QUALITY 21

摘要

An MD of a large support services group decided that a major change was required in the company's operations if serious competitive challenges were to be met. The board of directors went away for a weekend and developed a new vision for the company and its culture. An HR director was recruited and given the task of managing the change in people and their attitudes. After several programmes aimed at achieving the required change, including a new structure for the organisation, a staff appraisal system linked to pay, and seminars to change attitudes, very little change in organisational behaviour and performance had actually occurred. Clearly something had gone wrong somewhere. But what, who and how? Everything was wrong, including what needed changing, who should lead the changes and, in particular, how the change should be brought about. This type of problem is very common in organisations which desire change but do not know how to go about it. There are many reasons for this, not least getting to grips with increasingly complex changes such as: (1) increased competition (2) a changing marketplace (3) new technology (4) different business rules Some of the senior managers in such organisations recognise the need for change to deal with the realities of competitiveness, but they lack an understanding of how the change should be implemented. They believe that changing the formal organisational structures, having culture change programmes, establishing performance targets and installing new payment systems will, by themselves, make the transformations.