Power Critical Understanding Difficulties Managers Confront Seeking

¶ … Power critical understanding difficulties managers confront seeking manage change'. Discuss. This undergraduate Essay (Level III) If resources reading list I Power is critical to understanding the difficulties managers confront when seeking to manage change Long gone are the times when firms would operate solely to generate profits and this represented their stated mission. Today, economic agents across the globe peg their success not only to financial results, but also to their ability to serve the various needs of the multiple stakeholder categories.

In other words, while the final objective is that of registering profits, the aim is attained through a combination of strategic efforts targeted at serving the stakeholders. For instance, the employees are the most valuable organizational assets and they are treated as such. The customers are not the forces purchasing whatever the company produces, but they represent the force telling the company what to produce. The technologic community is adding to these pressures by creating innovations that stir up competition and generate financial pressures.

And last, the public is not just a passive witness, but an active party demanding the company to operate in a socially and environmentally manner. In such a setting, economic agents are forced to devise and implement a wide array of change strategies by which to ensure that the needs of the stakeholders are attained, as well as the objectives of the firm are accomplished. This subsequently translates into the constant implementation of change strategies.

The implementation of change within the organizational setting is quite a difficult process, generally since change is often met with resistance. In this setting, a question is being posed of whether a powerful manager can reduce the resistance and implement the change. In a different formulation, the premise of the current study is that power is essential to managing organizational change and understanding its complexities. In discussing this assumption, several sources would be consulted. 2.

Definition of terms Organizational change The concept of organizational change is used to identify a situation in which an economic agent strives to move from the status quo to a different context. The causes of change are different, as are the manifestations. Generically however, the reasons stimulating change are hopes of gains and benefits, including an increased access to resources, better trained staffs or other such, all materializing in financial results.

Managing organizational change The main challenge with the implementation of change within the organizational climate is represented by the need to manage it. According to the U.S. Legal website, the process of change management is defined as follows: "Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to minimize employee resistance and cost to the organization while simultaneously maximizing the effectiveness of the change effort" (U.S. Legal, 2012).

Power The concept of power is widely debated within the specialized literature, with a multitude of definitions having been forwarded. At this level, the concept of power will be presented from two angles -- the general one and its application within the organizational climate. From the general perspective, power is understood as the ability of an individual to influence a situation and generate the desired outcomes.

Other meanings of power include the ability to control a group, the possession of control and authority over others, be this control political or physical (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2012). Within the organizational setting, power is defined in terms of the relationships which are developed between the various organizational parties, such as executives, staff members or resources. According to Renee Miller: "Organizational power is the capacity to persuade a group to work toward the accomplishment of a company's organizational goals" (Miller).

Miller also points out that the style of the organizational power depends primarily on the personal traits of the individual exercising the power. In this light of thoughts, she identifies five different types of organizational power: reward, coercive, expert, legitimate and referent. These types of power are not only characteristic to the manager, but it is also possible for them to be implemented by the same manager, in various circumstances.

A good manager will find a balance between the five types of power and use them in accordance to the specifics of each situation. 3. Discussion In the setting of the numerous challenges posed by the changing internal and external environments, organizational leaders have come to devise a series of methods by which to cope with the mounting pressures. One important method relevant at this stage is represented by Total Quality Management, more commonly known as TQM.

Total Quality Management is generically understood as an integrated manner of conducting business and attaining the organizational objectives through the satisfaction of the customers' needs and wants. The TQM business model is based on the need for all organizational parties to continually be involved in improvements in the organizational processes, products, services, as well as the culture of the entity (American Society for Quality). Within the specialized literature, this meaning of TQM is commonly accepted.

Yet, there are some sources which indicate that Total Quality Management is just another elaborate method for gaining control within the organizational climate. In the field of organizational change, TQM would be used as a method to offer the manager more control in the meaning that he would be better able to reduce the staffs' resistance to change.

According to the American Society for Quality, a solid Total Quality Management plan would include fourteen important steps, some of them including the following: The adoption of a new organizational philosophy The elimination of cost and profitability as the sole centers of decision making The offering of various training programs to the staff members The elimination of fear from organizational relations The elimination of any barriers encountered in staff areas The elimination of numeric goals, quotas and the reinsurance of workers' pride The development of a solid program targeted on education and self-improvement for all staff members.

This method of managing organizational issues -- including change -- can be perceived as an honorable means to reintroducing pride and satisfaction within the work climate. Still, it can also be viewed as a source of future control. In other words, the lines above have indicated that a large proportion of the strategies at the core of TQM rely on the empowerment of the staff members, on their motivation and gratification.

This virtually means that TQM increases the belief in the self of the staff members and stimulates their perception of self importance. This is then used by the management to attain the organizational objectives, revealing as such how Time Quality Management acts as a force controlling the employees (Knights and McCabe, 1999). The actual research on TQM outside the organizational climate is rather restricted, meaning as such that it is difficult to assess TQM in terms of its social and psychological implications.

Still, the tool is an organizational one and it is impossible to assess it outside its context of organizational hierarchy and identity. In other words, Total Quality Management is accepted as a complex tool, integrating notions from both social studies as well as organizational behavior. David Knights and Darren McCabe for instance conclude that TQM is an innovation within the business climate and that it activates in the field of managerial power to managing change.

Still, while to some degree it helps manage change, it still cannot control all resistance arising. In other words, TQM does -- to some degree -- help yield control within the entity and manage change. "TQM cannot be divorced from the hierarchical, functional, and bureaucratic nature of organizational power and identity relations. These relations, are, of course, a condition as well as a consequence of any innovation such as TQM.

