CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background
The turbulence with which organizations and individuals operate in today’s life leaves changes as the only constant. It is paramount to note that individuals and institutions that choose to meddle through turbulence find it very difficult to survive. Indeed there are many reasons that inspire change. According to McKinley survey on change management (2006) organizations will change to reduce costs, to move from a good performance to a great performance, turn around a crisis situation, and catch up with rivals or to direct part of the organization.
In doing so according to Davis and Holland (2006) organizations use systematic methods to ensure that the organizational change is guided in a planned direction, conducted in a cost effective manner and completed within a targeted time frame with desired results. Further Todd A (2008) focuses on the people aspect by arguing that change management is a structured and systematic approach of achieving a sustained change in human behavior within an organization.
The success of implementing change is generally associated with those who facilitate the change process. The change agent is defined here as a manager who seeks “to reconfigure an organizations roles, responsibilities, structures, outputs, processes, systems, technology or other resources” (Buchanan and Badham, 1999) in the light of improving organizational effectiveness. The role of change agents as facilitators is extensively discussed within a rational framework. For example, Buchanan and Body (2002) list competencies of effective change agents as clarity of specifying goals, team building activities, communication skills, negotiation skills and “influencing skill” to gain commitment to goals. It can be deduced from these agents that limitations in change management are