OB assignment essay help : Managing Organizational Change

Introduction

Change is something which is permanent in nature. Managing change in an organization is a process related with a broad group of activities which helps to support the change related initiatives taken by an organization. Before implementing any change it should be evaluated from the stakeholder’s point of view. The Leaders of an Organization must have an ability to analyze the risk. He must act as a goal setter, resource allocator, support the structure, and develop Acculturation. It requires proper understanding of different aspects of business (Tech Target    2012). It is being implemented to deal with the external environment and earn profits from emerging changes. It is a difficult process and it always invites contradictions and disagreements. Successful change can be implemented only with the help of team work and collaborative approach. It is a process where an organization moves from the present state to the desired state. Organizational Change process is built upon different pillars such as Business leadership, strategic planning, knowledge about customer and markets, Data Analysis, human resource and Business Results (QCI International     2006). Managing organizational change was related with three aspects such as ability for managing the change, professional practice, and knowledge for change management strategies. As per the given case of David Jones, it failed to manage the changes related to latest technology like online shopping system. They were implementing the old point of sale system, manual entry of data in registers, and did not try to change the 10 years old ecommerce system. The management was unable to fix the problems related to staff, extra Lease cost being paid for the stores where customer traffic was very low, and the top executives leaving David Jones. When US department store Nordstrom launched online system the same year David Jones failed to manage the change and had to close its departmental store (Change Factory    2012).

Nature of Change

The nature of change is related with four areas such as content, Contextual, Process and criterion issues. They are explained below.

Content Issues

It basically focuses on contemporary Organizational Changes which deals with the causes and the effects based on the individual employees and organizational performance. The transactional and transformational changes are related to it.

2.Contextual Issues

It explains the changes which are related with the identification of forces & Conditions affecting the external and internal environment.

3.Process Issues

It deals with the actions taken by organization for the change activities. The actions will help to tackle the external, internal and Individual Problems.

4.Criterion Issues

It deals with the outcomes which will be related with changes that are being made within an organization (Richard Seel     2008).

Need For Change in an Organization

The reasons why organization Like David Jones needs to change is because it wants to maintain a sustainable business in the competitive environment. Everyday the preference and taste of customer changes as new products or services are launched in the market. There are external and internal factors that brings changes within an organization (John Wiley & Sons Inc    2012). The reasons for change in an organization are as follows.

1.Manage Competition

The entry of internet based department system had brought a critical situation for David Jones. The new competitors provided online shopping service to the customers. The US based Nordstrom was able to manage the completion where as David Jones failed to manage and closed their website.

2.Technology

David Jones followed the manual system in place of new technology. They could have improved their business if proper technological changes were made to create traffic of customers in their stores. In an Organization the employees who do not know how to use the technology should be taught to use it properly to manage the changes.

3.Desire for Growth

David Jones had a desire to grow but due to sudden change on the attitude of employees with motivation level affected their company. Growth can be achieved by any company if the employees are satisfied with their job and problems are fixed by management (Hearst Communication Inc     2012).

4.To Grab The Opportunities

The appropriate changes were not made at David Jones, therefore the other retailers entered into the market and enjoyed the opportunities of earning profits. They provided the customers with new types of services. Organization can grab the opportunities by innovating new services and products so that customers don’t switch to other products by staying brand loyal.

5.Emerge as a new Entity

When organization faces challenges and problems then the significant changes brought in the structure, style of management will help it to emerge as a new entity. In such conditions organization can get merged with other organization to earn profits.

Drivers of Change in an Organization

1.Performance

The employee’s performance at an organization moves it towards the change process with the additional roles and responsibilities. The productivity of business can be increases if employees perform effectively and efficiently. The meeting of targets by employees drive towards the changes in an organization. Employee’s performance at David Jones was poor so it was unable to drive it towards the success.

2.Mergers & Acquisitions

The Merges and acquisitions are the older terms can be used to grow the business. Before being merged the impacts or advantages should be well forecasted. There should not be clash of culture, and the roles of management. David Jones could have improved their business if they would have changed as per the time.

3.Market Conditions

Organization should be able to forecast the business in terms of emerging competitors, new technology, shareholders expectations and fluctuations in the different economies of the world. A better market anticipation will help to make adequate changes in an organization (Change Forward    2008). David Jones failed to do the market analysis.

