Organizational Renewal: Adapting to Change

Managing effectively is a major challenge facing organizations today. When organization fails to change, the cost of failure may means its survival. Because the environment is composed of system outside the immediate influence of the organization, it must adapt itself to those forces  by introducing internal changes that will allow it to be more effective.

To be successful, organization must develop a managerial style and culture that can adequately handle the challenges and opportunities they face. A management style that was adequate under one set of conditions may become progressively less effective under changing circumstances.

Organizational renewal is important. If a company is to survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace, the organization must continuously adapt to its environment: without renewal , management cannot maintain excellence.

Organization renewal may be defined as an on going process of building innovation and adaptation into the organization. The renewal dilemma is that stability is necessary but is also the major obstruction to change. For most organizations, it seems, the more effective they have been in past, more likely they are resist to change. Entropy is a principle of physics stating that everything that is organized will break down or run down unless it is maintained. Organization renewal, then is, approach to preventing corporate entropy.

Why is change so difficult? Possibly because the culture of the organization becomes a part of the people who perform work. In changing those old patterns, people must alter not only their behavior but also their values and their views of themselves.

The organization’s structures, procedures, and relationships continue to reinforce prior patterns of behavior and to resist the new ones. As a result, organizational changes sometimes result in upheavals and dissatisfaction, and possibly even in resignations, dismissals, or transfers.

Consequently, an organization must develop an adaptive orientation and management style that is geared to its environment. Managers in different organizations deal with situations that may be dramatically different. Some organizations exist in relatively stable environments, whereas others operate in highly dynamic settings. Each requires different orientation to the environment.