Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin.
Module 1
Student ID: 11110201
Date: 14.11.2011
Word Count: 2990
Managing People and Organisations
Assignment:
Case Study: Leading Organisational Change: Improving Hospital Performance
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Critically discuss the sources of resistance encountered by Tracey Burns and her team? Support your discussion with evidence-based literature.
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Explore the approaches they used to manage the resistance and critically evaluate the effectiveness of those approaches, drawing on your learning from the module and key literature sources.
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CONTENTS
Topic
Page No.
Introduction
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Resistance to change
5
Need for change …show more content…
The following discussion will mainly follow Rumelt’s (1995) work on resistance as adapted by Pardo de Val et al (2003), taking assistance from other authors as needed. This classification and the list of sources of resistance / inertia can be seen in appendix 1.
SOURCES OF RESISTANCE ENCOUNTERED BY TRACY BURNS
Distorted Perception, Interpretation Barriers and Vague Strategic Priorities:
Inability of the company to look into the future with clarity created the first line of resistance at the King Edgar. Although the CEO of Trust could see what is required of him under increasing political and social pressure, yet he could not foresee what needs to be improved in the hospitals. General employee population could not comprehend what needed to be done and how the suggested action plan would help in future. For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it. Burns took up the job with all honesty and she really wanted to improve the situation in her organisation, but she did have some interests beyond patient perspective, i.e., “to try to increase the nursing voice and … demonstrate how nursing could
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contribute to the agenda”. Due to her underlying personal viewpoint, bias and dual agenda, she could not