Running head: MANAGING CHANGE

Managing Change
Eric Henderson
Siena Heights University

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Managing Change

There are many factors in life that lead to change. Beginning at child birth, a baby must
progress their way through life to mature into a responsible adult. Throughout this process of
maturing, many factors along the journey will attempt to alter the progression and lead many
individuals down different paths. The same can be said about organizations. Entrepreneurs
establish their businesses and have to create ways to change their processes in order to create a
successful organization. As time moves along, everything in the world moves with it. The
environment changes, the economy changes, styles come and go, personalities are altered,
emotions change, regulations change, etc. Everything in the world changes at some point or
another so it is important that organizations recognize issues and continue to change and adapt to
a continuously rotating world. Although many organizations attempt to do so, only 30 percent of
organizational changes are successful (Leeman, 2014). Why such a small percentage? There are
many reasons behind the 70 percent failure rate of change initiatives. Because of this,
organizational change is perhaps the most important part of business, but needs to be improved
significantly. In order to do so, organizations need to be educated about how they can manage
change. In doing so, organizations will learn more about organization change, how their
employees may react to change, the characteristics of managing change, and the best ways to
implement a successful change strategy.
Organizational Change
As mentioned before, organizational change may be the most important piece in a
successful business. There are multiple reasons for an organization to implement a change in
their structure. For example, many organizational change situations occur when an organization
downsizes, reorganizes, introduces teams, and hire new leadership or personnel (Aamodt, 2013).

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But when is an organization to know they need to implement change? This is typical done
through what is known as the sacred cow hunts.
Sacred cow hunts are a step by step process organizations use to eliminate useless
productivity. By hunting down specific cows, organizations are able to locate different practices
that are unnecessary. These cow hunts typically look for practices that take up a lot of time, have
no purpose, or can be moved to other employees, departments, or companies. The reason why
locating these cows is so important is because they represent how individuals live their lives and
make their decisions, but they are virtually impossible to see (Pearson, 2016). According to
Pearson (2016), the reason why cows are used in this instance is because cows are a figurative
reference to the traditional place for cows in Hinduism. Cows are raised for multiple reasons and
can produce a variety of products, which is why the animal was made sacred by India and their
nations religion, Hinduism.
The first cow organizations tend to look for is the paper cow. Paper cows represent the
unnecessary paperwork employees may do on a daily basis. The types of paperwork most
commonly found to be unnecessary typically include forms and reports. Many organizations
have not fully adapted to a paperless system, which tends to create a large paper cow. These
organizations typically receive a hard copy of a form, scan the form, move it to a specific folder
on their computer system, and then put the hardcopy back into a file in case it is later desired. By
eliminating this paper cow, organizations have adapted by putting all their forms online and have
their customers submit these forms to them directly online as well. In doing so, this eliminated
the need for an employee to scan multiple items and put the hardcopy back into a file, therefore
eliminating a large amount of unnecessary work, while also creating a system that works more
efficiently and effectively for the organization.

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Reports are also another type of paper cow that typically takes up a lot of time.
Organizations have to pay employees to prepare a report, then distribute the report, and have
other employees read the report. The common issue with reports is whether or not the
employees actual read the report or not. Organizations spend all this time and money to prepare
a report, and more often than not, it goes unnoticed and doesnt do the job the report was
supposed to do. Because of this, organizations have started to crack down and ask themselves
questions regarding the reports. Is it necessary? What would happen if there were no reports?
Does it add value to the organization? Etc. By answering questions like these or similar to them,
organizations can have a pretty good understanding if they have paper cows or not.
The next cow hunt organizations go on is to locate meeting cows. The meeting cow hunt
looks into the meetings of an organization and asks similar questions in which the paper cow
hunt asks. In some instances, meetings can take up a lot of time and money. Organizations pay
their employees to sit in a meeting, and since time is money, the hunt aims to reduce or eliminate
the need for meetings. Employees tend to waste time by socializing in meetings and discussing
information that is already known or not useful to all members in the meeting. With all these
reasons, organizations take a deep look into their meetings and ask themselves if they are
beneficial? They also ask questions related to the meeting such as was the meeting necessary?
How much money did the organization spend on the meeting? Etc. By answering these
questions, organizations can determine if it is useful to have meetings, and if they are necessary,
then they will know who to have at the meeting.
The final sacred cow hunt is for the speed cow, which is an organizations way to locate
unnecessary deadlines. Although work deadlines are sometimes necessary, unnecessary deadlines
create inconsistent product quality. This is because employees feel stressed to complete jobs on

