Managing and Leading Strategic Change
The various business industries available in the current market, largely focuses on the changes in their procedure of business conduction as the situation is changing in a frequent manner. The organizations are continuously changing their approach of dealing as they are subjected to an increased level of competition in the business market. The changes are visible in the form of business expansions, reformation in the organizational structure, task allocation and other major events relating to the employees (GU, 2014). The general point of these changes are generally progressive and at times they are situational as well. According to Kotey & Sorensen (2014), the organizations usually do not wish to conduct a change but the situations under which the organizations are operating force them to do so in order to survive in the industry. The employees of the organization do think these changes according to their consideration and usually they do not get the reason behind those changes but this generates the existence of the leaders in the management (Cummings & Worley, 2014). According to Alvesson & Sveningsson (2015), the managerial position holders are the concerned people who are liable to communicate and manage the employees in order to make sure that the misunderstandings that are generated among the employees regarding the change gets minimized. The paper generally focuses on the issues that these managerial position holders are facing and also their assistance in the context of the leadership skills in reducing the concern of the organization. The general concept of leadership and the managerial functionality in terms of analysing the change in the organization is present in the form of various frameworks like 7 “S” model and 8 step model. The paper also focuses on the ability of the leaders in the organization to analyse these frameworks in order to properly assess the impact of the change on the organization and then act according to their analysis.
The chosen industry is the healthcare industry and the sector is the human resource management of the industry. The healthcare industry is a significantly essential part of the society and the entire society depends on the concerned industry in a significant manner. The lightest of the changes in the concerned industry get significantly high exposure and coverage as a large number of people relates to the industry. The human resource department is a major part of any organization as the concerned sector is able to conduct the entire process in a considerably smooth manner. The necessity of the human resource sector in the organization is widely recognized by the industry. The concerned sector is able to acknowledge the need for the changes and initiates the general process of adapting to the change. The organizations generally focus on the progressive and profitable business expansions and in order to do so the HRM section of the organization is the first part to calculate the efficiency and availability of the resources of the organization to match the requirement of the changes. The competitive world of the healthcare industry is forcing the organizations to change. The general demand in the concerned industry regarding the immense pressure of the patients is generating a significant amount of scope of business expansion for the organizations. The human resource management is the concerned sector to analyse the scope of the expansion with the availability of the assets of the organization. The changes that the organization considers regarding the business expansion in the section of workforce management has a significant amount of concern related to it and the factors like employee dissatisfaction, unavailability of skilled employees will be of major significance in the decision of change.
The organizational changes with a focus on business expansion generally relate to the factors like outsourcing or transfers of efficient employees in the new roles. The promotional policy helps the organization. But the additional pressure has a greater adverse impact on the workforce. The increased amount of work pressure will cause a significant amount of disturbances to the employees in performing in a productive manner. The agencies that are linked with the organization in order to provide manpower to the organization for the smooth conduction of the operations will not be pleased with the concept of outsourcing. But with the focus on the business expansion, the organization may need to follow the concept of the outsourcing in order to reduce the operating cost and that is significantly justified from the part of the organization as they are concerned with the profit for the organization. The issues like these need to be dealt with proper consideration of the matter. The internal dynamics of the organization will also be significantly affected by the change and the added point of introduction of the efficient employees in order to meet the high demand of the healthcare industry will also be a significant factor of the change that will be having its impact on the operations of the organization (Twarowska & Kąkol, 2013).
As mentioned the general factors that affect the organizational change in case of the business expansion is generally the employee and the internal configuration of the organization, the management of the healthcare industry need to focus on this parts so that the primary concerns of the business expansion gets minimized. The outsourcing of the organizational assets is a genuine issue to work on for the management in order to implement the organizational change smoothly (Klimovets, 2015). As the business expansion is the main plan for the organization, so they need to focus on the smaller segments of the plan. The organization decides the mode of the change as the analysis of the change will dictate the method of adjustments that will be needed from the part of the different segments of the organization. The business expansion plan can be of continuous approach or it can differentiate from being continuous and the decision completely depends on the organizational decision makers. The change in the case of the healthcare industry business expansion can be termed as internal with a significant effect on the organization as the process of business conduction for the organization will be subjected to a major shift. The organizations in the healthcare industry which do not use the concept of outsourcing will be observed to feel the impact of it.
