Overcoming Resistance to Change

Overcoming Resistance to Change                  

[pic 1]Overcoming Resistance to Change

Raul Yang

Brandman University

Mar 28, 2016

On this report I will briefly discuss the organizational change that I experienced, how stakeholders were affected of the change and the reasons why the change was resisted and the steps the company made to manage and overcome the change.

The Organizational change that happened was when my company change CEO. When the new CEO assumed office, the function of United Way of San Diego from just a “middle man” for the workplace and the nonprofit agencies suddenly change. The company’s mission statement went unchanged but the way it did its business did. Impact areas namely; Financial literacy, child abuse prevention and homelessness became the main focus of the agency.

The Stakeholders are the people or groups that stand to be directly affected, either positively or negatively, by an effort or the actions of an agency, institution, or organization.  The Stakeholders, namely the employees of United Way San Diego and the agencies whose programs were not aligned with the United Ways impact areas were affected.

First, the nonprofits agencies that assist animals, arts and the environment. These types of agencies will be severely impacted because it means that their agency names will not appear in the selection of charities that you can donate to although you can still donate to them directly , other undecided donors who likes to donate to the mentioned charities will not see them on the list .

Secondly, the employees, especially the campaigners that go the companies and pitch the idea to give to the United Way. How are they going to explain to some companies that supports the animals, Arts and the Environment? Some employees think that the timing was wrong, change was not needed or some dislikes change altogether. Mainly the resistance was due to not understanding. “…the lack of supporting action is not due to antagonism toward the proposed change; it is due to the lack of a clear understanding…” (pg 165) on why the change is happening.

The approach that the change leader implemented to overcome the resistance was thru employee input and Involving workers in decision-making how to campaign at workplaces and with the United Way president accompany the campaigners to talk to company presidents in order to get their support with the change. Another way our company manage our change was by giving us rewards like game tickets to baseball or football, movie tickets among other things if we were able to memorize the company sales pitch or “elevator talk” and use it as part of our conversations outside the office.