When determining the focus of change, following dimensions of an organization should be considered, along with the proposed changes:
(1) Organizational tasks, structures, systems and technology;
(2) Its people; and
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(3) Its overall climate and interpersonal style.
Each of these three foci of organizational change tends to involve different intervention techniques, emphasize different objectives and imply different assumptions about which factors are pertinent to determining what takes place within institutions.
However, effective programmes of planned institutional change generally involve the simultaneous emphasis on more than one foci and a variety of intervention techniques. But when multiple foci are emphasized, it is usually quite difficult to be sure; exactly which interventions are crucial in observed change and which had negligible or negative effects.
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Let us now attempt to understand each focus of change in detail.
(1) Changing Organizational Tasks, Structures, Systems and Technology:
These attempts include bringing about changes in the structure of an institution itself or the systems and practices which guide its activities.
These incorporate anatomical dimensions such as the size of the institution in terms of student-enrollments, its centrality, complexity and operational dimensions such as authority structure arrangements and definition of work activities and nature of control systems.
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For example, modification of goals to emphasize individualized Instruction and to de-emphasize the traditional lecture method of instruction, introducing computer-assisted instruction, decentralization, departmentalization, workflow, communication channels, role definitions, spatial arrangements, introducing or eliminating supervisor/vice-principal’s posts, performance appraisal systems being linked with continuation of jobs, methods of evaluation, student-grouping systems, shift systems, uniforms and so forth.
(2) Changing People:
One obvious way of bringing about change in an organization is to change its individual members their values, skills, loyalties, attitudes, motivation, their composition and constitution so as to ultimately change their behaviour.
However here individuals are not focused as the end product of the change process rather, such methods should be considered as individually oriented procedures aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of an institution and it’s functioning.
If the needs and objectives of individual members and the institution match, both the individual members and the organization would benefit simultaneously from such changes.
This can be attained through selection of appropriate individuals (without giving importance to ascriptive criteria in selection such as their mother-tongue, religion, caste, political affiliations or social standing), termination of unsuitable teachers, experiential training, informal socialization regarding existing norms of the institution and orientation of new teachers.
(3) Changing Institutional Climate and Interpersonal Style:
In simplest terms, institutional climate refers to the typical or characteristic day-to-day properties of a particular work environment as perceived and felt by those who work in it. Many programmes of organizational change are aimed at changing the overall climate or interpersonal style which characterizes an institution.
This is because climate is all pervasive with strong effects on teachers’ performance teachers’ job-satisfaction, their morale, school results and institutional effectiveness. It is often assumed and expected that modifications or changes in people and structures which compose an institution will ultimately influence its climate.
However, such an impact on the institutional climate takes place over a long period of time and not immediately. Institutional climate and interpersonal styles could be changed through team-building (identifying group norms, improving interpersonal relationships through sensitivity training and transactional analysis, learning to lead effectively, learning to express negative feelings without arousing hostility, learning to tolerate and empathize, learning from conflicts within the group etc.,) stress management, conflict management, self-awareness and so forth.
Some of these changes are individual changes which are determined mainly by personality needs and values while others are organizational changes determined by more formal, structured characteristics of a system. It is important to simultaneously change individual and organizational variables (Katz and Kahn).