FREE online courses on Change Management - The Change Process as Problem
Solving and Problem Finding - Content and Process
Organizations are highly specialized systems and there are
many different schemes for grouping and classifying them. Some are said to be in
the retail business, others are in manufacturing, and still others confine their
activities to distribution. Some are profit-oriented and some are not for
profit. Some are in the public sector and some are in the private sector. Some
are members of the financial services industry, which encompasses banking,
insurance, and brokerage houses. Others belong to the automobile industry, where
they can be classified as original equipment manufacturers (OEM) or after-market
providers. Some belong to the health care industry, as providers, as insureds,
or as insurers. Many are regulated, some are not. Some face stiff competition,
some do not. Some are foreign-owned and some are foreign-based. Some are
corporations, some are partnerships, and some are sole proprietorships. Some are
publicly held and some are privately held. Some have been around a long time and
some are newcomers. Some have been built up over the years while others have
been pieced together through mergers and acquisitions. No two are exactly alike.
The preceding paragraph points out that the problems found in
organizations, especially the change problems, have both a content and a process
dimension. It is one thing, for instance, to introduce a new claims processing
system in a functionally organized health insurer. It is quite another to
introduce a similar system in a health insurer that is organized along product
lines and market segments. It is yet a different thing altogether to introduce a
system of equal size and significance in an educational establishment that
relies on a matrix structure. The languages spoken differ. The values differ.
The cultures differ. And, at a detailed level, the problems differ. However, the
overall processes of change and change management remain pretty much the same,
and it is this fundamental similarity of the change processes across
organizations, industries, and structures that makes change management a task, a
process, and a practice.
