Theories Of Innovation And Change Management Essay

Spending quality time surfing and researching the internet on Innovation and Change, I realized that there are uncountable theories and researches on innovation and change. From all indication, these researches and theories stated clearly that, innovation is inevitable because business and competition is constantly evolving, typically in the advanced technological tools and systems driven by the constant environment changes which is in line of the definition of Innovation “the introduction of new and improved ways of doing things at work” (West et al, 2003) or ” the successful exploitation of new ideas” (Porter and Ketels, 2003) While there are many competing models and methods for change and innovation, applying any of them requires a consideration of the individuals or resources involved and the context within which they will be used

When innovation is mentioned, it is important to recognize that one key element is people; people are the source of creativity, which is the basis for innovation. As we understand, Creativity is the means of generating new ideas and perspectives. One way to understand people as a source of creativity is to focus on their capabilities, skills, and motivations – particularly those that are more likely to produce imaginative and artistic behavior. Leaders need to inspire, motivate and encourage staff to come out with new creative ideas, to reward people for good ideas.

According Linda Holbeche; (2006), she does not believe that it is easy to combine the hard and Soft Changes (E and O Theory) as this will lead in mistrust of the orgaination’s leaders by their staff. The author, on the other hand, explains that organizations who have the skill and capabilities to resolve and combine the two theories will not only improvement or increase profitability and productivity but also put their employees on the adaptation phase for change. This method will create positive organizational culture of change ownership by employees and will lead to a successful transformational change in the organization (Beer and Nohira, 1995).

L. Holbeche (2006) mentioned that successful change occurs when people willingly change their behaviors. This is the same with Lewin’s force field analysis. With any planned change, works need to be prepared in order to predict the relative success of that change. What the management and leaders should do is to identify the restraining force which developed by Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in the field of social sciences, and alleviate the concerns by providing the people with adequate information about the impending change and its underpinning. According to Lewin’s force field analysis (1951), an issue is held in balance by the interaction of two opposing sets of forces – those seeking to promote change (driving forces) and those attempting to maintain the status quo (restraining forces).

force field analysis graphic

What could be the utmost motivating factor in gaining employee buy-in is the fact that there will be role or position to be eliminated, and that the change can only enhance processes, eliminating resistance in the process.

We to carefully examine the state of affairs of the business before we map up responses to organizational changes, as stated in the diagram above, some people would accept changes while others would decline then eventually resist. The life cycle of change resistance is a gradual process until you acquire at least 90% buy-in. Change leaders are challenged to manage the change towards survival though change might mean to alter existing systems, culture and processes.

A clear strategy for this is to break down changes so that the people could absorb it little by little. This means to integrate the driving forces that could increase the rate of change acceptance. The company should look at initiating changes not only based on internal pressures but more emphasis is placed on opposing external pressures.

Culture is essential to innovation in organizations as Dobni (2008) stated “the objective to be modern, the facilities to support innovation, functional level habits necessary to impact an industry and value direction, and the surroundings to apply innovation” (p. 540). With this, innovation could be viewed as contextual from an organizational culture viewpoint and the level to which a company can be modern will circumscribed by its culture. Dobni (2008, p. 543) provides another aspect that associates business culture with innovation through its industry direction. When it comes to change, there are three change phases according to the results of the research carried out by Prosci (2011). The first is preparing for change, the second, managing change and the last reinforcing change. if the three stages are effectively applied success is hence guaranteed.

Self Leadership Assessment and Action Plan

Self Leadership Assessment and Action Plan

Having said all of these, it is evident that leaders should also be in a position to balance between employees’ freedom and responsibility. Leaders have to do this without domination or control while at the same time, showing concern over employees’ feelings and needs. There is a need to generously encourage their employees’ creativity and voice their own concerns, as argued by Amabile (1998) and Peltz, (1956).

A successful leader is a great listener to staff concerns and problems. Respect, honesty and trust are key principles in the way I lead and guide my staff.  The approach I follow is a participatory approach in designing and planning the yearly plan, in welcoming opinions and suggestions, in recognizing staff efforts, in providing opportunities for performance development and career path under a collectively approved training/learning plan.