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time, causing them to speed up the process, which ultimately alters the quality of the final
product. Not only does unnecessary deadlines cause stress, but the stress may also create health
problems down the line for employees so it is important that organizations can locate
unnecessary deadlines and eliminate them.
Employee Acceptance Stages
Now that organizations have found their problem areas and have begun to eliminate
unnecessary paperwork, meetings, and deadlines, employees will begin to notice the change
taking place. Because everyone is different, no organization ever knows how their employees
will adapt to a changing work environment. Organizations are changing their system, in which
multiple employees may have been a part of that same system their entire career. Because of
their comfortability with the old system, employees are often reluctant to change at the beginning
of the change process. Not only were the employees comfortable, but they also fear for their
future and the potential work conditions they may have to deal with on a daily basis. With this
being said, employees often go through five stages during the organizational change process
(Aldrich, 2013). The five stages include denial, defense, discarding, adaptation, and
internalization.
Beginning with the denial stage, employees are reluctant to change because they
convince themselves that the old way worked just fine and any new strategies will only make
matters worse. During this stage, it is important that organizations attempt to influence the
change and communicate to their employees why the change is necessary, which often leads to
the second phase, defense. The defense stage occurs when employees realize that the
organizational change process is occurring. Employees typically get defensive in this stage
because the organization communicates to the employees that they were doing something wrong

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the first time around, which is why the organization needed to make changes. This often leads to
a lot of criticism and justification of employee positioning.
The third stage employees go through during organizational change is the discarding
stage. This is when the employee realizes that the change is final, and it is best that the
employees adjusts to the new ways and forgets about the old ways. This stage then leads to
adaptation, which is the fourth stage. Employees start to receive a first-hand look at the new
strategies and begin to adapt and adjust their ways to work with the new strategy of the
organization. This is perhaps the most vital stage of the employees acceptance because they
attempt to make the new strategy work by taking a lot of time and energy to absorb and learn the
new strategy and ways they can work efficiently within the system. After the employees hard
work is completed, this begins the internalization stage, which is when the employee understands
the new strategy, accepts the new strategy, and becomes comfortable once again. However, there
are many factors which determine how long these stages last, and how quickly the
implementations can or cannot take place.
Effective Change Strategies
In order to make sure employees complete their stages during their acceptance to an
organization change strategy, there are many factors that will help move the stages along. These
factors typically include the reason(s) being the change, the leader making the change, and the
personality of the person being changed (Aamodt, 2013). It is also important to know that there
are two types of change, which are evolutionary and revolutionary. Evolutionary change occurs
most often and is when organizations upgrade or improve their processes. Revolutionary change
does not occur as often, but it drastically changes the way organizations do things. Revolutionary

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change occurs when an organization is forced to turn their organization around 180 degrees by
altering the ethical policies and behavior of the organization.
Employees do not like change when there is no reason to do so. Because of this, the
reason behind the change is vital to the employees acceptance to the change. For example,
employees understand financial issues and are accepting to changes in regards to funding,
improving the organization, and other things of that nature. Employees are unaccepting to change
when the reasoning behind the change is not communicated or is considered to be in the best
interest of the organizations philosophy. The most common example is when organizations
change their process just because other organizations have done the same and it has worked for
them. Because of this, it is important to have a good reason behind change in order to make sure
your employees understand the change and can accept the change.
The person making the organization change is also a major factor in determining whether
or not employees will accept the new strategy. Employees will accept change more often when it
occurs from the inside of the organization. If an outside source is brought in to make changes,
employees will be less likely to accept the change implemented. This is because employees are
able to trust inside sources of an organization easier than they are going to trust an outside source
to implement changes. In addition, the inside source of the organization implementing change
must also be well liked and respected in order for employees to better accept the change. If an
outside source must be brought in to make changes, the outside source must be well known,
respected, and have a successful history of change strategies in order for the employees to accept
them into the organization and work well to achieve a successful change. Because of this, it is
important that employees can trust the leader making the changes. Organizations and leaders can

