Organizational change requires leadership to have an idea of what change needs to happen.
Organizational change requires leadership to have an idea of what change needs to happen. Many change efforts fail because the goals are not specific and measurable. Specific goals are important because they make it clear what will be changed or accomplished (Grenny, et al., 2023). An example of a vague goal made specific is ‘to be heathier’ changed to ‘to stop smoking and exercise for 30 minutes twice a week.’
Once, I tasked an employee with creating an informational package that included all the fringe benefits available to our employees. I envisioned a brochure or handout outlining what was offered. Her finished product was a booklet of flyers from each of the providers (i.e., Aetna flyer, Met Life flyer, etc.). This goal was not specific enough to reach the outcome intended.
Data collection and analysis is important for organizational change for two reasons. The first is that the need for or desired outcomes decisions are based on available data. If that data is inaccurate or incorrectly interpreted then the efforts may fail entirely or fail to impact the organization in the desired way (Grenny, et al., 2023, and Pillai & Sivathanu, 2022). If measurement is not done, is not done close to the target behavior, or is done too infrequently; change results will be negatively impacted (Grenny, et al., 2023). The second reason is that the data needs to be collected and realistically connected to the target behavior.
According to Grenny, et al. (2023), observing behaviors and identifying those that will have a disproportionate affect on the target change is vital. Most of the time these behaviors deviate from the traditional way of doing things. For this reason, researchers have started referring to these behaviors as positive deviance. The challenge for leaders is to influence the main population of employees to adopt positively deviant behaviors (Cohen, et al., 2022; Grenny, et al., 2023 and Sharma & Chillakuri, 2023).
Positive deviance has been found to be correlated to the perception of the employees in relation to the well-being of employees. Employees are more innovative and will engage in more positive deviant behavior if they believe the organization is committed to taking care of its employees (Bhatti, et al., 2023).
Influence comes from six sources: personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation, and structural ability. Thus, the organization is motivation and ability at the personal, social, and structural levels. The third key is to use each of these sources of influence to encourage change (Grenny, et al., 2023).
Previously, I struggled with both the social and personal motivation in my office. I had hired two employees for entry-level positions at the same time. Approximately six months later there was an opportunity for promotion, and I selected one of the employees to fill the position. The second employee felt that she should have been promoted. This employee spoke to everyone about how she felt. She also refused to assist or train the new employee. She was able to create an environment where personal and social motivation encouraged other employees to distance themselves from the promoted and the new employees. Her divisive behavior created a number of interpersonal issues on the team and productivity declined.
Working in human resources, personal and social motivation is usually easy to develop because there is an easily recognized correlation between work performed and impact on others (Grant & Shandell, 2022). The situation described above exemplifies a situation where positive personal motivation was overridden by negative social and structural motivations. According to Grant and Shandell (2022), status changes can negatively impact morale, performance, and motivation on a team.
I had failed my new employee by not giving her personal ability when the unhappy employee refused to train her. The social motivation and ability failed because others on the team were reacting to the influence of my unhappy employee. I failed the rest of the team they were no longer enjoying working with their teammates and often would have negative consequences if they tried to assist the new employee (Grenny, et al., 2023).
References
Bhatti, S., Irshad, R., Shehzad, N. & Santoro, G. (2023). Exploring the mediating role of social capital and pro-social motivation in the relationship between CSR and creative deviance. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 24(5), 1206-1226. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-06-2022-0129
Cohen, R., Gesser-Edelsburg, A. Singhal, A., Benenson, S. & Moses, A. (2022). Translating a theory-based positive deviance approach into an applied tool: Mitigating barriers among health professionals (HPs) regarding infection prevention and control (IPC) guidelines. PLoS One, 17(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269124Links to an external site.
Grant, A. & Shandell, M. (2022). Social motivation at work: The organizational psychology of effort for, against, and with others. Annual Review of Psychology, 73, 301-326. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev- psych-060321-033406Links to an external site.
Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R. & Switzler, A. (2023). Crucial Influence, 3rd ed., McGraw Hill.
Pillai, R. & Sivathanu, B. (2022). Measure what matters: Descriptive and predictive metrics of HRM-pathway toward organizational performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 71(7), 3009-3029. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-10-2020-0509
Sharma, N. & Chillakuri, B. (2023). Positive deviance at work: A systematic review and directions for future research. Personnel Review, 52(4), 933-954. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-05-2020-0360
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