Lewins Change Management Model - Essay Example

It is among the popular models of managing change strategically in an organization. The model was developed by Kurt Lewin CITATION Sha06 \l 1033 (Sharma, 2006). In the model, Lewin explained how structured organizational change occurs, by comparing it to the change in the states of an ice block. The model has three stages, which include unfreeze, change and refreeze CITATION Joh07 \l 1033 (Miner, 2007). The unfreeze stage entails the preparation of the change. In this stage, an organization prepares for the change adopting strategic measures to manage the resistance to change. Also, the organization managers explain to the staff the reason why the change is important as a way of mitigating change opposition.

The change phase is the second stage in the Lewins change model. It is the stage where the real transition occurs in an organization. Also, organizational managers facilitate the processes of this stage by ensuring that all their personnel becomes involved in the change process by embracing new developments. The key aspects of this stage are good communication by the management and time. The refreeze phase is the last stage of the model. During this stage, change becomes successfully implemented and accepted in the organization. As a result, the organization starts becoming stable again. The phase requires the managers to ensure that the changed is employed by the staff all times even when the desired objective has been achieved.

McKinsey 7s Model

It is a 7-stage model for strategically managing change in an organization. The model was developed by the McKinsey & Company consultants in the 1980s CITATION Ran13 \l 1033 (Wilson & Hill, 2013). The first stage of the model is the strategy. In this case, a strategy is a plan that is created by the organization to manage its competition in order to secure its goals. In this stage, the model states that an organization should structure a step-by-step procedure to implement a change CITATION Cra15 \l 1033 (Fleisher & Bensoussan, 2015). The second stage is the structure, which characterizes the steps through which an organization is structured to manage change. The third stage is the systems, which describes the way through which day-to-day activities are performed.

The fourth stage is the shared values, which outlines the principal values of an organization that could influence or be influenced by change. The fifth stage is the style, which outlines the methods in which the change and leadership roles in an organization are adopted as well as implemented. The sixth stage describes the staff or the organizational personnel with their capabilities of adopting and implementing change. Ultimately, the last stage is the skills, which characterizes the competencies and skills acquired by employees that work in an organization appropriate for the change. The primary advantage of this model is that it offers change implementers a change to understand the functioning of the organization before implementing the change. Consequently, this aids in reducing the level of the resistance to change in an organization.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY Fleisher, C. S., & Bensoussan, B. E. (2015). Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods. New Jersey: FT Press.

Miner, J. B. (2007). Organizational Behavior 4: From Theory to Practice. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

Sharma. (2006). Change Management. New York: Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

Wilson, R., & Hill, A. V. (2013). The Operations Management Complete Toolbox (Collection). New Jersey: FT Press.