A Research Paper created by Jie (Jane) Chen
(Executive Coaching, CHINA)

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, it’s getting more and more difficult to predict the world which is changing rapidly all the time, with hundreds of opportunities as well as pitfalls passing by every moment. With the trend of business globalization and the recent world-wide economic fluctuation, organizations are inevitably facing constant changes in various sectors, like company process, workplace relocation, internal systems, company re-structuring, etc. This paper will provide an insight and frame work on how coaching is helpful for company to go through changes successfully.

Why does a company have to change? Just to name a few possible reasons:

Cost saving, i.e. through down-sizing or closing part of the business;
Merging and acquisition, in order to consolidate the markets, products, or players;
Relocations, for instance, to move R&D centre, sourcing centre or manufacturing base to a more cost-effective market or to a place closer to customers and consumers.

The 2012 Best Practices in Change Management Report identifies employees and managers’ resistance to changes as the No. 1 obstacle to success. Why is coaching a vital part of a successful change management? How does coaching support leaders to manage the frustration and difficulty that changes might cause for employees?

CHARPTER 2 – COACHING IN ORGANIZATION CHANGE

How do people react to changes?

When changes are announced within an organization, people will usually stop moving forward and resist finding out the obvious reasons behind. Resistance to changes can cause the best-intentioned change efforts to fail. Employees are often resistant to ideas contradicted to their own, or they may have a fear of the unknown consequence. This might be due to the lack of respect for the management or the lack of trust between the management team and employees. In most cases, employees will experience an emotional change curve, starting with anger, denial, blame, and then wondering “What does this mean to me?”.

The intensity of reactions might vary according to different individuals, but in general, people will go through 5 stages: Shock => Reaction => Acceptance => Action => Commitment. As indicated in the curve below,

According to 2012 Best Practices in Change Management Report, employees are mostly impacted by messages from the CEO, senior leadership and their direct supervisor or manager. People don’t leave bad organization; people leave bad managers. As per the figures from this report, when changes happen, 32% of the impact lies in the infrastructure and process change; 7% from the formal information that went out and 61% with the leadership. Obviously, the influence and the engagement from manager are HUGE through organization changes. In order to mitigate the impact leaders/managers might bring to employees, coaching is essential and indispensible, especially during the above-mentioned 5 stages of reactions.