Change Management

In every organisation, there is a process to which things are done that provide the most effective and efficient results in terms of either a product or a service, in the case of mining, the process is provided to ensure that highest amount of mineral can be extracted, efficiently, effectively and safely. This process has been researched, developed and implemented by managers to establish a more profitable organisation. However, external and internal factors come into play that affect the efficacy of these processes and subsequently must change in order for the organisation to grow with the ever evolving society. Researches have put great efforts into developing systematic processes to effectively change how an organisation is run.

There are many models that explain the systematic process of change. However, these models can be further condensed into four different types that all have different views of the change process. These include; teleological, dialectical, life cycle and evolutionary.

Teleological change processes describe organisations as persistent, adaptive and see change as a cycle of goal formulation, implementation, evaluation and learning. Dialectical theories explain the conflict of balance of power as well as the stability and change in terms of confrontation between competitors. Life cycle theories says that the change process is divided into individual stages and that each stage adds value to the next stage and to the final outcome. Finally, evolutionary theories focus on the assumption that change profits from the continuous cycle of variation selection and retention. Variations happen but are not determined and the variant that best fits the organisations resources and demands is then selected. Retention is the preservation of the organisational forms that develop from these variations via persistence and inertia. What these four theories have in common is that they all involve a number of events, decisions and actions that are all interrelated in some way. However, what makes them different is they the level to which they present change as a system of stages whether the direction of change is either constructed or predetermined.

Some theories, life-cycle for example, provide more emphasis on the order of the stages than teleological theories. Flamholtz’s seven stage organisational life cycle shows the cycle move from a new venture to expansion then professionalism, consolidation, diversification, integration and finally to either decline or revitalisation. This method is predetermined process that unfolds in a prescribed direction and limits the amount and effectiveness of change. Teleological theories on the other hand follow a less prescriptive order of goal formulation, implementation and evaluation in a repetitive order. In this way the sequence doesn’t always follow the set order and will often backtrack to former stages and re-evaluate unexpected issues that arose. This is seen as a constructed trajectory which makes change leaders capable of interjecting the change process and adjusting the system to suite unexpected problems, creating a limitless ability to significantly change an organisation, this could be a very effective theory to follow or consider in the mining industry, due to the constant changes occurring.