Abstract
M.Com. (Industrial Psychology)
Change is one of the foremost issues in organizations, if not the foremost issue in people's everyday life.
Organizational change involves any substantive modification to some part of the organization. This change
may be prompted by forces internal or external to the organization. Typically organizational change
involves the restructuring or elimination of jobs, found in actions such as reorganization, automation, rapid
growth, downsizing, job redefinition, a physical move, the effects of competition, or a shifting market.
Whatever the "trigger" for the change, people are experiencing confusion, worry, anger, numbness or all
of the above. The cumulative effect of change on people is the same, and is manifest in resistance. Even
though people know change is imminent and even though they understand it intellectually, it still has an
emotional impact that they do not quite expect and that they find difficult to cope with.
Many different change techniques or interventions are used for managing change. The most common ones
involve changing organizational strategy, structure and design, technology and people.
The focus of this study is on people, and illustrates the general inability of managers and subordinates to
cope with organizational change, and to discuss a suitable training technique to overcome the inability to
cope. A literature study was undertaken to determine the suitability of introducing facilitator training for
managers in the management of change. It seems that managers are not taught or possess the skills
necessary in dealing with the emotional content of subordinates reaction to change.
Against this background it was determined that managers lacked the necessary skill of facilitation and as
a result subordinates are not helped to cope during the process of organizational change. Facilitation
training equips managers to function more effectively as managers and as persons. As a result managers
are able to assist subordinates to cope with their emotional reaction to change. Results obtained from research on the application of facilitator training within management, indicate positive growth in the
trainee on both the inter- and intrapersonal level. This growth resulted in the acquiring of certain
characteristics within the manager which were of benefit in his interaction with his colleagues and
subordinates. It is deduced that managers acquiring these characteristics will be able to facilitate a process of helping whereby subordinates are helped to help themselves during an organizational change process.