MSG Team's other articles

11164 Role of Public Administration in the Modern State

The critical role of public administration as defined by John Rohr (a leading scholar of the US Constitution and its relation to public administration and civil servants) is governing the society. The authors have also argued that a government can exist without a legislature, even without a judiciary but never without administration. The government will […]

8935 Different Types of Communication

Let us now go through the various types of communication: Verbal communication Verbal communication is a type of communication where the information flows through verbal medium like words, speeches, presentations etc. In verbal communication the sender shares his/her thoughts in the form of words. In organizations, individuals communicate verbally among each other in the form […]

12043 Woodrow Wilsons Vision on Public Administration

Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of USA (1913-1921) and is often addressed as the father of American Public Administration. Wilson and his contribution to the subject of public administration is widely read and referred to. He was one of the first political leaders who emphasized the need to increase the efficiency of the Government. […]

11745 Using Internal Loss Data to Mitigate Operational Risks

The modern approaches to risk management are data-driven. There are four basic steps to this approach which we will study later in this module. The first step contains information about how data related to internal losses suffered by an organization needs to be collected and studied in order to better mitigate risks in the future. […]

10843 Public and Private Administration

The expansion of public sector into industrial enterprises has been into practice for quite some time, a little over half a century now. The public sector organizations in order to function efficiently are borrowing heavily from the business knowledge, administration and process orientation of the private organizations. However, there still remains a considerable difference between […]

Search with tags

  • No tags available.

It is often the case that companies are faced with a dilemma about whether the change initiatives must be driven from the top or they should be organic from the bottom up. This is especially the case with organizations that are growing in size where the increase employee base or the skyrocketing sales and revenues mean that the top management’s scope of control is more and hence driving change from the top alone might not just work.

And for those organizations that initiate change from the top, they might find themselves in a situation where the middle and bottom layers of the organizational hierarchy may not be responsive or energized in the way the top managements wants them to be.

So, the existential questions as to whether there ought to a spontaneous involvement from all the levels, or whether the top management must induce the change, are very real and need to be answered for change initiatives to succeed.

The answer as to which option is preferable depends on a number of factors:

  1. First, any change initiative would succeed only if it is communicated appropriately and to all levels.

  2. Honest, transparency and feedback loops must be the elements of the change initiative.

  3. Next, the employees ought to have a voice in the way the change initiative is managed.

Top Down Bottom Up Change

For a change initiative to be successful the top management has to communicate and the employees have to respond. Like Bees gathering around honey and being driven by the Queen Bee, organizations have to ensure that while the CEO or the other top managers initiate the change, employees at all levels must take to the change as well.

So, a mix of having the top management initiate the change and letting the employees take over from them works best for larger organizations where micro management by the top management might not work.

Examples of organizations that have embraced change successfully include 3M, Google and Facebook where the visionary leaders at the top ensured that the initial germ of an idea was seeded in the employees and then they let the trees grow by sampling nourishing them from time to time while at the same time preferring organic growth rather than transplanted growth.

The other extreme is marked by failures like HP where the top management was unable to make their employees buy into their change strategies. Of course, this is not to say that organizations need visionary leaders as essential elements of success. Though it helps, companies can make do with success if they have a combination of people enablers who take pride in their organizations and can empower the employees to participate in the change initiatives.

In conclusion, change can be driven solely from the top. However, for continued success, change has to come from within each employee and this can only happen in organizations that have an organizational culture that encourages each employee to contribute to the initiatives.

Change can thrive where there is an institutional catalyst and hence the key takeaway is that the organizational structures have to be built in such a way that no one individual can either make or mar the chances of success.

Article Written by

MSG Team

An insightful writer passionate about sharing expertise, trends, and tips, dedicated to inspiring and informing readers through engaging and thoughtful content.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *