Change Management

Human Resources recognizes that organizational change quite often is stressful.  Rather than choosing to react or behave in ways that actually create additional stress, we are hopeful that our community becomes better at adapting to change. 

 

As members of a larger global society, intuitively we realize that change is an inevitable phenomenon.  Since we are unable to control much of the world, our State, our campus or our lives, we should acknowledge our ability to have control over how we respond to change. 

 

We can choose to be proactive, anticipating and embracing changes or resist them.  Resisting change can be equated to pushing heavy boulders uphill and will certainly increase ones anxiety level as we move out of our comfort zones.

 

At the University of San Diego, we want change to be considered “progress” and celebrate the improvements that it brings.  This web-page is designed to assist employees with their understanding of the change process and provide valuable books and articles for reference.  Our goal is to provide directional leadership for the change process so everyone in our community feels comfortable assuming a role as an effective change agent.

 

One definition, offered in The American Heritage Dictionary, defines change as: “to cause to be different.”  A working definition for change management is a set of ideas, strategies, and skills that can be applied to engage change effectively.  For the most part, changes and the associated challenges are those of adaptation, that is, change requires an organization or individual to adjust to an ever-changing set of circumstances.  Helen Keller once said, “Nothing is more tragic than someone who has sight, but no vision.”  To embrace change, we must focus on the vision, decide our outlook and intentions, commit, communicate, be flexible, have discipline in staying the course and decide to grow within the process.  David Whyte aptly writes, “All things change when we do.”

 

The Department of Human Resources suggests the following books and articles to support your change efforts:

 

• The Planning of Change, Warren Bennis, Kenneth Benne, and Robert Chin
• Strategies for Change, Harvard Business Review, Kotter and Schlesinger
• Organizations in Action, James Thompson
• Leading Change, John Kotter
• Who Moved My Cheese? An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your life, Spencer Johnson