Planned Change Essay -- Organizational Development, Change

Planning according to the class notes (Dr. Smith, Module 5) and Stojkovic et al (2008) is a general application of the notion of planned change. Planned change is made up of a number of behaviors intended to alter individuals, groups, and organization structure and practice (Stojkovic et al, 2008). Although there are several elements of a planned change four of them include innovation and accepting problems, overcoming organizational decision making routines, looking to the future, and continues commitment. First planned change mandates improvement and acknowledges troubles as prospects to pursue real development in an agency’s performance. However, Warren (1997) points out that planned change is not an inactive reaction to organizational climate stress or minimal attempt to decrease organizational strains (Stojovic et al, 2008). Nevertheless, this type of effort is what is usually seen throughout criminal justice agencies. For example, correction facilities are well known for changing titles like guards to corrections officers, convicts to inmates and so on (Stojkovic et al, 2008). To avoid this passive type of change there needs to be a more proactive change implemented in the agency. For example, several law enforcement agencies have put into practice a program called Compstat that requires command staff to study patterns of crime, set calculable objectives to decrease crime, and build up plans to decrease crime in the studied areas (Stojkovic et al, 2008). The second element is overcoming organizational decision making routines. These routines for example, include the garbage can solution which states that individuals in an organization have â€Å"favorite solutions† already preconceived that are waiting for problems to... ...ats for the officers. Thus, if the officer feels he/she will be blamed for any mistakes they will tend to shift most of the responsibility to their superior making them adhere to old policy and practices (Stojkovic et al, 2008). Moreover, if there is not a good line of communication and decision making is centralized, members will be less reluctant to participate in the change process. This will not be healthy for the organization because there will not be a healthy feedback from the members regarding the efficiency of the new program. This could eventually be the demise of the new program. As one can see it is hard to create an organizational climate that is productive and open to change, and more so if there is conflict within the organization. For this reason each step should be thought about and planned for in dealing with the organizations climate.