Using Psychodynamics to Manage Organizational Change

The value of any organization is measured by the size of its contribution to the society we live in. Organizations keep their performance benchmarks on a varied range of factors like communal, economical and spiritual structures. The world we live in continues to change at a very rapid rate. Using the theories of psychodynamics to understand organizational change, we will learn that changing of an individual will be very important to the collective change process in the organizations. A good manager needs a good understanding when he works with an organization and learns about the changes that can be done consciously by the management. The psychodynamic process in the management of organizational change begins to take place when people start making purposeful changes in their lives at work, in their organizations and in the society. The psychodynamic process in the organizational change management takes place on multiple levels. The first is the change taking place between an individual and the groups; the second is the change taking place between groups and organizations; the third is the change taking place between the organizations and the community. Human psychology is the single most influential aspect in an organization. If we want to analyze an organizational change, we have to absorb the social and the psychological elements within that organization in order to succeed. Usually, inaction, poor insight and indifference are the strongest blockades to initiate a planned organizational change. There is a heavy tendency for organizations to show full indifference to change and laziness while moving ahead to take any action. Most people revel in remaining where they are. The poor ability to plan ahead and adapt is found in most of the modern organizations. Indifference abounds when there is a big gap between the environmental changes in an organization and the awareness that the organization has about that change. As the reaction of the management is dull, the results of the change are not of any benefit to the organization. The main reasons for such indifference are often stress and defensive psychology. Psychodynamics explain that human nature always reflects on the relationship between our past experience and the situations that we face currently. It is the collective relationship of people’s past and present experiences that builds up an organization and how it will adapt to necessary change when required. While some people react to change by becoming inactive, others tend to take on a slightly more active stance. The latter try to assume power and control to reach the organizational model of excellence by imposing their ideas to protect and serve the organization. Whatever the case may be, if an organization has to survive in the long run, it has to adapt to change. The strategies that depend on the use of psychodynamics are able to manage or ignore situations in relation to the reality of a change and the ability to go through a crisis during the resistant period to change within the organization. This may require a formal declaration from the management, a possible change in leadership or an exercise in overhauling the organizational brand. When this happens, the workers in the organization have to be given sufficient time to break away from the past identities and get attached to the changed organizational motives. Encouraging an atmosphere of learning within an organization helps to add to its capacity to adapt and survive. Assimilating knowledge and applying it in organizations that promote learning on the job will help the managers to identify performance loopholes, analyze them and focus their attention on initiating remedial procedures. Thus, psychodynamics is useful in building techniques to manage organizational change.