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Abstract
Purpose - seeks to ontinue discussion of the critical role of people in organisational change.
Design/methodology/approach - Focuses on the importance of achieving change readiness, ways in which this may be achieved and means to assess organisational readiness for change.
Findings - Achieving and sustaining effective organisational change and renewal are an imperative. The people in organisations can be either the key to achieving effective change, or the biggest obstacles to success.
Originality/value - Highlights how managers attempting to achieve organisational change will be well served by paying attention to the need to create readiness for change - this at both the individual employee and whole-of-organisation level - and the ways in which this may be achieved.
Keywords Organizational change, Change management
Paper type Viewpoint
Change, the process of moving to a new and different state of things is a constant for organisations. Managing organisational change is, in very large part, about managing the "people" aspects of that process. The first in this series of five short articles on this topic (Smith, 2005) considered the inherent conundrum of organisational change: that people, the human resources of organisations, are both an essential factor in organisational change and, at times, the biggest obstacles to achieving change. In this second article in the series the focus is on change readiness - why it is important, ways in which it may be achieved and how to assess organisational readiness for change.
Change readiness - why is it important?
It is people who make up organisations and it is they who are the real source of, and vehicle for, change. They are the ones who will either embrace or resist change. If organisational change is to take hold and succeed then organisations and the people who work in them must be readied for such transformation. Change readiness is not automatic and it cannot be assumed. A failure to assess organisational and individual change readiness may result in managers spending significant time and energy dealing with resistance to change. By creating change readiness before attempts at organisational renewal begin the need for later action to cope with resistance may be largely avoided. An investment in developing change readiness - at both an individual and whole-of-organisation level - can achieve...