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do this by creating relationships with their employees by treating them like family and showing
them that the organization and leader can be trusted.
Finally, the personality of the person being changed can also alter the employee
acceptance stages of organizational change. Every person can be categorized into four different
personalities when it comes to how they react to change (Rick, 2015). The first personality is
change agents, which continuously suggest or implement change. This type of personality
typically looks too deeply into small details and tries to perfect them all at once. Although some
change can be good, consistently changing can become confusing and disruptive. The next
personality is the change analysts who only change when it is necessary. Change analysts need a
good reason for change to occur before they accept it. The third personality is the receptive
changers, who will not implement change, but they will be understanding and accepting to the
change. This is perhaps the most desired personality for organizations because receptive
changers understand the issues and reasons behind change and will help to move the change
process along. This personality helps to make organizations change strategies successful because
they guide the organization and the stakeholders and help them make the process easier. The last
personality is the reluctant changers, who do not like change. They are comfortable with where
they are at and they are fearful if they were to leave their comfort zone.
Implementing Change
Now that organizations have located their sacred cows, understand their employees
acceptance stages, and know how to speed up the process, it is now time to implement a
successful change strategy. It is important that organizations can effectively and efficiently
implement their change strategy because if they dont, employees will yet again be resistant to
the change, forcing an unsuccessful implementation. The key to an implementation plan is to

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spread it into different phases, so that way employees can slowly adjust to the new strategy
instead of throwing it all on them at once. It is also important to understand that the change
process almost never goes the way it was initially planned. Because of this, consistent revision to
the change process will be needed in order to move the strategy back on track.
There are four main steps in implementing a successful change strategy, which includes
creating an atmosphere for change, communicating the details, creating a time frame, and
providing training when necessary. Organizations typically create the right atmosphere to allow
change by having their employees make suggestions on what needs to be improved. In other
words, organizations can provide their employees with surveys which allow the employees to
voice their opinion on different areas within the organization and how the organization can work
to improve those areas. When implementing the change, organizations can use these surveys to
remind their employees that the organization is only changing what the employees wanted to see
improved. Once the employees understand that change is inevitable, it is also a good idea to
provide them with a support system that helps them through their new transitions so they
welcome the change instead of resisting it.
Communicating details is the most important part when implementing a new change
strategy. When employees are kept in the loop of things when organizations change, they are
more receptive to the change and more comfortable. When employees are left in the dark, they
have no other option then to think the worst because they do not know what lies ahead. Poor
communication is one of the main reasons why 70 percent of change management initiatives fail.
Because of this, it is important to train the employees who are responsible to communicate all of
the change management information, allow employees to voice their opinions and provide

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feedback, as well as being honest with the employees and inform them throughout the process
rather than just when the process is completed.
As mentioned earlier, it is important for organizations to locate and eliminate any
unnecessary speed cows. However, a deadline is completely necessary when implementing a
successful change strategy. This is because employees are more likely to accept change when
they know the time frame of the implementation plan. The longer it takes for an organization to
change, the higher the chances of things going wrong and employees beginning to become
concerned. Because of this, organization should not be in a change mode for longer than two
years (Aamodt, 2013). The final part of a successful change implementation is to make sure
employees are trained in their specific departments using the new system. A new system is
potentially worthless if the employees do not know how to use it appropriately. It also will take
the employees longer to adjust to the new system and finally accept the system, which is not in
the best interest of the organization so make sure employees are trained with the new system.
Siena Heights University
When it comes to my organization, Siena Heights University has witnessed a lot of
changing over the past several years. Although I was a student from 2011-2015 and an employee
since 2015, I was able to get a glimpse of the change occurring and the outcome it had on the
university. The major change I am talking about is the universities decision to start a football
program in 2011. When I first arrived to the university in 2011, I had thought it was great that the
university had added a football program, but I was unaware of a number of employees who may
not have liked the idea. The major issues is the fact that Siena Heights was a small, private
university who advertised themselves as Michigans best kept secret. The thought of adding a
football team threatened that image. Not to mention, the football team brought in over 100

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additional students to the university so a lot of financial planning had to take place in order to
figure out when they would be housed, where they would eat, how many employees needed to be
hired, etc. It seemed many employees were very hesitant to welcome in the new football team to
the university. However, the employees also understood the potential financial benefit that would
come to the university which would open doors to a lot of different things around campus.
After five seasons of Siena Heights football, many employees have come around to
finally accept the football team. Although the plan did stay under the two-year time frame, it still
seems like employees are still unsettle about the football team. Although the football team brings
in a lot of money to the university, they are also one of the higher financial obligations of the
university. A lot of money goes into the football program and other programs are starting to
realize that and feel left in the dark. From my standpoint, I have witnessed changes to the
scholarship system, changes to programs budgets, and beneficial changes being rumored but
never happening. Although these changes and issues are not directly caused from the football
team, they are issues that were brought to light that we never seen coming because we added a
football team, which is a part of what happens when an organization makes a change, because no
change ever goes as planned.
Competition
Many other competing colleges and universities have made the same changes we have
made. The most recent examples is Davenport University adding football, Adrian College adding
a Bass fishing team, and Owens Community College losing most of their athletic teams.
Although I am not an employee at any of those colleges or universities, I am a witness from the
outside looking in. Although I am unfamiliar with any problems Davenport is having with their
newly added football team, I sure they will have similar problems to ours. However, I am sure