In order to cope up with the impact of the change in the organization, the managerial position holders need to make sure that they analyse the change in a proper manner. The management needs to manage and lead the organization through the period of the change. For that, the change analysis frameworks like 7″S” model and the 8 step model provides the added advantage and ease to the organizational decision makers. The above mentioned models are generally used to analyse the effect of the change in an organization with a precise focus on the situation and the condition of the organization.
The 7 “S” framework is also a business tool for the organizational analysis which was developed by Robert H. Waterman and Tom Peters with an objective to analyse the condition of the organizations. The framework is able to analyse the organizational changes irrespective of their types may that be an organizational merger, restructuring, change of leadership or it may be new processes or systems into the organization. The model generally depends on the seven factors starting from Strategy, Systems, skills, shared values, structure, style to the staff of the given organization. The factors are generally divided into two division naming them to be soft “S” and hard “S” depending on the effect of them into the organizational analysis regarding the change. The segmentation of the hard and the soft “S” included Strategy, System, Structure and skills, staffs, shared values and style respectively (Ravanfar, 2015). For managing the process of the change and leading the organization in an effective manner, the 7 “S” model needs to utilized by the organization in identifying the sectors of the organization that are not aligned with the plan of expansion in the healthcare industry. The second step that needs to be followed is the determination of the design by the organization in order to manage the change and the continuous review of the mentioned aspects of the model needs to be there for effective leadership through the period of change.
As the organization is considered to be expanding, the purpose of the strategy section is to make sure the effective planning of the expansion so that the implementation of the plan becomes easy. With the knowledge of the strategy to manage the change, the organizations in the healthcare industry are expected to focus on the division of the activities and the integration of the divisions in order to follow the strategy (Hrebiniak, 2013). The mechanism for the effective coordination is to be created on this part.so that the integration of the divisions is managed well. The structural elements of the organization need to analysed and measured with a focus on the effectiveness of the systems and the impact of the rewards and the allocation of the resources in order to manage the organization has significant importance as well (Bolman & Deal, 2017). The general effect of the business expansion plan on the staff is immense as the concept of outsourcing will pose significant difficulties to the organization which the organization needs to manage. The section staff will focus on the sector of the human resource department and their performances in order to manage the change (Fullan, 2014).
The skills in the case of the healthcare industry are significantly important as the concerned trade is highly service oriented and being an emergency service the industry or the organization cannot afford to make mistakes (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The quality of the employees and the educational qualifications of the concerned employees is a major point of attention for the organization. The organization needs to introduce effective plans for the training of the new employees as they will be inducted in the service of the industry. The style segment of the model generally specifies the process of the change in the pattern of the behaviour of the key figures in the organization in order to manage the change. The shared values of the organization are generally is the description of the rules and regulations or the norms of the organization or the expected standards of the employees of the organization in which they are required to operate to provide the scope to the organization in managing the change (Beck & Cowan, 2014).
The 8 step model for leading the organizational change is also a significantly important tool for the organization as that enables the organization with the scope of effective planning in the case of managing the organization. The 8 steps of the concerned model are the creation of the sense of urgency, creation of a guiding coalition, the creation of a vision aiming a change, communicate the vision, remove the barriers, the creation of the short-term wins, consolidation of the improvements and anchor the changes (Auguste, 2013). John Kotter’s prescribed steps for the effective leading of the change enables the managerial position holders of the healthcare industry to create a sense of emergency among the parts of the organization. The organizations need to create an atmosphere where the participating individuals know the importance of the change and the reason behind the change (Pollack & Pollack, 2015). The opportunity to serve a larger number of people with their service and the scope of the business expansion for a given organization in the concerned industry will be able to trigger the organizational decision makers in the creation of the urgency among the various sectors of the organization so that it performs to implement the plan of expansion in the desired manner. The leaders of the organization need to aware the individuals about the existing problems or the probable scope for the change. The human resource management needs to compose effective communication with every part of the industry in order to reduce the difficulties relating to the change.
