By Shadreck Zangairai
Managing change is one of the critical and fundamental roles of leadership. Leadership is a process that is not specifically a function of the person in charge but it is a function of individual wills and needs. Any organisation requires a leader to guide through the dynamic environment. Managers set plans to achieve goals, champion them throughout the organization and then work to stay on track. This is because no company today is in a particularly stable environment. Even traditionally stable industries have witnessed and will continue to experience turbulent change. Thus the dynamic and changing environments that organizations face today require adaptations, sometimes calling for deep and rapid responses. Change or die is the rallying cry among today’s managers worldwide. Companies change due to technology, economic shocks as the case of Zimbabwean industries, competition, changes in social trends and world politics. With this view in mind, it is beyond reasonable doubt that organizations need to change. In most cases, organisations judge the pace at which they change based on internal measures and factors.
Organisations need to know how prepared they are, what calibre of people they have and how things have been done before in order for them to know what to do next. But this pace might be best for the organisation and not for change. As noted by Burnes, leaders must measure transformation pace through the rate of competition both internal and externally. In this fast-moving and unpredictable world, there is no doubt that organisations are faced with the challenge of managing change. There is a lot of debate on which change approach is best in order to cope with the pace of change. However, i will argue that there is no one best way of managing the pace of change. I will conclude that organisations must avoid seeking ‘one best way’ approach to change but instead focus on identifying the approach which best suits the change to be undertaken.
Change is inevitable and it somehow has to happen. If one fails to respond to the dictates of change, the result is that one will be changed or rather fall by the way side as events unfold. Change is common in organisations and it has to be managed in a strategic way. Jack Welch stated that if the rate of change outside the organisation is faster than what it is inside then the end is approaching and closer. It is fundamental to note that it is not the organisations that change but rather it is the people who change hence people are the drivers of change. It is against this background that managers play a significant role in change management. As mentioned earlier that it’s the people who change, this gives every individual the responsibility of embracing change.
There is never a time one will say we implemented change yesterday and it shall remain like that now and forever. It is a continuous and infinite process. The art of doing business remains changing hence managers need to be always on the lookout or on their toes in order for their business to remain viable. Given that the world is big, a lot is also happening on a daily basis and as such managers don’t have any minute to spare. There was a time when banks were doing good business and they maintained the status quo but now they are faced with massive competition from ecocash, telecash or netcash money transfer system. If they remain like that without having to be innovative and change, they will soon go out of business characterised by liquidity crisis. Ecocash allows for bill payments like council, hospital bills, Dstv only to mention but a few.
Equifinality and Organisational Change
Organisations have the ability to recognise patterns and make assumptions about the environment. They know what works well and what does not work, thereby enabling them to create a set of rules and processes that allow the achievement of specific goals. However, such goals may be affected by the changing environment. Equifinality means that an organisation can achieve similar results using different processes. No one method can be said to be the best. The concept of equifinality explains the reason why there is no one best way to lead or manage change. This is so because there are certain environmental factors that cannot be controlled by the organisation. The external environment for example, includes a variety of needs and influences that can affect the organisation but which the organisation can not directly control, e.g., political, economic, ecological, societal or technological influences.
Because of the prevailing changes today, most organisations favour radical change than convergent change. Some changes may be sporadic or ongoing as a result of organisation reacting to external forces for change. It is therefore necessary to define change in terms of the degree to which organisational change take place as well as how organisations control the pace at which they change. By implementing the planned approach to change as well as the emergent approach, an organisation will be trying to control the pace at which it adapts to change. In addition, an organisation can also control the pace of change through proactive strategies to the extent that it becomes a major force for change. This is a planned approach to change which originates from predictable, pre-planned steps. Some researchers believe that change processes should be pursued at a slow pace while others argue that radical change needs to be made, and others believe that sustainable change require pace than speed.
In support of the later view, Photofilm is an example of a firm that implemented transformational change. The company, through its Chief Executive Officer did major restructuring and rebranding of the company, focussed on their two lines of business, DVD home delivery and video streaming. The company had lost half of its employees because of poor management. After the transformation, it changed from being a home deliverer of discs to a producer of video content. It produced various series such as “Dangerman”, ‘The War Zone’, ‘Your own destiny’, some of which have been aired on ZBC TV. The company used to distribute films and DVDs that were made by others but the company changed its strategy very quickly. Photofilm executed a major rapid change which most companies fail to do. Because of the changing competitive marketplace, speed and response time is crucial for organizations to survive. Organisations that adapt to the development of new technologies faster or can adapt to changes in the market faster will survive the competition. In today’s world of constant, complete change, organisations that react rapidly and responsibly are successful. Organizations should anticipate and invent the future for them to be successful.
Proactive change is evidenced in organizations that react to a perceived opportunity as a result of assessment or recognition of internal or external factors. For example, Econet perceived a need for a new form of receiving and transferring money and introduced Ecocash, and later the Steward Bank and took steps to position its company for this emerging opportunity. Proactive change is an opportunistic change in which the organisation creates strategic advantage as a result of anticipated internally or externally factors. With this type of change, it means an organisation can control the pace of change. Like what Econet did, the change benefited the market, hence growth to the company. Reactive change is a response to internal or external factors that have already occurred rather than those that are anticipated in the future.
Through the equifinality concept, any given system may reach the same position through various ways. This means that organisations cannot rely on one method of change approach but can employ the approach that suits the situation. Organizations have no choice but to change. The world is moving and shifting fast. Trying to cope require applying best thinking and structures, systems and approaches. Globalisation and diversity trends are therefore forcing organizations to be more flexible and adaptable to the changes. The concept of equifinality explains that there is no one right way to managing change and there is no right way to change. In summary, the current changing business environment requires various approaches to cope with the pace of change. The concept of equifinality explains that there is no one best way to achieve the change. Due to different internal and external environments, each organization has to consider and analyse their own environment in order to adapt the most appropriate approach and tool to implement change successfully. There are many models that can be used for successful organisational change. Winning organisations respond to the pace and complexity of change. They adapt, learn and act quickly.
Disclaimer; Shadreck Zangairai is the Principal Human Resources Officer at Masvingo Provincial Hospital. He writes in his personal Capacity
(shadreckzanga@gmail.com)
