Leading and Managing Change :: Organizational Development, Planned Change

Organisational development is both a professional field of social action and an area of scientific inquiry†. (Cummings and Worley, 2009, p.1). Organisational development does not have common definition; however, it has more than one definition that expresses the meaning of organisational development and change. Organisational development can be best described as a â€Å"system wide process of data collection, diagnosis, action planning, intervention, and evaluation aimed at enhancing congruence among organisational structure, process, strategy, people, and culture; developing new and creative organisational solution; and developing the organisation’s self-renewing capacity.† (Beer as cited in Cummings and Worley, 2009, p.2). It occurs through the cooperation of organisational members working with a change agent using behavioural science theory, research, and technology (Beer as cited in Cummings and Worley, 2009, p.2). Organisational development and change managem ent deal with the effective implementation of planned change (Cummings and Worley, 2009, p.3). The two terms deal with the leadership issues and the change process (Cummings and Worley, 2009, p.3). Change is very critical process for every organisation and it is a characteristic of organisational development. Change is moving from one state to another; it is the inevitable aspect of life and the essence of any organisation (sharma,2007,p.1);it is the only constant and is moving target as change pace became so rapid so it needs effective management and leadership to be successfully implemented (Cummings and Worley, 2009, p.27). Change Management: Management and change are interrelated. It is impossible to undertake a journey without addressing its purpose (Paton and Mccalman, 2008, p.3). â€Å"Managing change is about handling the complexities of change; it is about evaluating, planning, and implementing operational tactics and strategies† (Paton and Mccalman, 2008, p.3). According to Armenikas and Bedeian organisational change is greatly responsive to management; its possibility remains high as managers strive for successful and perfect change in the organisation (Paton and Mccalman, 2008, p.3). Change management is a complex, and dynamic process; it is about finding best fit for the organisation to get best results (Paton and Mccalman, 2008, p.4). The environment is rapidly changing resulting from changes in technologies, customers’ preferences, alteration in the economy and many other factors (Paton and Mccalman, 2008, p.10) so organisations have to take the journey of change to cope with the external forces facing them and that is done through management. In order to be able to manage change effectively, managers have to look to the faults and problems found in the organisation, putting alternatives and stating its pros and cons, decide on the future state of the organisation and then implement the change process (Paton and Mccalman,2008,p.