According to a study by Hornstein (2015), the managerial decision makers of the organizations need to form constructive coalitions in order to monitor the entire organizations’ adaptability to the change. The coalition is to be made by the participation of a range of skills and people with the significant amount of experiences along with the employees from different areas of the organization. The coalition will increase the effectiveness in leading the change and will be of immense significance in expressing the messages throughout the organization so that the employees be able to produce maximum support to the organization (Sarayreh, Khudair & Barakat, 2013). The organization must introduce their vision for the change to the different parts of the organization. An easy to understand vision from the organization will enable the lower level employees of the health care industry to get the vision in a more effective manner which will be benefitting for the organization as the efficiency of the employees will be increased in managing the changes (Small et al., 2016).
The above mentioned four steps are generally very crucial as they are the concerned topics for strengthening the change initiatives but the formation of this is not the all that the organizations need. With the formations of the initiatives, the successful application of the initiative is also desired and in that case the next topic that needs to be checked is the probable barriers and their removal. The successful implementation of the change initiative will generally become much smoother with the effective removal of the barriers which are posing significant difficulty in the implementation process (Mishra, 2013). The general issue with the business expansion and the introduction of new employees in the system will be the insecurity of the job of the current employees and a possible conflict in the operating process of the two segments. These barriers are to be assessed by the HRM section of the organization and they need to step forward in order to make sure that the chance of rising of conflict between the junior and the senior employees does not continue. These will eliminate any sort of intentional resistance from the parts of the employees in order to block the process of change and will enable those employees to see what is needed for the betterment of the organization.
The process of rewarding and acknowledging the people who made the life easier for the leaders in order to lead the change will also be instrumental under the mentioned circumstances (Matos Marques Simoes & Esposito, 2014). The business expansion for many critics of the change is to be implemented with a completely new model of the existing process where the organizations are believed to think of starting from the scratch with every aspect of their operations may that be the manpower or the construction.
But in leading these sort of expensive parts of the changes, the leaders will feel significant trouble and that is the reason why creating and implementing the short-term goals is highly necessary (McAlearney et al., 2015). The healthcare industry with the plan of expansion in new regions must consider the concept of outsourcing so that these preliminary issues do not make an immense impact on the plan. The preliminary troubles are not only limited to one or two issues and with the win of those issues, there lies the scope for improvement. The short-term wins are needed to be analysed thoroughly in order to find the scope of improvement and integrate these wins to form the ultimate change. Segmentation in order to achieve crucial objectives is significantly needed with the proper assessment of the goals, in order to build momentum for achieving the ultimate aim (Chappell et al., 2016). The essential inputs and leading during the change with the probable success story relating to the business expansion are to be communicated from the part of the leaders. The recognition of the key members of the coalition in the organization and the publication of their contribution should be made from the part of the leaders.
The healthcare organizations in managing the plan of expansion, need to incorporate a transformational leadership where the skills of the leader will be able to overcome the above mentioned issues, faced in managing the change. The skills of a transformational leader will significantly help the organization as the leadership attributes of a transformational leader suit the organization most in managing an organizational change. The situation of an organization during the change needs to idealize the perfect example and in that context the organizational leadership is significantly crucial. The characteristics of the transformational leader in inspiring the entire workforce by his or her enthusiasm and charisma will critical in achieving the change smoothly (McKnight, 2013). The leaders of the organization in this case need to put a strong emphasis on the values, morals and needs of the employees of the organization in this case as the people associated with the change will perform more smoothly if their requirements are met by the organization.
In the plan of the expansion, the organizational leaders must provide the employees with the sufficient amount of basic facilities which enable them to fit themselves in the change process in a convenient manner. The leader must follow a proactive approach in leading the change as the environment of the organization under the change will be turbulent and the proactive follow up from the leader will provide significant calmness around the organization (Choudhary, Akhtar & Zaheer, 2013). The style of the leadership in this case will be charismatic as the presence and impact of the leader are believed to affect and inspire the employees in a significant manner. According to McCleskey (2014), the leaders in managing the change, must concentrate on the formation of the coalitions and they believe in inspiring the employees according to their group goals. The group objectives are advised to be thought as the ultimate priority by the leaders in leading a change.
On a concluding note, it can be said that the organizations will be subjected to significant turbulence during the change process but the proactive leadership with the suitable skills from the part of the leader will enable the organization to overcome the general issue of the organizational change. The leadership in the case of managing the change is significantly important as it must motivate the employees in order to overcome the preliminary adverse impact of the change.
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