Change Is like Putting Lipstick on a Bulldog, Many Change Attempts Are Superficial

We have obtained studies and theories from different scholars. It included:

 Blanchard (2010) stated what triggers change, both internal and external and it is inevitable in today's business environment (Nelson, 2006).

 Resistance to change by Robert, 2010, Thomas and Elizabeth, 2010, Lawrence, 1969.

 Skills and competencies for change agent by Buchanan and Boddy (1992).

 How to manipulate people's belief to remove the resistance by Kegan and Lahey (2001), Anderson (1986) and Lawrence (1954).

 John Kotter's 8 steps change model which provides a good foundation or framework to work on the change.

To support our argument, we use John Kotter's 8 steps of leading change and how did it apply to Apple Inc. case to illustrate the implementation of the 8 steps. We know Apple Inc. has its own implementation plan for change, but there are some common key steps.

We fully agree on these 8 steps. Some of the steps are obvious such as creating a sense of urgency and form a powerful team before implementation. However, some people may miss out to view new opportunities as a valid reason to change. People may think that change is only necessary in case when there is a threat occurs. Yet change can also be initiated for pursuing an opportunities in fact. This approach adopting change will make it much more proactive.

Besides, some people may think that a team leading the change should be reliable or trustable. Otherwise the change will not be going smoothly. However, whether the team is powerful is also important. Change is painful to most of the people. Even the most trustable people cannot please everyone during the change process. Gaining trust is the result when people see the positive result. That is also the reason why changes are more successful if those changes are initiated by outsider of organization who has been authorized with power such as replacing CEO from outsides.

Of course, people may often miss out the celebration of small success. They may not even aware those small successes because their focus are set on the obvious significant result, the final outcome. However, people do need this kind of celebration to recognize their effort and as a motivation to contribute more. More so, people will not have a chance to examine the small success for further improvement if they don't recognize the small success at the beginning.

In fact, the organization change in one of our working companies demonstrated some steps during the change process as we observe like: