Introduction
It is essential to note that organizational shifts necessitate a practical management framework, ensuring the thorough integration of new changes and facilitating employee adaptation. Workers’ resistance to change is a common challenge for such pursuits, which is why addressing it meaningfully is critical. Steps to creating urgency and removing barriers are the most significant determinants of success for John Kotter’s eight stages of change management.
Background of the Proposed Change
In the background, the change is introduced by implementing and designing a contract management system for a healthcare company. It involves transitioning from paper contracts stored in file cabinets to a web-based system that contains all contracts and facilitates workflow management. Once integrated, the life cycle of the contracting process can be improved from 6-9 months to 3-6 months, depending on the negotiation timeline.
Application of Kotter’s Change Management Model
One should be aware that Kotter’s change management model consists of eight stages. These include creating a sense of urgency, building a guiding coalition, forming a strategic vision and initiatives, enlisting a volunteer army, enabling action by removing barriers, generating short-term wins, sustaining acceleration, and instituting change (Dye, 2017).
Only the first three steps of Kotter’s eight-stage model of change were utilized to facilitate this transition from a paper-based to an electronic contract management system. The significant consequence of not being able to create a meaningful and proper sense of urgency is that it leads to a massive failure of change implementation and high resistance from employees. As a result, efforts to retrain and adapt workers to new processes become ineffective, as they do not entirely understand why it is necessary and how it can benefit their bottom line.
Adoption of Lewin’s Change Theory
The proposed change theory is Lewin’s model of organizational change, which can cover the gaps in Kotter’s framework. Any organizational change involving significant procedural and operational changes must adhere to a specific evidence-based framework. The selected format is Lewin’s change model, which focuses on three phases: unfreezing, changing, and freezing (Abd el–shafy et al., 2019). It is reported that “barriers in healthcare lead to miscommunication between the medical professional and patient, reducing both parties’ satisfaction and decreasing the quality of healthcare delivery and patient safety” (Al Shamsi et al., 2020, p. 1).
The first phase requires ensuring the organization’s readiness and the involvement of all stakeholders through open communication. The second phase is focused on incorporating and integrating technology as a core aspect of the practice. The third phase is designed to solidify the changes by turning them into the center’s protocols of care and organizational policies.
Conclusion
In conclusion, by analyzing John Kotter’s eight steps, it becomes evident that steps one, which creates a sense of urgency, and five, which enable action by removing barriers, are tightly interconnected. Eliminating barriers is not an easy task because employee resistance to change can be detrimental to overall success. Therefore, it is crucial to create a sense of urgency, ensuring that the purpose of the transition is communicated clearly and thoroughly.
The implementation plan must account for potential obstacles. The most notable barrier is likely the resistance to change from the nursing staff, since they play a significant role in the intervention process. The additional training, education, and workshop activities imposed on nursing professionals can make them resistant to the proposed measure.
References
Abd el -shafy, I., Zapke, J., Sargeant, D., Prince, J. M., & Christopherson, N. A. M. (2019). Decreased pediatric trauma length of stay and improved disposition with implementation of Lewinʼs change model. Journal of Trauma Nursing, 26(2), 84–88. Web.
Al Shamsi, H. Almutari, A.G., Al Mashrafi, S., &Al Kalbani, T. (2020) Implications of language barriers for healthcare: A systemic review, Oman Medical Journal, 35(2), 1-9. Web.
Dye, C. F. (2017). Leadership in healthcare: Essential values and skills (3rd ed.). Health Administration Press.