Read the following passage about managing change and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the…

Read the following passage about managing change and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions.

Managing change means managing people's fear. Change is natural and good, but people's reaction to change is unpredictable and can be irrational. It can be managed if done right.

Nothing is as upsetting to your people as change. Nothing has greater potential to cause failures, loss of production, or falling quality of work. Yet nothing is as important to the survival of your organization as change. History is full of examples of organizations that failed to change and are now extinct. The secret to successfully managing change, from the perspective of the employees, is definition and understanding.

Resistance to change comes from a fear of the unknown or an expectation of loss. The front end of an individual's resistance to change is how they perceive the change. The back end is how well they are equipped to deal with the change they expect.

An individual's degree of resistance to change is determined by whether they perceive the change as good or bad, and how severe they expect the impact of the change to be on them. Their ultimate acceptance of the change is a function of how much resistance the person has and the quality of their coping skills and their support system.

If you move an employee's desk six inches, they may not notice or care. Yet if the reason you moved it those six inches was to fit in another worker in an adjacent desk, there may be high resistance to the change. It depends on whether the original employee feels the hiring of an additional employee is a threat to his job or perceives the hiring as bringing in some needed assistance.

A promotion is usually considered a good change. However, an employee who doubts their ability to handle the new job may strongly resist the promotion. They will give you all kinds of reasons for not wanting the promotion, just not the real one.

You might expect a higher-level employee to be less concerned about being laid off because they have savings and investments to support them during a job search. However, the individual may feel they are overextended and that a job search will be long and complicated. Conversely, your concern for a low-income employee being laid off may be unfounded if they have stashed a nest egg in anticipation of the cut.

Your best salesperson may balk at taking on new, high-potential account because they have an irrational feeling that they don't dress well enough.

If you try and bulldoze this resistance, you will fail. [A] The employee whose desk you had to move will develop production problems. [B] The top worker who keeps declining the promotion may quit rather than have to continue making up excuses for turning you down. [C] And the top salesperson's sales may drop to the point that you stop considering them for the new account. [D]

Why does the author mention moving an employee’s desk?