Further, fairness is what I follow to treat staff without any biased feeling or favoring one over others. Despite the wealth of knowledge and experience gained over years as a manager, I believe that enhanced skills to enhance and strengthen my leadership skills. To enable myself to efficiently become a successful leader for others to follow and to enable a planned change, leaders need to possess the technical expertise and to select the right people to jointly plan and implement change.

Nonetheless, the need for a shared understanding cannot be emphasized enough in the literature. This is the only way that a more open as well as more honest communication can be promoted. Eventually, concrete actions leading to attaining the planned changed can be thus developed through this. At an organizational level, the climate where shared understanding is the dominant norm, maximizing the fit among strategy, structure and purpose related to the impending change. However, there remains the fact that the readiness and the willingness of the people must be in existence to sustain the appropriate kind of work.

Owing to this fact, I need to scientifically gain the right knowledge and path of how to become the role model. A feasible and doable action plan would involve: 1) creating an effective team within the division, 2) designing a double vision of the division with defined mission, 3) opening a flow of communication between senior/middle managers and staff (operations talk to program and vice versa), 4) creating recognition and award system based on staff performance and yearly assessment, 5) ensuring a healthy, supportive and creative environment among the division staff, 6) driving creativity, innovation and change within the division; and in every employee inside the organization wherein leaders cannot affect change and innovations alone, they need followers to implement and 7) proving record of respected and trusted leader; support building employees loyalty to the organization.

These are namely my plan of action to further enhance and develop my leadership skills that are essential for my career development and for the organizational success. Once these skills are obtained, my performance and capabilities will be stronger as a leader that will lead me to overcome difficult challenges on the way be it internally or externally. I need to reiterate that if we have a trusted, transparent and open relationship between managers/leaders and staff that is built over years, staff will not react strongly against change.

Next is to conduct innovation and change-centered exercising programs such as goal setting and process mapping.

Organizational Innovation and Change-Related Training

This training is designed on studying how to set goals from team and business levels. Such training instructs members how to set goals by using organizational goals, declaration of values and vision and mission statements. Learning how to create innovative goals in the workplace is primary of this program. Strategic innovation goal setting skills are the designed outcome of this training. This training is suitable for staff, professionals and managers, with a total exercising time of 4 hours. The studying goals of this training are:

•          Help the company develops and apply activity plan

•          Identify the factors that influence ideal goals

•          Sequence the steps for putting organizational goals into action

•          Applying visualization techniques

Innovation and Change-Related Process Mapping Training

Process applying represents a visual device used to show you the primary businesses. Process charts are also regarded as communication device, planning device and a device that effectively cuts cost for organizations. The benefits of this training is to enhance the knowing of procedures inner to the company and increases control group’s knowing of the business and functional performance. Provided that procedures are the most effective way to manage the company, procedures then directly supports the organizational goal. By improving procedures, the company can enhance inner productivity, efficiency, variety and customer support. Through this, the company could generate useful analytic data in order to obtain conclusions, draw results and produce recommendations. This two-day training is suitable for professionals, program implementers, control associates, program planners, change professionals and enhancement teams. This exercising program’s goals are as follows:

•          Improve efficiency and quality of work through determining critical areas of enhancement

•          Rediscover primary procedures through analysis of organizational complications

Conclusion

In summary, there are many ideas and literature on change, innovation and leadership. Some can be implemented successfully while others cannot be actionable on reality.  Many factors control the need for change and change vary in nature like why,. Nevertheless, the most important factor of change that all research and books agreed upon is: the PEOPLE. The authors contemplated on how to correctly and effectively manage the people’s behaviors during a change. The relationship of trust, honesty and respect between leaders and employers, when this is felt within the organization, employees will welcome the change with less resistance be it soft or hard changes.

Change is inevitable, particularly in the world of business. Change can cause both positive and negative results for any company. First, change means growth and improvement, thus it can help companies to focus on the different threats and opportunities which can be implemented and prevented inside the organization in order to ensure success and maintain position in the market and industry. On the other hand, change can also cause negative results for any company, particularly in the aspect of management. It can cause huge amount to be spent, at the same time great effort to be exerted in order to ensure that the change will not affect the behavior and attitudes of the employees and other important stakeholders towards the company.