Creating Sustainable Change – How to create and sustain change?
February 12, 2025
What is Learned Helplessness and How it Prevents Women from Speaking Out It is a known fact that most organizations have some forms of covert and overt sexism and harassment as well as discrimination along racial, ethnic, and sexual lines. Indeed, sexual and other forms of harassment are so rampant in many organizations that most […]
The process of sensation involves transmission of information to the brain by the sensory receptors like nose, eyes, ears, mouth and skin. Sensation and perception though are related, but are considered to be as distinct processes. In case of sensation, sensory receptors play a key role in transmitting the inputs to the brains by converting […]
International business ethics emerged quite late globally compared to the business ethics that came up in 1970’s. It was only in late 1990’s that the international business ethics came to the fore especially so after the economic developments that occurred on a global scale. In 1990’s many businesses from the developing countries expanded their operations […]
PR or public relations is nothing but the practice of protecting as well as enhancing the reputation of any particular organization/firm or for that matter any individual. In today’s world of fierce competition, where every organization strives hard to work toward its brand image, public relations has become the need of the hour. It is […]
Personality development plays a crucial role in success of an organization. Employees are truly the lifeline of an organization. It is rightly said that the success and failure of an organization depend on its employees. It is essential for employees to develop a sense of loyalty and attachment towards their organization. Employees ought to learn […]
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:
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.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *