Making a Change in an Organization's Operations

Introduction

Making a change in an organization's operations temporarily alters the work flow, forcing the people that handle those operations to adapt to that change. In this report, with the aid of various experiments there is a comparison and study of how two different groups manage change. There is an analysis of small and large groups in an organization and it will be shown that making changes is simpler for a smaller group with dominant players as opposed to a larger group of individuals with few dominant players in the group. This is done with the help of research articles detailing how both small and large groups implement changes in the work structure. Firstly in order to prove how making changes in smaller teams is more attainable than doing it in bigger teams it is necessary to look at member's contribution.

Article 1

Gil, F., Rico, R., Carlos, M., & Barrasa, A. (2005). Change-oriented leadership, satisfaction and performance in work groups: Effects of team climate and group potency, Journal of Managerial Psychology, 20, 312-328.

Members of a small team contribute more than those in a large team. Each member can expect to have many opportunities to speak, be heard and responded to. Members tend to be less formal in a small group and are more willing to ask questions or give alternative viewpoints. Therefore, small teams meetings will lead to greater exploration, depth and understanding of fellow members' opinions. This is harder to achieve for a member of a large team, who may be intimidated by the sheer number of team members. In addition, a large team usually consists of staff from managerial or supervisory positions, which may result in a rank-and-file staff being hesitant in sharing views and ideas. Therefore members in a small team feel secure and less threatened. Small teams are unlikely to get into the ‘groupthink' phenomenon typical in large teams, where members tend to be swayed towards the majority consensus. A member of a five-member team with an alternative opinion will be likelier to challenge, compared to someone who is part of a thirty-member team. Even in large teams seeking to implement changes, they may be broken up into smaller teams initially. The purpose is to let each team focus on different idea(s), which will increase the likelihood of each idea being explored more thoroughly. If all the groups hold meetings concurrently, each member will have more time to speak. For instance, for a half-hour meeting, each member from a single thirty-member team will only have a minute to speak. However, if the team splits into six five-member teams, each member will get six minutes. This works out to five extra minutes per member over the same thirty-minute block, increasing the likelihood of every member maximising his contributions and. greatly enhancing the change-making