4. Governement Rules & Regulations

Changes made in an organization should be eco-friendly. It should not highlight the issues or impacts in the performance of the business. Certain checkpoints implemented upon the organizations by government will drive towards the success. The scandal related with Zahra changed the mindset of stakeholders towards David Jones which brought negative impacts.

5. Availability of Employees

The employees can perform better if they are promoted with better incentives at the workplace. The employees should be retained with higher motivation level in an organization. At David Jones employee’s performance was not appropriately tracked. Employees should be trained well how to use the new technology, and maintain a good working culture at their workplaces.

Types of change Management Strategies

1.Planned strategy

Planned change is the process of taking deliberate action at organization. It will help to anticipate the positive and consequences of an organization. David Jones could use this strategy to forecast about market, customers and technology to improve its business conditions.

2.Emergent Strategy

This Type of change takes place when it needs to respond on a spontaneous external factor. When David Jones was facing severe competition from internal and external competitors this strategy could have been used to implement the online shopping system for their customers.

3.Episodic Strategy

Episodic change is discontinuous in nature and is radical. It is used to review the changes implemented by the older organizations so that they might not commit the same mistakes. The management at David Jones did not have an open eye what had happened with the economies of various organizations in past.

4.Continuous Strategy

Continuous change is an ongoing process and it could help the organization to cope with different uncertainties occurring at present time. At David Jones strategies was framed on a continuous basis but was not implemented successfully.

5.Developmental Strategy

This strategy explains to manage the change by training and development process of the employees which is related organizational Improvement.

6.Transistional Strategy

Transitional change process is taken when the organization want to change according to its requirement. David Jones failed because it lacked the support of its employees. Cost cutting was done because it lacked in financial resources.

7.Transformational Strategy

This Type of Change takes place when the individual & his thought process try to get the desired result. According to this strategy the Leader and employees will create their self interest to align their goals with organization’s mission vision and core values. At David Jones the CEO and the employees both lack this attitude.

8.Normative Strategy

This Type of strategy believes in changing norms, attitude, of an individual which leads to change in their behaviour. At David Jones this strategy was lacking because employees have an attitude to leave the company seeing their leaders who were switching to some other companies.

9.Rational Strategy

It emphasize on changing for the self interest. David Jones failed to apply this strategy because they were unable to fix the problem that was affecting their business. The lack of the certain leadership qualities also affected its business.

10. Power Coercive strategy

It is required for the application of power at work. There are basically five types of power such as coercive power, reward power, referent power, legitimate power and expert power. All the power was misbalanced by the leader of David Jones which created lots of complications at their workplace.

11. Action-Centred Strategy

It focused on implementation of solutions and solving the problems. Delayed actions affected the progress at David Jones. Strategies were not used for the sustainable business.

According to “Kotters” 8-Steps to manage the changes in an Organization by a manager are listed below.

Create an urgency which means to identify what are the company’s opportunities that could be exploited (Mind Tools      2012).

• Formulate a coalition which means to identify the leaders from various department of the organization who can convince people for the change process.
• Create a vision for change which means the ideas & initiatives which revolve around the organization should align with the company’s mission and vision.
• Communicate the vision that will determine the success by addressing the issues of the employees.
• Remove the obstacle by the proper recruitment process, framing appropriate Job Description, and recognizing people.
• Create short term wins that will motivate the employees to perform well & to manage the change
• Build the change which explains that victory should not be declared too early rather should learn about Kaizen process which means continuous improvement.
• Anchor the changes in Corporate which explains that tell the success stories repeatedly to recognize the performance & contributions of key leaders.

Kurt Lewin Change Model

In 1951, Kurt Lewin has also explained in his change model how organizations can lead to the successful change process. There are three stages of change (Clinical Psychology USA   2011). The three stages are Unfreezing, Moving to a new level changing, and Refreezing.

Unfreezing is the method which makes people to overcome with the old process which was not so effective. Moving to a new level of change include change in thoughts, feeling and behaviour. It can be made transparent to people by the process of communication. Last step is Re-freezing which helps in stabilizing and combining with new pattern. There are various pillars of organizational change process such as Strategic Planning, company leadership, client and market, Data & Information Analysis, Human Resource, Process management & Business Standards, and Business Results. If compare David Jones Business with other competitors it failed in Unfreezing, lacked in moving to a new level of change in terms of new technology & inefficient management style of management, and refreezing  the change process.

Challenges Faced by Manager while implementing and managing the change are explained below.

