4. Change Management or Contemporary Management
The truth is that, nowadays, what we call change management, could be named as contemporary management of the XXI century. The Cartesian and Newtonian model of order, stability, linearity and forecasting, doesn’t exist more, maybe, never existed.
If we look to the evolution of administration theories, it can be seen, at least, half dozen different lines of thought (Taylor, Fayol, Weber, Mayo, McGregor, and so on). If it is analyzed the strategic planning schools, at least ten schools will be found, as Henry Mintzberg explained in his book Safari of Strategy. So, it can be said that, always, management was in evolution and dynamic, so, by corollary, it was always in a continuous process of change, adaptation and evolution.
As already said, balance is a limit-case and not a general rule or state of contemporary times. It is also true to internal and external environments of organizations, and in its most diverse forms and perspectives, of those environments, and they are in continuous mutation and adaptation to the new reality that, by itself, is dynamic and unpredictable.
The notion of time and change become more evident by the velocity and intensity in the current transformations of our environments (in all dimensions), which took to highlight and reinforce the concept of change management, that, in fact, always existed.
Organizations are developed and managed by people, so, the further sentences, about change management, will have the focus on people and the necessary synergy to the dynamic process of management occur with efficacy and efficiency.
To have a dynamic and continuous process of adaptation and evolution of the organization, it is important that the organizational structure be able to learn and to practice the self-development. For that, the concept of learning organizations can be rooted with the “Five Disciplines” of Peter Senge, that are:
Personal Mastery: it involves formulating a coherent picture of the results people most desire to gain as individuals, alongside a realistic assessment of the current state of their lives today. Learning to cultivate the tension between vision and reality can expand people’s capacity to make better choices, and to achieve more of the results that they have chosen.
Mental Models: it is focused around developing awareness of the attitudes and perceptions that influence thought and interaction. By continually reflecting upon, talking about, and reconsidering these internal pictures of the world, people can gain more capability in governing their actions and decisions.
Shared Vision: it establishes a focus on mutual purpose. People learn to nourish a sense of commitment in a group or organization by developing shared images of the future they seek to create, and the principles and guiding practices by which they hope to get there.
Team Learning: through techniques like dialogue and skillful discussion, teams transform their collective thinking, learning to mobilize their energies and actions to achieve common goals, and drawing forth an intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual members’ talents.
Systems Thinking: people learn to better understand interdependency and change, and thereby to deal more effectively with the forces that shape the consequences of our actions. Systems thinking is based upon a growing body of theory about the behavior of feedback and complexity. to help people see how to change systems more effectively and how to act more in tune with the larger processes of the natural and economic world.
Endorsing the above principles and it is valid for team work as for individual initiatives, the “7 habits of Highly Effective People”, of Stephen Covey, are also fundamental in these times of change. They are:
1 – Be proactive – Principles of Personal Visio
2 – Begin with the End in Mind
3 – Put first things first – Principles of Personal Management
4 – Think Win-Win – Principles of Interpersonal Leadership
5 – Seek first to Understand, Then to Be Understood
6 – Synergize – Principles of Creative Cooperation
7 – Sharpen de saw – Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal
Note: Next article, and last, we will anayze Change as a process.
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