They are essentially the guidelines to life.
This leads me into the next topic in my series on HR Principles. The topic is on change management. They say that the only thing that is certain is change. That is absolutely true! I work in an environment that is truly organic in its nature and extremely maneuverabile and can change several times throughout the day. That is why the above quote is fitting because to succeed in the current economic climate you need to be able give your best day in and day out because you have to take what you earn!
If you need a job then you need to be thinking outside of the box on how to find employment. If you want to be a fighter you have to be in the gym, if you want to be a football player; well then you need t be playing somewhere. I am fortunate enough to play for the Lima Warriors and we compete for National Titles year in and year out. It is also a great outlet for work/life balance. To be able to change and adapt you must be able to roll with the punches and fight back for what you think you deserve.
The following will be my research on how organizations can better deal with change:
Change Management
“Change happens.
Okay, let me apologize in advance for using such a worn-out cliché, but
really, change is all around us—all the time!” (Ely, 2008). Within the organizational environment,
employees are asked to change the way in which they operate their job
constantly. The question is not whether
there is a solution to the problem or change? Rather, the emphasis is on
finding the best solution to fit your organization (Howard, Logue, Quimby and
Schoeneberg, 2009). “Begin any change,
especially a merger or acquisition, by pulling together key executives to talk
about brand messages—the promises you make your customers…This is also a good
time to get feedback from your employees” (Ely, 2009 p. ). Getting employee feedback is essential to the
change being successful since the employees are going to be the ones that the
change affects the most. “Employee voice
is the expression of opinions, suggestions and concern about organizational
practices, policies and strategy…Participatory management practices create
opportunities for employee voice by encouraging upward communication and
facilitating employee input in organizational decisions…According to research,
86% of HR professionals who use some form of employee feedback rated the
effectiveness of these interactions as “good” or “very good” (Parks, 2008).
Studies that have tracked organizational change indicate
that 70% or more of significant changes either fail to achieve the desired
outcome, fail completely, or actually impact the company in a way that makes
the problem worse. (Burke, 2008, Doyle, 1992, Miller, 2002, Senge, 1999, as
cited in Warrick, 2009). Avoiding a 70%
failure rate is absolutely vital to organizational success. That type of failure rate leads to
disillusionment, frustration, chaos, waste of time and human capital resources,
the loss of trust, and confidence in the leadership. Employee morale is also greatly
impacted. There also becomes a growing
resistance to each new announcement of change.
The organizational costs can be very high in this type of atmosphere.
(Warrick, 2009).
“In Reframing Organizations, Bolman and Deal claim that the ability to utilize multiple frameworks is a foil for the blindness that plagues organizations, that learning multiple perspectives, or frames, is a defense against cluelessness” (Bolman and Deal 2003 as cite in, Howard, Logue, Quimby and Schoeneberg, J. 2009 p.25). Examining organizations from four different frameworks creates a broader systems-level perspective. Bolman and Deal defined four specific frames. The four frames are structural, human resources, political, and symbolic. What Bolman and Deal founds was that change was only being examined from a couple of perspectives, or frames, but in reality change disrupts organizations across all frames. “Change is most likely to succeed when the organization takes multi-framed approach to problem evaluation” (Bolman and Deal 2003 as cite in, Howard, Logue, Quimby and Schoeneberg, J. 2009 p.25).