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they did their research and figured out any sudden changes to our implementation plan when we
added out football program. As for the Adrian College bass fishing team, I have heard multiple
employees are angry with the decision. Adrian College has spent over $100,000 on two boats,
trailers, trucks to haul them, and other equipment just to bring in six to ten student athletes to fish
on the team. Other programs and departments of the college think that money could have been
used elsewhere and attracted more than just a few students to the college. Finally, Owens
Community College (OCC) announced at the end of the spring that it was ending all of their
sports programs besides womens volleyball and basketball. OCC is an example of the many
colleges and university who have decided to add sports in order to increase the number of
students and increase the revenue of the college. However, being an extremely small campus, the
sports teams did not attract as many students and revenue as hoped and expected. Because of
this, OCC is not a part of the 70 percent of organizations whos change management plan had
failed.
Recommendation
The recommendation portion is difficult for me because I was not a member of Siena
Heights University (SHU) until after the change was implemented. Because of this, I do not
know all the facts about how the change was proposed, and what they did to get to where we are
now. However, the few recommendations I have are related to the current issues the athletic
department now faces as a result of the always changing environment. For starters, the
scholarship system that SHU has changed over the years does not seem to be working the way
the university had hoped, which has now led to a few alterations to the plan. The current
scholarship system is not making the university as much money as it had initially intended. After
almost three years of this new system, statistics have come out that support my findings. Because

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of this, SHU needs to configure a different way to aid their students in order to continue to bring
students to campus while still remaining financially stable. In doing so, SHU can look at the way
other similar colleges and universities give out scholarships and combine those thoughts to create
a way that will work best for our university under our circumstances.
Financial reasons are understandable reasons for organizations to want to implement
change. Employees are more acceptable to the changes being made because they know they are
being made to improve the university. However, the budgets to the different programs is
something that needs to be fixed. More often than not, some sports teams go over budget and get
a slap on the wrist while other programs work their tail off to stay under budget and do
everything the right way. Im not sure who pays the budget but the over budget programs that
consistently go over budget are always taken care of while the budget of the other programs who
do things right remains the same. This is an example of a circumstance that may be unfair to a lot
of employees. Because of these budgeting issues, programs should be rewarded for staying under
budget and punished for going over budget. It is the only way to motivate programs to stay under
budget and make sure they are all doing what they are supposed to be doing.
The final issue and recommendation touches upon the beneficial changes rumored to
happen in the future but never take place. As mentioned earlier, communication is key in
implementing a successful change strategy. By communicating with employees and building
relationships with people who can be trusted, change strategies are bound to be more successful.
However, SHU in my opinion is starting to become the kid who yelled wolf. Many changes have
been suggested and many rumors have taken place that change is coming but it never does. The
only change that occurs is not communicated very well. However, this is also a very difficult
situation because we are a small university and word travels fast. I believe we have a great

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culture and welcoming atmosphere, but at the same time, those factors allow rumors to spread
like wild fire. I believe the university needs to find their balance between keeping a change
strategy secret and communicating it to their employees. It is good that I know change is coming
but it is a bad feeling not knowing when it will occur, especially if I really am pulling for the
change to occur.
Conclusion
In conclusion, implementing change can be very difficult for an organization. There are
many factors that can alter how the transition takes place and the amount of effort and time
involved. Organizations need to locate the issues within their organization, guide their employees
through the acceptance stages of change, know which strategies will work best for the
organizations circumstances, and know how to successfully implement a change strategy. Simple
tasks such as communication, creating relationships, establishing trust, and guiding employees
through the transitions can greatly improve some organizations odds in successfully managing
change. Not to mention, the employees will be successful at managing the change, which is the
number one goal of an organization when going through a change. If all this can be done
successfully, organizations have a good opportunity to become a part of the 30 percent of
organizations who are successful at managing change.

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