When there’s resistance to change

The story is told about an organization that was planning to institute change in its working hours. From the usual 8:00 am-5:00 pm it would be changed to 6:00 am-3:00 pm. For the past thirty years it had always been 8:00-5:00 and the employees were used to that already. So the employees union resisted and told the management that they would not agree.

What are you going to do when there’s resistance to change?   The first action to do when there’s resistance to change is to call for a meeting among the parties involved. In this case the employees union and the management. In that meeting the fuzzy issues should be threshed out. Employees resist change because they have no clear understanding yet why is there a need for that change.   

Therefore the component of listening and flexibility are very important here. Management and the employees union should listen to each other’s viewpoints and be flexible if need be. There would naturally be initial disagreement about the change that is to be put in place. But there are also some valid points that both parties could agree.

For this reason, focus first on the points of agreements after that focus now on the issues of disagreement. Why is this so? Because when both parties focus first on the issues that they could agree it immediately creates an environment of calm. Which is very conducive as a starting point to begin threshing out the issues of disagreement.

The thorny part when an organization wants to implement change are the issues of disagreement. Therefore, management must not push its weight around it should extend its patience to the limit. This means that meetings and dialogues about the change that is to be implemented should continue until the nitty-gritty details of that change are ironed out.  

It’s not easy to implement organizational change however change is needed for an organization to evolve, upgrade and grow. Therefore change must be implemented for nothing is permanent in this world except change. – Marino J. Dasmarinas  

Competent and Effective managers/leaders delegate comprehensively

Do you delegate comprehensively? Delegation is one of the important functions of management. And many leaders and managers utilize delegation to achieve more than what are expected of them.  How are they able to achieve more than what are expected of them? They use the management function of delegation comprehensively.

To be an effective delegator of work we have to communicate the delegated work comprehensively. This means that all the details and all our expectations of the delegated work are communicated clearly. For example, the deadline, the quality of the output that we want, our expectations, just to name a few.

Many managers/leaders fail in the aspect of delegation because they don’t delegate comprehensively. They simply delegate and then they expect their direct report or subordinate to know everything of the delegated work. Or they just wait for their direct report or subordinate to ask them about the details of the delegated work.

Competent and effective managers/leaders don’t wait to be asked about the details of the delegated work. They see to it that all of the details of the delegated work are clearly communicated and already comprehensively attached to it. They think proactively thus they already anticipate the question/s that their direct report or subordinate might ask them.

The function of delegation is a handy and effective management and organizational tool available for all managers and leaders. So that they can multiply their accomplishment, influence and utilization.  They can easily unsheathe it whenever they want provided they delegate comprehensively.    

What does the word comprehensive mean? It means thorough. Therefore, this imply  thorough understanding of the delegated work which the manager/leader can actually do. But because of lack of time and for the reason that he/she wants to multiply his/her accomplishment, influence and utilization he/she is forced to delegate it.

Effective managers and leaders always delegate comprehensively they don’t delegate haphazardly. Why? Because this is what are leadership and management are all about. It’s about comprehensively understanding our leadership and managerial functions, duties and responsibilities which include comprehensive delegation. – Marino J. Dasmarinas