As economic times change, management styles have changed accordingly. New concepts and issues of management styles have been analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated to meet the changing needs of the marketplace. The concept of change management has gained great acceptance and/or disapproval by all sectors, including civilian and military.

Katzenbach (1995) wrote that Real change leaders are the linchpins connecting three critical forces for organizational change and performance: top leadership aspirations (what are we trying to become?); workforce energy and productivity (how will we climb the mountain?); and the marketplace reality (what do our target customers truly seek, and what can and will our potential competitors really do?) (pp. 8-9).

Discuss 3 to 5 changes that have or are occurring in organizational life or in your discipline today.

Identify and discuss the benefits and challenges of two or three change management theories as proposed in the practice and discipline of management.

Using one of the change management theories you discussed, analyze two of the five changes you identified in your field to determine if there have been periods of time in which leaders in the field, as well as actual practitioners in the field, have had to address the issue of change management. Specifically, this analysis should be based on a synthesis of the current literature (and literature no older than 1995) to demonstrate how leaders in your field of study have addressed the issue of change management as well as any changes in management style.

Relate these specific changes to your own current, previous, and/or future career paths. This analysis should help to reveal how you have seen changes occur over the past decade or so in your field.

Finally, what possible changes, suggestions and/or recommendations would you consider to be necessary in management in order for effective change of organizations in the future?