Review of the article

“THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT”
by Emily Lawson and Colin Price, published in the McKinsey Quarterly, 2003

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valued assets - the people working there - who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms "Human Resource Management" and "Human Resource" (HR) have largely replaced the term "Personnel Management" as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations. Human Resource management is evolving rapidly. Human resource management though is an academic theory its application is very wide in business practice that not only addresses the theoretical but also practical techniques of managing a workforce.

For the past few decades companies have made a lot of effort in terms of research to find out ways by which quality and productivity can be increased. According to classical management theorists, the emphasis was completely on providing monetary benefits to motivate employees to perform better. But, in the human relations movement with Hawthrone studies by Elton Mayo and his colleagues, importance to human element at work has been considered. Later, Ergonomics was also considered the key to increase production. In the 20th century, especially the last 2 decades, psychologists have pointed out that in addition to the incentives and ergonomics factor, the “psych” of the employee has to be changed for better, which means that the way an employee “thinks” has to be changed in order to bring about better performance.

“The Psychology of change management” by Emily Lawson and Colin Price published in the McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 -Number 2 organization, highlights this need for the perfect blend of theory of HRM as a theory with Psychology citing a number of interesting examples of companies that have successfully practiced this blend. In the article, they have pointed out how it is very important to persuade scores of employees and groups in organizations to think out of the box about their jobs and various aspects related to their work. The tasks of CEOs become increasingly difficult in identifying the need and extent to which change must be adopted, which in turn is the crux of "Change Management".

One of the most important concepts in HRM is "Organizational Development". Many theorists began to feel that a change brought about in the organization’s culture and qualities of interpersonal interaction with employees will serve the purpose of better performance and increased productivity. Emily and Price have also emphasized on this idea as it was seen that with an increase and an improvement in interpersonal interactions, employees gain higher sense of personal awareness and increased knowledge about their jobs and others in their surrounding environment. According to them, four important conditions affect the changing mind-sets of employees. Each of these four conditions has been seen as having sound back-up from psychological theories. The four conditions are explained as follows: Firstly, the employees must be able to identify the need for change. Secondly and more importantly feel the relevance to change. Thirdly, they must possess the required skills to do what their work demands and finally, there must be effective modeling. The "Cognitive Dissonance theory" by Leon Festinger emphasizes the fact that individuals try extremely hard to eliminate or reduce the degree of a deep-seated dissonance by changing their actions or beliefs. The positive implication the psychologists points out is- when an individual is happy about changing his behaviour or his action, he automatically assumes ownership for his actions and in turn there is an increased sense of responsibility, understanding the importance of his action.

Including the concepts of reinforcement given by famous behaviour-scientist B.F Skinner, Emily and Price also emphasized the fact that usage of the right incentive to get an estimated outcome is inevitable as it still remains the primary source of motivation to employees. Reinforcement can be positive or negative. The equation seems to be straight; “right reinforcement leads to estimated outcome; no reinforcement, no estimated outcome.” It is also important to note that the power of any reinforcement is limited; therefore, it requires companies to be wary of it and bring about necessary changes in reinforcements following some schedule, fixed or variable.

Companies must be receptive to change in culture internally and externally. It requires the employees to keep themselves updated with skills because with rapid changing technologies, a skill learnt today may become obsolete tomorrow. Therefore, companies must provide opportunities for its employees to learn new skills to accomplish the organizations’ goals more effectively.

Finally, the function of effective role models (an important concept Modeling and Observational learning by Albert Bandura) cannot be ignored. Most of the human behavior is a product of imitation attached with reinforcement, either direct or vicarious. Therefore, Emily and Price have highlighted the need for having CEOs, immediate managers playing the position of effective role models to their subordinates. Even colleagues in a group or people within an organization can be effective role-models to one another. To develop such qualities, inputs from psychological therapeutic techniques such as "interpersonal therapy" and "transpersonal psychology" can be drawn; both of which in a way suggest that in every individual, there lies an innate desire to develop and grow by gaining awareness of their own behavior and others.

To conclude, it was seen that employees will put in sustained and honest effort into what they do once they understand the rationale behind their action; because along with rationale an emotional connection is made with their job and its components. The importance of their action to their company will propel them not only to use their existing skills in a productive manner, but also update it time and again allowing them to gain a deeper sense of meaning, and a higher sense of responsibility. This will also make them perform better leading to improved quality of work-life and increased overall satisfaction.

- Keerthi Krishnan (Associate)

Home