Organizational restructuring is a significant change that affects every aspect of an organization’s operations. It can involve anything from realigning organizational goals and objectives to shifting organizational structure or introducing new policies or procedures. The purpose of organizational restructuring is to create an organization that can meet the changing needs of its stakeholders: employees, customers, shareholders, and other groups.
Change management models must be effectively implemented to ensure organizational restructuring is successful. These models can benefit practically all kinds of organizations but are especially helpful for managerial tasks. Change management models allow organizations to understand the process of organizational change and develop strategies to address the issues arising from organizational restructuring. These models include Lewin’s Three-Step Model, Kotter’s 8-Step Process, ADKAR Model, and Prosci’s ADKAR Model.
Lewin’s Three-Step Model
This widely used organizational change model emphasizes the importance of organizational change management. Lewin’s model consists of three steps: Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze. In the first step, Unfreeze, organizations need to assess their current organizational structure and identify the changes necessary to achieve organizational restructuring. This step also involves implementing strategies and tactics to eliminate any resistance to organizational change.
In the second step, Change, organizational members need to be educated about the new organizational structure and learn how to perform their jobs according to the revised organizational goals and objectives. This step also involves implementing organizational change initiatives such as training and development programs.
The third step, Refreeze, is used to ensure sustainable organizational restructuring. This step involves reinforcement of organizational changes by monitoring the performance of organizational members and providing feedback when necessary.
The success of Lewin’s Three Step model can be understood by the massive success of Amazon. As a starting point for 38% of online shoppers, Amazon has managed to beat its competitors by implementing this smart change management model.
Kotter’s 8-Step Process
Organizational restructuring and change come with their own set of challenges. Lack of teamwork, poor leadership, rigid workplace cultures and general fear are common factors that often obstruct organizational restructuring. John P Kotter realised and acknowledged the role such factors play in unsuccessful organizational changes.
As a popular organizational change model, Kotter’s 8-Step Process was designed to highlight the common mistakes organizations make while undertaking a restructuring. The model provides eight key steps that adequately address these challenges to mitigate failure rates. These eight steps to organizational restructuring are:
- Establishing a sense of urgency
- Creating a guiding coalition
- Developing a vision and strategy
- Communicating the change vision
- Empowering employees for broad-based action
- Generating short-term wins
- Consolidating gains
- Anchoring new approaches in organizational culture
The fact that most organizations have a failure rate of over 70% when it comes to change management makes this model a much needed tool for success. Kotter’s Model is an excellent easy to follow roadmap for leaders to bring change in their organizations smoothly and seamlessly.
ADKAR Model
Yet another organizational change model used to help organizations understand organizational change and develop strategies to address organizational restructuring. The ADKAR Model consists of five components: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. For organizational restructuring to be successful, employees must have an awareness of the organizational changes that will take place, a desire to participate in the organizational restructuring process, knowledge about organizational goals and objectives, the ability to perform their jobs according to organizational changes and reinforcement of organizational changes by providing feedback. The ADKAR Model’s wide implementation is also great evidence of its excellent implementation success.
Prosci’s ADKAR Model
Finally, Prosci’s ADKAR Model is a more comprehensive organizational change model that focuses on the individual level of organizational restructuring. In essence, the model fundamentally focuses on how individuals experience change. By doing so, the model directly addresses the key factor to unsuccesful organizational change, lack of employee participation.
This model comprises six components: Acknowledgement, Desired Outcome, Knowledge and Skills, Attitude, Reinforcement, and Measurement. Through this model, organizational members can understand the organizational change from an individual perspective and develop strategies to manage organizational restructuring effectively.
Conclusion
Organizational restructuring is a complex process that requires careful planning and execution. To ensure organizational restructuring is successful, organizations must effectively implement change management models such as Lewin’s Three-Step Model, Kotter’s 8-Step Process, ADKAR Model, and Prosci’s ADKAR Model.
For instance, the nature of Lewin’s Three-Step Model makes it ideal for organizations with a strict hierarchy and workflow. Since it helps in understanding the pain points of the process, it can be suitable for practically any industry, but especially for consulting and management firms. Similarly, managers, company executives and leaders in advertising and marketing companies can use Kotter Model to bring effective change. On the contrary, the ADKAR model is more suited for planning-oriented organizations like accounting firms.
With the effective implementation of organizational change management models, organizations can achieve their organizational goals and objectives while ensuring organizational members can successfully perform their jobs according to organizational changes.
