Culture Shock The Crosbeck County Court of Appeals consists of six judges, a court administrator, eight staff attorneys, and an eight-member secretarial pool. The members of the secretarial pool are a close-knit group who, over time, have developed their own system for typing and formatting cases and correspondence. The staff attorneys, who research the cases the court hears and draft decisions, are generally friendly with one another, but a few are competitive. Both the secretaries and the staff attorneys have word processing skills, but the judges do not. The judges have decided to rearrange the staff system. Each judge wants his or her own personal secretary and staff attorney. The judges will pick the attorneys and secretaries they want. The two extra secretaries will be transferred to other county offices. One of the two extra staff attorneys will be trained as a mediator. The other will be responsible for consulting, helping with heavy workloads, and covering during vacations. With two fewer secretaries, you (the court administrator) realize that the judges will sometimes need to do their own word processing. 1. Consider the types of resistance to change that you learned about in Section 16.4. Which of these types of resistance are you likely to encounter? Why do you say so? 2. What are some ways in which you can minimize the resistance? 3. Where you can't minimize the resistance, what are some ways in which you could help the various employees deal with this change?
