Manual For Managing Organizational Change, Without MBA

By Claudio Pardo Molina

This manual builds on a millennial heritage to apply strategy that has come down to us from ancient Asia. Because the recommendations provided by its author, Sun Tzu, do not lose validity despite being more than 2,500 years old. It is known that it inspired many historical figures such as Napoleon or Machiavelli, and even in the strategies of the Vietnam revolutionaries. But all these applications were in the context of the war. Instead, the adaptation I made focuses on change management for managers. Because this treatise provides wisdom, common sense recommendations.   Because in my own experience of studying commercial engineering and even obtaining a MBA, I felt many times that I did not have the wisdom to apply an organizational change. I will give a concrete example of the adaptations that I will make in the next chapters. The art of war says "The best victory is to win without fighting", my adaptation to the theme of this manual being the following "The best organizational change is that it is achieved without demands, disassociations or a worsening of the organizational climate". Because when I speak of wisdom, I am actually speaking of common sense.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Aug 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071546758

Book preview

Introduction

This manual builds on a millennial heritage to apply strategy that has come down to us from ancient Asia. Because the recommendations provided by its author, Sun Tzu, do not lose validity despite being more than 2,500 years old. It is known that it inspired many historical figures such as Napoleon or Machiavelli, and even in the strategies of the revolutionaries in Vietnam. But all these applications were in the context of the war. Instead, the adaptation I made focuses on change management for managers. Because this treatise provides wisdom, common sense recommendations.

Because in my own experience of studying business engineering and even getting a MBA, I felt many times that I didn't have the wisdom to apply organizational change. I will give a concrete example of the adaptations that I will make in the next chapters. The art of war says The best victory is to win without fighting, being my adaptation to the theme of this manual the following The best organizational change is that it is achieved without demands, disassociations or a worsening of the organizational climate. Because when I speak of wisdom, I am actually speaking of common sense.

Because the more I read this manual, the more convinced I become that none of its maxims lose validity. And I'm not saying this because I believe that managing change within a company seems like a war. What I really believe is that managing change should learn from the manual to add the people who make up an organization instead of treating them as an economic resource or worse, an enemy to overcome. Since this manual makes recommendations based on an ancient wisdom about the knowledge of human nature, especially in times of confrontation. As you can see, what I will try to do in this manual is to understand and make practical recommendations to understand the roots of a conflict when an organizational change is made to find a solution.

Adapted this manual to make recommendations for a change within the organization because I differ with most adaptations. Because these refer to strategies against enemies. It seems that those who have adapted this manual still do not understand that Sun Tzu's ideas. He wrote The Art of War to make generals understand that adversaries are not his enemies, but potentially allies. As long as they can change their way of thinking and therefore acting.

Several points that I will try to explain are words that today have a negative connotation, but the reasons behind them must be explained very well. Since the main idea of ​​this manual is that organizational change is based on two principles: deception and subduing adversaries. But I don't mean deception by referring to lying or manipulating. Rather, deceiving others refers to the prudence with which the paths to follow must be handled while driving organizational change. And submitting the adversary does not refer to suing him, untying him or feeling harassed at work, but rather the opposite. The idea of ​​submitting it is to add it to the change to avoid all the previous consequences.

In any case, I would like to add that the management of organizational change must be based on the fact that we agree ethically with what we are asked to lead. Assuming that the only rule of ethics is Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you or in a positive sense Do to others what you want them to do to you. So if we introspect what we sincerely think of the change, if we truly believe that it will have a positive impact on society, I recommend doing so. Otherwise, if we do not ethically agree with the company directory, I would recommend not to proceed. Because if we make the organizational change only for the salary, and we do not give ourselves entirely, it will fail. Because officials can perceive the lie, or perhaps our own micro gestures betray us in times of crisis.

Chapter One: Evaluation

One

We are generally hired by a company board, the owners generally, to make an organizational change. And since making a change is a very sensitive issue, it is highly likely that this need exists for some real threat to the company's existence. Otherwise they would not have called us to make the change. One thing that enhances the delicacy of making a change is that adapting the company to an adverse environment can generate exactly the opposite, accelerating the crisis of the company and therefore its closure. Thus, those of us who manage organizational change are like the doctor who hires him to operate, knowing that this operation, if it is very invasive, can end up killing the patient.

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Dos

Organizational change generally seeks to correct an organizational weakness in the face of an external threat. The decisions we make are vitally important to the survival of the company. It will affect the domain of the main asset of today's companies, its people. And our actions can make the company survive, grow or fail. When I say that the company can survive and grow, it is because we can make it diversify through innovation. When I say that it can go bankrupt, I am saying it because there may be such a bad organizational climate that we lose the best officials, worsening the weaknesses they already had.

Three

For this reason and those that I will explain below, before making the organizational change for which we were hired, we must seriously evaluate all the benefits, costs and potential consequences of our work. And if the owners of the company, the general manager or the shareholders pressure us to apply the change as soon as possible without