Nonetheless, power and identity relations mean that at all times there are opportunities for resistance and these contribute to the uncertainty and unpredictability of organizational life. Power and identity relations ensure that […] there 'are' limits to the authority that participants in quality programmes can wield, but equally, these relations also limit the control that management can muster" (Knights and McCabe, 1999). TQM would as such be perceived as a 'productive' management tool, meaning that it strives to lead to the attainment of the organizational objectives through the involvement of the employees.

It strives to convince the staffs that their opinions are important and valued by the company and it integrates their own subjectivity within the organizational processes (McCabe, 2000). The subjectivity is as such viewed as important input within the firm, and it is subsequently used to manage the employees (Knights and Willmott, 1989). In this manner, TQM is opposed to the 'repressive' means of exercising power within the entity. These repressive manners eliminate any perception of employee opinion or alternative, outside the solution imposed by the management (McCabe, 2000).

TQM however -- as well as other innovative management tools -- create the sense of employee importance and they derive their power from appearing to empower the staffs. In such a setting then, TQM is understood as a productive power of the managers. Similar to the dual role of Time Quality Management, the novel concepts of Just in Time (JIT) and Total Quality Control (TQC) can also be assessed from a double perspective.

On the one hand, they are both management methods aimed at increasing productivity and quality, but on the other hand, they are also tools of gaining more power within the entity. Just in Time is a method of management of the organizational production. It is a pull production method, in the meaning that it only produces items when these are required, rather than producing in advance and creating inventories (Tutor2u).

Total quality control is often perceived as synonymous with Total Quality Management, but it differs in that its focus falls not so much on the employees and the philosophies, but more so on the processes. TQC as such revolves around the systematic evaluation of the organizational processes, followed by the identification of errors and their correction -- where possible (Heriot Watt University). Both TQC and JIT are based on practical aspects and they reveal realistic applicability within the business climate.

Yet, like Time Quality Management, they also have a more salient dimension -- that of granting more power to the managers. Both tools enhance the managerial ability to better oversee and control the labor force. JIT and TQC are directly related to obedience, surveillance, control and discipline (Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992). In the analyzed context of TQM, TQC and JIT, managerial change is perceived as a constant within the innovative and changing business environment of today.

The methods are generally promoted as tools to improving the relationship between management and staffs, and mechanisms of increasing the quality of the operations. Nonetheless, from a more salient point-of-view, the managerial techniques appear as modern day methods to maintain power over the labor force. The efforts to gaining and maintaining this power are less obvious. They are in fact disguised in efforts aimed at increasing the power and satisfaction of the staff members. Through these, employees would become more committed to the organizational goals.

They would increase their performances and would better support the entity in attaining its overall objectives. The result is as such that of staff members treated better, but still directed in the sense desired by the company. The employees would not be forced to complete a task, but would be motivated to do so. The sensation of shifting balance of powers would be created, but this would only be superficial.

At its core, the managers would still have the power to support the career of the staff members and to determine their rewards -- the primary motivator for the workers. All in all then, Just in Time, Total Quality Management and Total Quality Control are mechanisms of enhancing the control over the staff members and the organizational resources. They represent new means of power within the firm. In other words, as the global setting changes, the mechanisms that managers employ to control their employees change as well.

JIT, TQM and TQC are part of this evolution of power in the firm and they are adopted as a very means to manage the change itself. Accepting the more salient side of the modern day management tools as efforts to gain more power by the leadership, a question is being posed relative to the reasons which create the need for this approach. The answer to this is provided by the existence of resistance to change.

The resistance to change represents the lack of acceptance of changes within a particular context. Within the business climate: "Resistance to change is the act of opposing or struggling with modifications or transformations that alter the status quo in the workplace" (Heathfield). Resistance is common to the very nature of humans and it is developed as early as childhood, when children resist to the power parents exert over them (Foucault, 1982). This creates a new angle to assessing power through the lenses of resistance.

In this order of ideas, the following points are noteworthy: The resistance to change is a reaction not to the power exerted and to its motives, but to its effects The power and the resistance are difficult to limit and clearly define The resistance is observable immediately after the change is mentioned and it is more so anarchistic in the nature of the struggle, rather than theoretical and well planned The statements of the resistance are conflicting, including the loss of individualization through the exerted power, but also the separation and differentiation between individuals (Foucault, 1982).

Resistance is as such in itself a complicated and complex aspect of organizational management, but its advantage is that -- even when dispersed and conflicting -- resistance to change often forces the managers to rethink the strategy and improve it. By this, the power of the manager is challenged. A weak manager would for instance make more concessions and rule in favor of the resisting employees. A more powerful manager on the other hand, would preserve their focus and prove their power by further supporting the change.

The power of the manager in managing change is a rather relative feature, that is difficult to gain and easy to lose. The power of a manager is tested on daily basis and it has to be restated and reinforced through the relationships developed. These relationships also manage the resistance to change and attest to the final capabilities and powers of the managers. "The key to understanding resides in thinking of power as a phenomenon which can be grasped only relationally.

It is not a thing nor is it something that people have in a proprietorial state. They possess power only in so far as they are relationally constituted as doing so. To the extent that the relational conditions which constitute power are reproduced through fixing their obligatory passage points, then possession may be fixed and reified in form" (Clegg, 1989). In other words, managers must continually reinstate their power. Ultimately then, the resistance to change is a force testing the real power of the manager in a conflicting and difficult situation.

But aside from this, it is also a driver of continued improvement. While it is often possible for the resistance to not ensure real improvement, it is accepted as a starting point in an overall process of organizational development (McCabe, 2009). 4. Conclusion The modern.