Question

• What are common challenges that can be barriers to change initiatives?

Answer 1

Implementation of major organizational change initiatives presents a challenge for management regardless of industry, company size, or leadership team experience. The challenges and barriers will always create a gap in recommended and current practices hurting the daily production process of the organization. To prevent this from happening, anticipating the major barriers to change can help an organization to avoid them before they become major issues in the implementation of change.

The common challenges that become barriers to change are-

Lack of Employee Involvement-  This is the most common barrier to change initiative. Employees always have a fear of change unless they are involved in the change process. The reason why employees tend to resist change are as follows-

• Fear of the unknown
• Loss of control particularly over processes that have been built up over time.
• Changes to everyday work habits and routines.
• More work, especially in the transition period.
• Lack of desire to accept a new culture.

Lack of Effective Communication Strategy- Successful implementation of a change initiative is a communication exercise. It was found that the major reason for organizational failure to successfully implement any kind of change is "clear and frequent communication". Communication should take center stage in both the planning and implementation stage of a change initiative. Employees need to know about the change as well as how the change will affect them and how will they adapt to the change.

Lack of Proper Planning- Without proper and step-by-step planning, change in an organization disintegrate and will cause more problem rather than a benefit. Ideally, an organization's management strategy should include the following components-

• An overarching goal or intended outcome.
• Clear, measurable objectives concerned with the overall outcome.
• An estimated timeline of achieving these objectives.
• Regular benchmark to evaluate the progress toward the goal.

Cultural Barriers-  As soon as a change initiative involves or affects multiple people from diverse groups, cultural barriers emerge. For example, if the organization is geographically disseminated, it is more likely that individuals working in a different region will disagree not only on the impact of the change but also concerning the right way to go about implementing it.

Organization Complexity-  Sometimes when organizations begin to develop complex processes, it makes the planning process and implementing change a bit more complex. The complexities include complex processes, product, and system which contribute to a barrier to change because they are quite difficult for the members of the organization to understand.

Lack of Perceived Leadership- The old phrase that states, "change starts at the top but happens at the bottom" still sounds true. No organizational change is successful without strong support and leadership from people at the highest hierarchy of the organization.

Adopting New Technology- Another challenge that becomes a barrier to change is integrating new technology with the organization's existing platforms in a way that does not cause huge logistical issues. Another major challenge is getting employees up to date on how to use the new technology. If employees do not believe that new technology will make their job easier, they will resist the change.