Your engaging of the writer as questions

Your engaging of the writer as questions

Your task is to write a summary of chapter 15 of Management: Theory and Practice, K. Cole, ISBN: 1 74103 241 5 In summary of Kris Cole’s work, “Change in Management” chapter 15, the writer first started the introduction with questions that are also an over view. A good manager should have the knowledge to answer these questions and adapt this information to whichever system they may face. This simple goal here is for the reader find answers to these questions throughout the chapter and to engage the reader in a sub assessment.

The 2nd part of the introduction is a small scenario of a lower manager that has received information about a new system being implemented. She realizes the changes will be more exciting and better use of resources for the quasi government agency but she also points out the usual resistance of change be adopted by her workers. This is very engaging of the writer as questions start to form from the reader’s perspective. This is where the writer starts the chapter with the reasons for change and the steps to take for successful change.She formed this chapter into 4 sub-chapters and further established each sub-chapter with quotations and “some work to do” making her readers to be able to read easily and insure readers had a flow of understanding whilst reading. Based on these chapters, the writer started with the first chapter which say’s “change is all around us”.

She is trying to say that change can sometimes bring problems between workers, but everybody on the other hand loves change.Cole goes on to explain that people need leadership to help them through the change process and she explains in great detail that because the staff look to their manager for guidance the manager should follow seven steps to assist them. She summarises this with a table showing successful and unsuccessful changes and the reasons why they were successful or not. By paraphrasing one of Isaac Newton’s Laws, Cole explains that momentum is one of the keys to success in change and emphasizes once again that lack of commitment on the part of the manager plays a huge part in failure.

Therefore the manager must promote change and Cole explains the soft skills required to be able to do this. She then goes on to promote Seven Essential Skills for Leading Change as put forward by Rosabeth Moss Kantor (1983). Cole goes on with Kantor’s thesis by showing the Reasons for Stalled Change. In sub chapter 3 she brings forth the issues and the reasons for helping people through change.

Why people hate change, the concerns sparked by change and how resistance to change can surface.These can be subtle resistances and can disrupt the entire change process if not dealt with in a correct manner. To explain further, she shows the S-curve and the continuous cycle of change, which help managers to understand better before employees or staff. She continues by saying not the best people you think of in the work place can be more successful, but the staff and workers who are accessible to change can be successful and bring change about. All these helped the reader to understand how natural a change can be.Cole shows that Gary Hammel (1996) has his own views on change and that people do indeed love change as can be seen by the way we will try new restaurants or cars or fashions and that change in industry has been linked with bad things! Cole postulates that there are certain kinds of people who will help promote change and that the manager’s job is to support the staff through the change and she promotes ten ways to help the team understand the change.

To show that people are usually all at different stages throughout change, Cole introduces Jean Hall’s (University of Texas) ‘Hierarchy of Adopting a Change’, which shows seven different stages that people may go through during change. Cole suggests that the manager can identify where a person is in the hierarchy by the questions they ask. It is then up to the manager to provide the correct information.

She follows this up with a ‘theory to practice’ reading, which helps to explain the previous passages. Cole next turns to how we can help people adapt to change.She suggests that there are three phases of adaptation and explains each one clearly and succinctly before going onto showing several points on the types of resistance to change and suggests that there are two main things to look out for, 1.

A crisis in energy 2. Vested interests Predicting resistance is next looked at by Cole and she shows in diagrammatical form, Impact on Culture against Degree of Change. This diagram is then augmented by Cole’s ‘tips (14 in all) for dealing with resistance to change’ which she deals with in a lot of detail showing seven points and explaining each one.The final sub-chapter is ‘Monitoring and Evaluating Change’. Cole immediately refers us to Chapter 13 of the book where the reader learned ‘Developing, Managing and Monitoring Operational Plans’ and she suggests that the same processes apply. She further suggests that it is better to celebrate milestones than to wait until the end of the change as this should keep the momentum going. As usual, Cole finishes the chapter with Review Questions, Building Your Skills exercises, Group Activities and a case study.

At the very end of the chapter, in stark opposition to the opening ‘It’ll be great’ reading, Cole has a ‘What a mess! finale pointing out that sometimes ‘The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang agley’–Robert Burns, 1759-1791. All in all, this was an excellent presentation of how to manage the change process referring more to the skills, or lack thereof, which the manager has. If the reader thinks that they don’t have these skills, then this chapter should help them to hone these skills with practice and study. Reference: Kris Cole’s chapter on Change Management in Management: Theory and Practice, K.

Cole, (ISBN: 1 74103 241 5)