1.Unstructured Plan

Many a times manager creates a plan which lacks proper analysis. Such plan when they are implemented creates problems such as wastage of resources in terms of finance, and time. It creates disorder in an organization. Therefore stepwise plan must be prepared before it is being followed by the organization.

2.Structure Challenges

The organizational structure may lack with adequate policies, procedure and rules which becomes a challenging task for the manager to implement the changes for growing their business. There are different types of organizational structure such as functional, divisional, bureaucracy and etc. Manager must have sufficient knowledge about planning, implementing and managing the change without any destruction of human and other resources in an Organization. David Jones has a autocratic structure where the changes were made at top level and pushed down at lower level.

3. Technological Challenges

Every day new technology is emerging in the market. It is the duty of manager to deal proactively with the changing technology. The obsolete technology should be replaced by the new technology. The technical experts must be hired to teach how to use the latest technology. Customer traffic decreased at David Jones because they failed to implement the latest technology. They were unable to provide the online Shopping services to their customers as compared to their competitors. They lacked resources to purchase the emerging technologies.

4. Inadequate Support of Management

The managers must be supported by the Top level management during implementation of the change process in an organization. He must be given assistance in-terms of finance, and a team must be formed who can support in his work. Management should also keep checkpoints for the manager to timely view his performance. It must be ensured that resources must not be wasted by him while implementing the changes (Floyd Peter      2002). Many a times it happens due to lack of finance management is reluctant to adopt the change and development process. At David Jones Management was not active enough to accept the challenges.

5.Environmental Challenges

The manager needs to satisfy all the stakeholders by his change plan. Customers these days easily switch to other products. The low tax rates, heavy expenditure on advertisement to build a better customer traffic, cheaper cost of productions, low employee wages have been providing a challenge for the managers to implement the changes by accepting the environmental challenges. At David Jones they failed to modify their services as per the customer requirement and incurred loss in their business.

6.High Employee Turnover Rate

Managers must ensure properly that the employees are ready to change. Sometimes when an organization suddenly implements changes then the employees are unable to carry out their roles and responsibilities. They lack motivation towards their work because of the poor understanding of changes. Before implementing the changes the manager must create awareness among the employees. Their performance should be linked with the rewards and recognition. Manager must involve the employees so that they get motivated. At David Jones the CEO tried to manage the employees by reducing their number. The other employees left the organization because they were paid poorly. They were not promoted easily.

Conclusion

Managers need to implement certain qualities within employees before they implement the change strategy like empathy, objectivity and self awareness. Empowerment is also a process to implement a successful change. Empowerment will help in providing autonomy to the employees and they can understand the change process easily. While implementing a change process technology should be one of the competitive strength. New innovation and technological management provides a competitive edge over others. Organization like David Jones needs to manage the technological challenges recognizing its importance, getting the line management concerned, taking corrective action, anchoring strategic planning, budgeting, and creating relationships with vendors. For implementing successful technological change it should be organized, realistic, and helpful in achieving the goals of the organization (Wharton University of Pennsylvania     2012). Change is also vital for the growth & survival in this competitive business environment .Many Researchers have offered valuable insights to enrich the managerial qualities to have a successful implementation of the change management process (Harvard Business School   2012). Organization wants to seize the emerging opportunities as soon as possible to have the stability in the market. The change management strategy will differ from one organization to the other because the difference lies in the resources, staff, technology, structure, management, style, system and etc. If the change process is not being accepted by the employees and by the management then it becomes very problematic situation for the organization to have its stability (Enlightened Leadership Solutions   2012). Employees also need to have a positive behavior and an attitude of acceptance towards the change management process. Changes according to time help the organization to develop its employees and itself. It has been often seen that during the change management process the conflict arises. Expertise managers must be there to deal with such situations. In such case practical live examples of the organizations should be given to the employees and explain about the benefits of the change management process. It is about managing the impact of some core activities that hampers the organizational performance. Effective change helps to focus on technology, employee’s involvement, and work process. Change must be from top to down to provide the clarity about the vision, and also anticipate tomorrow’s environment. Every change implemented should form a cyclic process for implementing and developing the strategies. The management must be able to identify the gap from the change management process. It is a process of continuously renewing directions, capabilities and the structure. New rules and regulations must be there as the change process is being implemented. Whenever any change is announced in the organization it will affect the individual differently (Waddell Dianne     2011). During the change management process the strategy formed must focus on vision, capability building, Program Management, and deploy the change from top to bottom. We also need to design the change model to coordinate with Information Technology, Process, and etc.

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