Change is a necessary component of business survival in today’s world. An organization that is resistant to change is dysfunctional and will not be able to respond to changes in the market or other challenges such as the entrance of competition into the marketplace. The ability to create a successful change in an organization depends on the ability to overcome resistance. Within each change management process, some forces create momentum towards the change, while others work against it. The motivational forces must overcome the resistance in order for the change to occur. Language use among participants in the change process was found to be an important factor in the success or failure of the change process (Pieterse, Caniels, and Horman, 2012). Amazon is an organization that depends on a continual change process. The following will examine how leaders and Amazon can overcome resistance to change.
Amazon approaches change differently than many organizations. At Amazon, leadership identifies customer need and then works backwards to respond to it (Dike, 2016). This approach means that when customer needs change, Amazon must quickly respond because failing to listen to their customers is a recipe for failure for a business such as Amazon. Innovation in response to change is a cultural feature of Amazon.
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"Resistance and Communication".
When a company is not receptive to change, the change process can take longer than in a company where change is built into the culture (Dike, 2016). Recently, Amazon has received criticism about the work environment that it creates. Employees have complained that the company has excessively high demands and creates a stressful work environment (Rosin, 2015). Managerial communication was cited as a key reason for these conditions (Rosin, 2015). Changes need to be made in the communication style managers in order to create work environment that will lead to employees that wish to stay with the company for long time.
Overcoming resistance to change is the greatest challenge that Amazon has within the organization. Some forces that create a resistance to change include selective perception, habits, inconvenience, loss of freedom, economics, and fear of the unknown (Yilmaz and Kilicoglu, 2013). Some people may be openly accepting of the change, but covertly resistant (Pieterse, Caniels, and Horman, 2012). For instance, they might support the change when talking to their managers, but speak poorly about it with peers and other coworkers.
The first step to overcoming resistance is to understand most the common sources of resistance within an organization. Managerial staff that are advocates, collaborative, inquisitive, and goal oriented encourage innovation within the organization (Fischer and Rohde, 2013). If managers are resistant to change and are tied to keeping the status quo, then they can create resistance within the organization that trickles down to other members and levels. One of the complaints at Amazon is that managers encourage employees to outperform their colleagues, or even sabotage their colleagues’ careers in order to prove their worth (Rosin, 2015). Managers have been called in sensitive, favoring criticism over harmony, and lacking praise (Rosin, 2015). The three main reasons for resistance to change in the managerial staff are that they are accustomed to the current status quo, corporate culture dictates that they act in this manner, and CEO Jeff Bezos models this leadership style.
Some managers feel that in order to be authoritative, they must appear to have all of the answers, and they must be the one that creates innovative ideas. An open relationship with the employees encourages them to present their ideas to management. When management feels their power threatened, they will often respond to defensiveness, rather than open communication (Fischer and Rohde, 2013). Managers are often committed to maintaining the status quo and may resist changes, even if their habits are a form of creative destruction (Fischer and Rohde, 2013).
Managing the flow of information regarding the need for change, the reasoning behind the change, what is to be expected after the change occurs, and how new work roles will be defined provides employees with a better understanding of the change plan. This reduces employee resistance to the change because they have a better understanding and reduced uncertainty about the change (Radzi and Othman, 2016). Increasing employee involvement in the change helps to build their confidence and support of the change process (Radzi and Othman, 2016). Organizational communication is weighted towards top-down communication and needs to be more accepting of employee communication from the bottom up.
In order to improve employee relations among employees at Amazon, managers need to change their communication strategies. In order to promote higher levels of employee engagement, managers need to become aware of their communication and response that it elicits from the employees. They need to develop a clear communication strategy that is direct, without being critical. They also need to develop a communications strategy where praise is a regular component of managerial interactions with employees. In order to achieve these communication style changes, training will be developed to help managers improve their communication with employees.
Change Management Plan
The first step in the change management plan for Amazon will be to hold training sessions for managers that discuss the importance of positive and effective communication. The company should institute new policies that specifically address the manner in which managers communicate with employees. It also needs to outline specific consequences for failing to do so. At first, managers may feel that they are being told what to do using this top-down approach to changing communications within the organization. However, they can then be reminded that this is how the employees feel when they use the same strategy on them. In this way, the resistance to change can be used as a steppingstone to achieve the change.
In order to measure the success of the change, employee surveys will be conducted to determine if managers have improved their communication style, or whether the same problems continue to exist. If specific managers are found to be problematic this will help to pinpoint specific managers who are resistant to implementing the new communication strategies. When these managers are identified, they will be counselled as to how to change their communication to a more positive tone with the employees.
The third component of the change in communication strategy is to make use of mentors to encourage and model proper communication strategies with employees. In addition, these mentors can help managers to reword or improve their communication styles. Mentors will be able to provide managers one on one feedback about their specific issues and tendencies that might affect their communication with other employees. Mentorship and support of the changes that need to be made will help to overcome resistance by the managers. It is expected that once the managers see the results of these changes, they will be more than willing to cooperate and change their communication style in the future.
This three phase change strategy will help Amazon managers to improve their communication style to one that is more conducive to building better relationships in the organization. Building better relationships between managers and employees will help the company continue to adapt to the changes that need to be made within the organization. This will make Amazon more responsive to customer needs and able to compete in the future.
- Dike, D. (2016, February 24). When evolutionary change needs a nudge. Management-issues. Retrieved from http://www.management-issues.com/opinion/6515/when-evolutionary- change-needs-a-nudge/
- Fischer, B. & Rohde, M. (2013). Management Resistance to Innovation. American Journal of Management. 13(1): 93-99.
- Pieterse, J., Caniels, M., & Horman, T. (2012). Professional discourses and resistance to
change”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 25 (6): 798- 818. - Radzi, N. & Othman, R. (2016). Resistance to Change: the Moderating Effect of Leader-Member
Exchange and Role breath self-efficacy. Journal of Advanced Management Science. 4(1):
72-76. - Rosin, T. (2015). 9 key issues with Amazon’s corporate culture. Leadership and Management.
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