Change within the organizational setting is a constant occurrence; to remain stagnant and set in familiar ways when competitors reinvent themselves at every juncture is to threaten the organization's future. The objective is to scale down, tighten up and implement alternative operational strategies that streamline processes while supporting staff and maintaining the company's culture.
Because smaller businesses are often more vulnerable to economic downturn than their big corporate counterparts, employers are asking for more from their workforce just to maintain the status quo. Downsizing, shifting responsibilities and otherwise altering the operational course has led to companies becoming more inclined to implement a scaled-down version in order to minimize expenditures and maximize profits.
Steve Kline, Jr., discusses another key element in organizational change theory -- lenses. Kline explains that while the strategic and political lenses are most commonly employed where organizational change occurs, the cultural lens also plays a role by eliminating the frequently cited response of "but this is how things have always been done." Kline notes how bottom line goals drive the strategic lens with little consideration of employee significance in exchange for task flow. Comparatively, the political lens seeks to define the elements of power and influence within the company's hierarchy. The cultural lens, according to Kline's 2001 article in "Products Finishing," deals directly with the type and extent of organizational change management imparts upon policies that have already "shaped employees' assumptions and have affected their future actions."
With so much downshift and change occurring within the small business environment, employees can find themselves confused and frustrated if they feel threatened by these modifications. Kurt Lewin, whose legacy as the founder of modern social psychology is universally recognized, instilled a fresh perspective into addressing organizational change by making the transition less painful. Learning a new approach takes people out of their comfort zones and can incite undue anxiety; as such, Lewin's philosophy, according to Professor Edgar H. Schein, mitigates fear to the point where it becomes overshadowed by benefits and opportunity a staff of two, four or 10 people can reap from such change.
Lewin's 3 Stages of Change, perhaps one of the most influential models for leading organizational change, revolves around the concept of unfreezing, changing and refreezing. This triple play of modifying human attitudes and behaviors maintains the delicate balance between effecting change and protecting the human ego. In a 1995 article for "Systems Practice," Schein outlined Lewin's theory as the need to release – or unfreeze – the way a given strategy or function has always been approached, move into a more contemporary way of accomplishing that task and then lock – or freeze – this new mindset into place.
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