Change can be generally defined as the act of altering or changing something from its current form to a different form. Organizational change can therefore be described as the alteration of roles of people, relationships and other aspects in the organization. This change has several factors in the organization such as culture, structure, technology and people. Recklies (n.d.) defines change management as the process of planning, initializing, realizing, controlling and stabilizing the change processes on all levels in an organization.

Lynco Associates, Inc (n.d) came up with twelve principles that are commonly used to manage change in most organizations. One of principle that is most important is ‘the more input people have into defining the changes that will affect their work, the more they will take ownership of the results’ which implies that the management should always involve other parties in the organization in the change process to make them own the change. This therefore means that all other staff should be allowed to take part from the planning stage in the process of change to the implementation stage which enhances commitment hence ownership of the results.

The other change management principle is that ‘a clearly defined vision of the end result enables all the people to define the most efficient path for accomplishing the results’. This is a very essential principle because there has to be a destination for someone to decide which way to use and eventually choose the most appropriate means to that particular destination. In other words the goal and objectives of the organization need to be well stipulated such that everyone will be able to know the best way to achieve them.

The third most important principle of managing change is ‘thought processes and relationships dynamics are fundamental if change is to be successful’ which involves prior planning in the management of change. This means that the management force should plan for the steps and the workforce to be used in order to successfully get the change desired.

There are several techniques that can be used while managing change and they include: survey feedback method, team building, sensitivity training, management by objective, job enrichment, the grid approach, evidence for change and involvement. These techniques have been used to implement change in organizations. Management by objectives is where the goals are first set then communicated to the employees to guide them and this aids in the second principle of management of change as discussed above. Involvement can also be linked with the first principle while the other techniques help collectively to implement change.

It could take time for change to be accepted in an organization. The time is however determined by the approach used by the managers in terms of technique and the principles. The other principles for managing change are also important and should therefore be considered in implementing change.